<figure id="attachment_396173" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1170px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396173"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="da841c00"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/10/fc841cf3b5b5933e20e1a62c36d82088.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-396173" class="wp-caption-text">The stuffed animal in detention is significant. (From defendant Watanabe&#8217;s YouTube channel &#8220;Ririchan is Homeless&#8221;)</figcaption></figure>
Watanabe Mai, also known as &#8220;Tachigaki Joshi Ririchan&#8221; (26), was arrested and indicted on fraud charges for swindling approximately 155 million yen from three men she met through social media and dating sites. She was sentenced to 8 years and 6 months in prison and fined 8 million yen in the second trial.
A manual she created, titled &#8220;Tachigaki Joshi Ririchan&#8217;s [Manual to Help Everyone Make Money] for Earning 10 Million Yen a Month,&#8221; has leaked online. The information product spans about 100,000 words and was sold for 28,000 yen.
<h2>Make him say “I want to help” and receive it.</h2>
Watanabe, the defendant, grew up with domestic violence from her parents and began filling the void of unfulfilled love by obsessing over hosts from around the age of 20.
&#8220;At the age of 20, I married for the host I loved. To an unknown Vietnamese man,&#8221; she posted on X.
She hinted that she had entered a fake marriage with a Vietnamese man to allow him to stay in Japan, receiving compensation in return. She was so crazy for hosts that she would marry a complete stranger just to provide for him.
The fraud scheme known as &#8220;Tachigaki Joshi&#8221; also came about as a way to earn money to spend on hosts. According to Watanabe, this was a new type of &#8220;relationship with men&#8221; she had developed, and she explained the difference between it and &#8220;papa-katsu&#8221; (sugar dating) in her manual as follows:
Tachigaki Joshi and the ojisan (older men) are in an equal relationship. However, from the ojisan’s perspective, the girl is a shining, important presence. To simply explain Tachigaki Joshi:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Commit to the &#8216;ojisan&#8217; in a trusting relationship.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Make the &#8216;ojisan&#8217; fall in love with you genuinely.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">When you’re in trouble, make the &#8216;ojisan&#8217; say &#8216;I want to help&#8217; and earn money from</li>
</ol>
<figure id="attachment_396179" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1080px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396179"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b27739fd"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/10/3a46331c2927ac8ed93c12c3c2352eb8.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-396179" class="wp-caption-text">Part of the leaked manual</figcaption></figure>
The &#8220;Tachigaki Joshi&#8221; method involves making the target man become deeply infatuated and then manipulate him into offering financial support. The key to this is &#8220;Riri Commit&#8221; (building trust).
&#8220;If you build a solid trust relationship, the &#8216;ojisan&#8217; will think, &#8216;She’s always talking to me and making me feel better, so if she’s in trouble, I should give her money.'&#8221;
To avoid being seen as someone who is just after money, the &#8220;Tachigaki Joshi&#8221; must present themselves as a pure, innocent girl who is inexperienced with men, both in appearance and personality. It is also important to create the impression that she is struggling in life, as emphasized in the manual.
The target &#8220;ojisan&#8221; (older man) is categorized into three types. The following is based on the manual as summarized by Friday:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">&#8220;Giver Ojisan&#8221; (Good Ojisan): A single man with few dreams or hopes, little romantic experience, and a tendency to focus on giving to others rather than himself. If trust is established well, it&#8217;s easy to receive large sums of money from him (three digits worth).</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">&#8220;Matcher Ojisan&#8221; (Intermediate): He can be easily persuaded to provide between 50,000 and 250,000 yen.</li>
</ol>
&#8220;Taker Ojisan&#8221; (Bad Ojisan): A self-centered man who talks down to others, brags excessively, and does not listen. He is difficult to manipulate.
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="Psychologist's Analysis"></div>
<figure id="attachment_395913" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 369px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-395913"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="86866f70"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/10/976302321d9f5df19609a086feed00a5.jpeg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-395913" class="wp-caption-text">Tomita analyzes that this method is effective because the person behind it understands the essence of love.</figcaption></figure>
It may sound harsh, but according to psychologist Takashi Tomita, targeting &#8220;Giver-Ojis&#8221; as the main audience is quite reasonable.
&#8220;Humans, as social animals, have a desire to ‘love someone.’ This desire isn’t limited to romantic partners; it can extend to family, pets, colleagues, or friends—anyone close to them. For lonely men who happen to lack someone to love, ‘Riri-chan’ is the perfect prey.
The kind-hearted men she calls givers are the type to fall for pure love. When they see a fragile and unlucky young woman struggling, they can’t help but extend a helping hand without expecting anything in return.
Riri-chan’s categorization of &#8216;Ojis&#8217; is the same as the types of people proposed by the up-and-coming organizational psychologist Adam Grant. He published Give and Take, which is available in translation, so she might have read it. Since the number of givers is relatively small, meeting them through nightlife or becoming close via social media communications is already half the battle won.&#8221;
To such &#8220;Giver-Ojis,&#8221; defendant Watanabe has mercilessly sent LINE messages like the following:
&#8220;Listen, listen, I just woke up, and I dreamed of you, Oji! We were walking a dog together—it made me happy.❣️&#8221;
&#8220;Oji, I miss you, I miss you～&#8221;
&#8220;Oji, aren’t you tired? If anything’s wrong, just let me know—I’ll do anything for you.&#8221;
&#8220;I want to go to Disney. I want to wear matching clothes. Couple look❣️❣️&#8221;
<figure id="attachment_396184" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1080px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396184"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="2ea6128f"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/10/d9385b9536e7aaeaa13eb84005cd9f31.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-396184" class="wp-caption-text">This is also part of the manual. I understand the nature of love very well.</figcaption></figure>
She inflates the &#8220;Oji&#8217;s&#8221; fantasies as much as possible, but never uses the word relationship. Tomita continues his explanation.
&#8220;‘Riri-chan’ needs to establish a fake romantic relationship with these good-natured people. However, the specific process is almost the same as forming a real relationship. The key is sincere communication. This includes responding quickly to messages to create a sense of being a special person, listening attentively to show an understanding response, and even taking notes on the other person’s information to avoid forgetting any details.&#8221;
Once she successfully commits to building a trust relationship with the &#8220;Oji,&#8221; she finally moves in to collect. The manual advises as follows:
&#8220;When conveying financial troubles to the Oji, instead of starting with ‘Actually, there’s something going on,’ act as if you’d prefer not to talk about it, like you’re trying to handle it on your own. But since the Oji is asking, you’ll tell him reluctantly.”
“If you directly ask for help and receive it, it could lead to trouble or expectations for reciprocation later on.”
By showing signs of worry and responding with &#8220;I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t want you to think badly of me,&#8221; she initially avoids sharing her troubles. Even when the &#8220;Oji&#8221; offers financial assistance, she refuses at first, saying she&#8217;ll manage on her own. This makes the &#8220;Giver Oji&#8221; worry even more, and he eventually feels compelled to support this precious, radiant person of his own free will.
“Following the pre-established tragic heroine storyline that she has made him believe in, she acts as if she&#8217;s being overwhelmed by a large debt, but only explains the circumstances once he asks. She continues to portray herself as the pitiful girl who’s at a loss for what to do, subtly sending SOS signals. And when he offers financial help, she doesn’t accept easily. She responds with lines like ‘I didn’t want to burden you’ or ‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ maintaining her role as the dutiful girl.
Long before romance comes into play, humans have an instinct not to abandon people in distress. When that person in trouble is a loved one or a special person, the instinct is even stronger. There’s a saying that true love is unconditional, and inherently, love is something offered without expecting anything in return.
‘Riri-chan’ skillfully leads her target to act on his own. When he does, she reinforces this behavior in a psychological way, showing gratitude in a grand gesture to encourage repeat actions. The ‘Giver Oji’ shows his love for ‘Riri-chan’ and practices goodwill. Acts of love provide a pleasant sense of satisfaction, which can escalate over time, dragging him further into the quagmire,” Tomita explains.
Why was defendant Watanabe able to use these psychological techniques of reinforcement and acts of love? Tomita speculates it’s because she herself was deeply invested in hosts.
“Riri-chan made it her purpose to lavish money on hosts. To earn money to spend on them, she desperately repeated fraudulent acts. While she pretended to love and swindled money from others, she was actually pouring her own impulse of love entirely into hosts. In this way, an Exchange of love took place. If this is the case, then in a sense, the host club system itself could be considered a form of fraud, because love is something that inherently cannot be provided through business or market mechanisms. Swindlers are selling what cannot be sold.”
In the final words of her manual, defendant Watanabe concludes:
“Money isn’t necessary for anyone.”
<figure id="attachment_396188" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1080px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-396188"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="070b7488"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/10/eee88002dbb1bb6b62eeb0838dc34e7a.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-396188" class="wp-caption-text">Was she also a victim of fraud?</figcaption></figure>

 Yuria Fukatsuki

 Mai Watanabe, aka Riri Watanabe, was sentenced to 8 years and 6 months in prison at the second trial. A psychologist who analyzed the fraudulent manual she sold for 28,000 yen found one sad truth.

Psychologist Analyzes Gold-Digging Woman Riri-chan’s Manual After Swindling 155 Million Yen from Three Men

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