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Japanese woman arrested for stealing boyfriend’s Kingdom Hearts video game figure

Casey Baseel Aug 8, 2023
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Investigation appears to have been simple, arrest clean.

Last Saturday morning, the Hyogo Prefectural Police received a call from a 31-year-old man living in the city of Himeji. “My figure is gone,” the man told the operator after calling 110, Japan’s number for emergency police responses.

Though otaku-oriented figures can have impressive levels of detail, they aren’t capable of wandering off on their own. The man didn’t just share his home with a figure, but also with his 41-year-old live-in girlfriend, a former coworker, and after looking into the matter the police determined that she was the culprit and arrested her on charges of theft.

Upon hearing this, you might be imagining a scenario along these lines: A boyfriend who’s a hardcore otaku keeps a figure of his 2-D anime girl crush on his shelf. His girlfriend eventually grows tired of his obsession with the character, and in a desperate bid to get him to pay more attention to their real-life romantic relationship, tosses the figure in the trash while he’s out.

However, in the case of the man who called the police, the figure that his girlfriend stole wasn’t of a ridiculously busty young maiden posing provocatively in a skimpy outfit. While police statements about such thefts sometimes go into no greater details than “items from a popular anime series,” the Hyogo Prefectural Police’s Shikama Precinct has made it clear that the figure was of Sora, the main character from Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts video game franchise.

▼ Trailer for Kingdom Hearts III

The theft wasn’t prompted by feelings of resentment or jealousy, either. The woman, who is currently unemployed, told the police that she sold the figure to use the money for “living expenses” (the specific Japanese term the woman used was seikatsuhi, which translates as “lifestyle expenses” and, depending on the individual, may also be meant to encompass entertainment expenses).

Twitter reactions to the crime have included:

“If it was me, I’d end the relationship immediately.”
“As a Kingdom Hearts fan, this makes me sad.”
“So the figure wasn’t of a pretty girl…”
“I didn’t even know they made Kingdom Hearts figures.”
“Can you even get that much money for a Kingdom Hearts figure? Still wrong to betray someone’s trust and steal their things like that, though.”

In regard to the last comment, Kingdom Hearts is like a lot of other broadly popular franchises in Japan in that its merchandise covers a wide range of price points, from cheap little trinkets to high-end, limited-edition collector’s items. It appears that the woman didn’t do much research prior to pilfering the Sora figure, though, as the police say that its current market value is only about 4,000 yen (US$29).

Source: Kobe Shimbun Next via Jin, Twitter
Top image: YouTube/スクウェア・エニックス
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