Polygamy Collapses! The Stay-at-Home Husband Now Has Seven New Beauties—and a Terrifying Ambition
Ryuta Watanabe (38), an influencer who has presented himself as a polygamous kept man and shared his large family life with three wives and four children.
His YouTube channel has more than 50,000 subscribers, and he has attracted attention by continuing to openly document his extreme lifestyle of practicing polygamy.
However, that life has already changed dramatically.
At the end of last year, he uploaded a video titled “The Complete Breakdown of My Polygamous Family.” Afterward, two of his wives and all four children left the home, and he is now living with the only wife who remains, Ayaka. On August 8, he officially registered their marriage. Watanabe, who had built a household of eight and promoted himself as a polygamist, ironically became legally monogamous.
His YouTube channel, where he had shared his large family’s everyday life, has also stopped updating for the time being. So what exactly has happened to Watanabe, who had attracted attention by making polygamy his selling point?
There is no more polygamy
When asked about his current situation, despite having only recently registered his marriage, he began speaking quietly with a gloomy expression.
“The sense of loss from my family getting smaller is huge, and I don’t feel motivated to do anything. I have absolutely no desire to do anything. And I’m not a polygamist anymore.”
He currently lives in Hokkaido with Ayaka, the only wife who remains, and has stopped updating his YouTube channel, which had been a major source of income. Looking down, he said, “I haven’t announced it publicly, but I’m taking August off.”
“I’ve always had something of a manic-depressive tendency. When I’m feeling energetic, I go all out and do all kinds of things, and when I’m feeling down, I stop completely. But before, I had children and a family, and I had to somehow provide for everyone, so I forced myself to keep going. Basically, they were my gasoline.”
He also revealed that there had been a crisis in his relationship with Ayaka.
“Maybe about a month ago? There was a time when I thought I might move out and live separately. When I get depressed, I want to shut everything and everyone out. It doesn’t matter who the other person is. But in the end, we’re still getting along and living together.”
When asked about his current situation, despite having only recently registered his marriage, he began speaking quietly with a gloomy expression.
“The sense of loss from my family getting smaller is huge, and I don’t feel motivated to do anything. I have absolutely no desire to do anything. And I’m not a polygamist anymore.”
He currently lives in Hokkaido with Ayaka, the only wife who remains, and has stopped updating his YouTube channel, which had been a major source of income. Looking down, he said, “I haven’t announced it publicly, but I’m taking August off.”
“I’ve always had something of a manic-depressive tendency. When I’m feeling energetic, I go all out and do all kinds of things, and when I’m feeling down, I stop completely. But before, I had children and a family, and I had to somehow provide for everyone, so I forced myself to keep going. Basically, they were my gasoline.”
He also revealed that there had been a crisis in his relationship with Ayaka.
“Maybe about a month ago? There was a time when I thought I might move out and live separately. When I get depressed, I want to shut everything and everyone out. It doesn’t matter who the other person is. But in the end, we’re still getting along and living together.”
Although Watanabe is strongly associated with an energetic, go-getter image, his mood was low, and he continued talking about one negative thing after another. Just as the writer was wondering whether the interview should be called off, Watanabe suddenly changed his tone and said, “The only thing that’s going well is my relationships with women.”
“I’m in this state right now, but I have seven new girlfriends. Including Ayaka, my primary wife, that makes eight women in total.”
Despite saying he could barely focus on work, how was he managing to have seven girlfriends? As the stunned writer looked on, the kept man began explaining at length.
“The first girlfriend is currently the one closest to being my primary wife. She’s a nursery school teacher, and we’ve been together for a year and a half. We’re also trying to have a baby, and if she gets pregnant, I think the plan will be for us to start living together. The second is a 32-year-old woman who works at an ice cream shop. I met her on Tinder a little while ago. We’ve only just started dating, so we’re not trying to have a baby yet.”
All seven women know that he is a polygamous YouTuber, and they are dating him fully aware that his wife, Ayaka, exists and that he has other girlfriends as well.
Two married woman give him ¥30,000 every time
“I met my third girlfriend through Tinder as well. She’s a 46-year-old married woman.”
A brazen declaration of an affair! And his relationship with this woman is far from ordinary.
“She’s a doctor, and her family are investors. She’s loaded with money and always shows up in some outrageous foreign luxury car. She doesn’t want to leave her husband or anything. Apparently, she just wanted a younger boyfriend. I never asked her for anything, but every time we meet, she gives me ¥30,000. It’s basically sugaring (laughs).”
He says he receives the allowance every time they meet, regardless of whether they have sex. She knows about the kept man’s relationships with other women and his work, but when he briefly posted a photo of the back of her head on his Instagram Story, she got furious, according to Watanabe.
“She’s married, so I guess it’s understandable that she’d get angry. But she was so furious that I was shocked and deleted it right away. There was no way she was going to get caught, though. The fourth girlfriend is the oldest, at 50. She is a girlfriend, technically, but she’s the closest to being a friend-with-benefits. She’s an incredibly glamorous older woman and extremely sexy.
She’s a single mother who runs several beauty-related companies, and her family is extremely wealthy. She doesn’t live in an apartment; she lives in a whole building. She naturally gives me ¥30,000 too, saying, ‘I should give you some spending money.’ She seems very experienced with this sort of thing, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d had younger boyfriends before.”
With the average take-home amount for women soliciting customers at Okubo Park reportedly said to be around ¥10,000–¥15,000, ¥30,000 every time—whether or not sex takes place—is quite a substantial amount. Is Watanabe the one asking for the ¥30,000?
“I don’t ask for anything. I wasn’t trying to do sugaring in the first place, so it feels like I just got lucky. It’s more than what those women at Okubo Park make? I guess ¥30,000 for a date with a mature woman I’m totally into is pretty lucky.”
I was already getting weary at the thought that there were still two more women, but when I asked about his fifth girlfriend, he said, “We’ve been together for two years now.”
“She’s a 29-year-old care worker, and we met through an X DM. She messaged me saying, ‘I want to have sex with you,’ and I thought she was just messing around, but she was serious (laughs). We’ve been together for quite a while, but it’s a long-distance relationship. She lives in Yokohama, so we can only see each other about once every two months.
We meet when I’m in Tokyo for work and things like that. We don’t see each other very often and don’t contact each other that much, but we are trying to have a baby. She’s originally from Hokkaido, so we’ve talked about living together if she gets pregnant.”
His sixth girlfriend is a 37-year-old single mother who is also trying to have a baby with him, but apparently there is another motive behind this relationship.
“Her family is wealthy too, and she doesn’t work. She’s been divorced three times, and her child is 20 years old. Actually, that’s kind of what I’m after—I’d like to have the mother-and-daughter package. She and her daughter are extremely close, and she told me, ‘If we get married, my daughter comes with me.’ So I’d definitely like to marry her and have a relationship with her daughter too.”
It’s certainly the kind of idea one might expect from Watanabe, but it is not something I can agree with. Nor could I.
When it came to his seventh and final girlfriend, even Watanabe himself had reached the point of saying, “Who was she again?” After a brief silence, he suddenly said, “I remember!” and continued with a laugh.
“She’s my newest girlfriend. She’s a 33-year-old medical office worker I recently met on Tinder. She says she wants children, so we’re trying to have a baby. We plan to live together once the baby is born.”
He had said that he was in a manic-depressive state, but given how active his relationships with women were, it was difficult to believe at first glance.
“Actually, Ayaka had two miscarriages, and the two of us were hit pretty hard by it. Then two wives and four children suddenly disappeared from my life, and there were also the deaths of pets and bereavements among relatives. It’s true that my mental state became bad enough that I considered being hospitalized.
Sometimes I feel like I wouldn’t mind dying at any time. But when men get depressed, they become sexually driven. You know how a lot of men get into prostitution or affairs after fighting with their wives? In fact, I feel more energized after having sex than after taking psychiatric medication. In my case, spending time with women leads to work, and I think it will eventually lead to the revival of my polygamous family. Someone should get pregnant this year, and I should be back to a lively family life.”
Will his polygamous family make a comeback!?
Photography & Text： Sari Yoshizawa