“I Only Have 110,000 Yen Left”—Inside the Collapse and Comeback of a Polygamous Man
YouTube Revenue Plummets
Ryuta Watanabe (38), an influencer who called himself a polygamous slacker and shared his life with three wives and four children, had gained attention by openly displaying his extreme lifestyle. His YouTube channel had over 50,000 subscribers, and he continued to candidly document his polygamous life.
However, at the end of last year, he posted a video titled “The Collapse of Polygamy: The Whole Story.” What was revealed there was a de facto breakup far from harmonious. Behind the unusual life of an eight-member household, his first wife Hina, third wife Chiharu, and the four children left the house.
About a month has passed since then—has the polygamous life truly ended, or has it simply changed form? Ironically, the Watanabe family is seeing the highest engagement ever on YouTube. I spoke with Watanabe, who happened to be visiting Tokyo, about the current situation.
One day in January—Watanabe had previously come to my house to cook omelets, but this time he and Ayaka prepared their specialty, plum-shiso fried chicken.
His stay in Tokyo lasted seven days. He traveled by ferry, bringing two pet dogs in his private car. He didn’t book a hotel.
“Right now, we really don’t have any money (laughs). If we use a pet hotel besides our own hotel, the expenses would My total assets are 110,000 yen,” Watanabe said.
He had said that his 2025 earnings on YouTube totaled 23 million yen, but with debts of 10 million yen, the reality was gradually impoverishing. Ayaka spoke about this car-camping trip:
“I’ve gotten pretty used to it. If there’s a restroom nearby in a roadside station or service area, it’s surprisingly not inconvenient. But yesterday’s parking lot was 350 meters from the toilet, so I worried, ‘What if my stomach suddenly hurts?!’”
While talking, Watanabe cooked the fried chicken with practiced hands—it was astonishingly delicious! The Strong Zero he brought along was going down quickly, but I stopped him to ask about the recent upheaval (below, Watanabe’s words in quotes).
“I think it was December 22. We held an early Christmas party and filmed it, and that night we had a board meeting. That’s when the breakup was decided.”
In the Watanabe family, which runs the “Polygamy Channel,” Watanabe is president and the wives are board members. Discussions related to work are called board meetings.
“Our earnings in 2025 were 23 million yen, but I personally expected 50 million. So I proposed living separately. I would leave the house, get more wives, and run the ‘Slacker Channel,’ while the wives, the three of them, could run the ‘Single Mother Channel.’”
The “Polygamy Channel” seemed to be going well, but in reality, revenue was declining.
“We were really at the level of falling behind on rent. Viewers probably wouldn’t believe it, and I hesitated to talk about it since I’m supposed to be a slacker but the wives didn’t work at all. Since they didn’t work, I thought I should go out and find new wives and make videos about it, while the wives could make their own videos and increase revenue. Don’t you think it’s a rational way to protect the family?”
The slacker is strictly a role
However, Watanabe’s proposal was not agreed to by the wives, and the board meeting turned into a hellish session.
“The wives understood that I was polygamous, but they were opposed to me leaving the house to get a new wife ‘Then our existence has no value, right?’ I’m a useful slacker (laughs). I earn money, raise the kids, do housework. So it was obvious that if I disappeared, the household wouldn’t function.”
Ultimately, it was Watanabe who declared the dissolution.
“The wives would drop the kids off at daycare at 8 a.m., then stay cooped up in the room all day, doing nothing. Even though the daycare director was rooting for us, saying, ‘We’re fans of yours,’ seeing them just locked up doing nothing wasn’t a good feeling.
I asked them every morning to come to the living room by 10 a.m. so we could start filming anytime—but no one followed through I reached my limit.”
As a result, Hiyori left four days later, and Chiharu left seven days later. Watanabe did not try to stop them, and neither mentioned child support or acknowledgment.
“This time, I really thought, ‘I can’t stop them.’ I don’t know we’ve been together as a family for a long time, and I like them, so I understand. Nothing has been decided about the kids, and nothing has been said, but I plan to continue distributing YouTube earnings as child support.”
Currently, only Ayaka remains. Why did she choose to stay?
“There are things left unfinished with him. It’s not that I hate him, we’re in the middle of trying for a baby, and I don’t intend to live apart, so even after all this, I thought, ‘I want to stay with him.’
I didn’t want the dissolution, but the current [monogamous] setup feels very natural. Since I experienced polygamy first, it’s like the order is reversed? But I’ve also longed for this form, so it feels refreshing. I’m glad I got to experience it, I think.” (Ayaka)
During the conversation, Watanabe teased, “I’m cheating!” Shockingly, he laughed and admitted, “I had sex right after the hellish meeting.” Ayaka continued to smile: “He’s always been like this (laughs). I’ve given up on him changing.”
Finally, Watanabe said:
“I still like Chiharu and Hiyori. I sometimes wonder if they’ll just casually come back home. At first, we didn’t film the hellish meeting. Chiharu suggested, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to record this?’ and Hiyori agreed too. Ironically, that became our most popular content ever
I can’t spend time with them anymore, but they told me they support what I’m doing. Chiharu wrote in the last letter she gave me, ‘You made great content! Earn money!’. I take this incident as a farewell gift from them. My mission is to push through using this as content. That’s my only choice.”
With the two wives who lived with him gone, the Watanabe household is now monogamous. How will they push forward from here?
Photography and text by： Sari Yoshizawa