crime

Woman held for killing mother over 'nutritional breakfast' argument

58 Comments

Police said Monday they have arrested a 37-year-old woman for allegedly killing her 65-year-old mother following an argument over nutritional breakfasts.

According to police, the suspect, identified as Reimi Oki, fatally stabbed her mother Tami at their home in Machida at about 1 p.m. on Sunday, TV Asahi reported. She then called 110 to report what she had done.

Police found Tami lying on the floor, bleeding from the neck, She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead a short time later.

Reimi was quoted by police as saying that her mother had been complaining about the breakfasts she made, saying they lacked nutritional balance. Police quoted Reimi as saying she got tired of arguing with her mother about it and finally killed her, TV Asahi reported.

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58 Comments
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is this a new trend on JT? reporting these children killing parents after an argument incident??

me thinks we are missing a huge amount of backstory here

3 ( +8 / -6 )

more mental healthcare please.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

They are like sleeper cells with hair triggers

4 ( +4 / -0 )

wow - these stories do seem to be more prevalent these days. why is it so difficult for some to take a step back, take a deep breath and let this type of argument go? another sad story.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Wow! Another one!?!?!? It seems every day I read an article of a child killing a parent or a parent killing a child. It seems Japan is the 'safety country' unless you live with your parents. Sheees!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

me thinks we are missing a huge amount of backstory here

Napoleancomplex, the whole of Japan is missing huge amounts of backstory in all the cases. If they don't care, why should we?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Why kill her...just tell her to make her own meal.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

adults shouldnt live with their parents. it will lead to incidents like these.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Was the 65-year-old disabled, that she couldn't make her own breakfast? Not saying that's any excuse or reason for what happened. Just wondering.

At least the 37-year old only had a knife to hand. If she'd had access to a gun she might have gone out and shot up the whole neighbourhood.

-10 ( +9 / -18 )

She then called 110 to report what she had done.

Would have been nice if the order was reversed for a change.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

You don't get it? I wish she called someone first rather than kill her own mother. You feel differently?

1 ( +4 / -2 )

If it wasn't the knife that killed the mother, it would have been the non-nutritional breakfast that would have killed the mother. Either way, the duaghter should get double punishment for this.

-4 ( +1 / -4 )

Mentals, I seriously hope she gets a long prison term.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

ahh get it!!! breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But Why kill her. very sad.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

And the hits just keep on coming...

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I hope the prosecutors can indict her for what she did to her mother.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

napoleancomplex: "me thinks we are missing a huge amount of backstory here"

You're right in pointing out that these stories are becoming more and more frequent, but you're wrong in pointing the finger at JT for it. Last week there were half a dozen of these stories and before last week there were heaps. Nothing has changed. As for this PARTICULAR story and the lack of background, the woman said she was, "sick of the complaining", which seems pretty indicative that at least SHE felt it had been going on too long. We know nothing of the living conditions, to be sure, but it doesn't change the deed in the least.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Another day, another family killing.... Japan needs to address this issue.

Cleo, sounds like she's a parasite single. Mom sounds like a cow though - make your own damn breakfast if you don't like what's being made for you. Then again, if the daughter isn't paying rent....

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Japanese tend to "gambaru" and swallow the pain by accumulating tremendous amount of tension, without their rigid culture and over-disciplined and over-regulated society giving them a chance to let some steam out sometimes. I do believe even if they tried, they just wouldn't know how.

Discussing it about it with many of my Japanese friend I noticed, and they confirmed, that the great average of Japanese people lack the verbal power, as well as the culture, to express their emotions openly, effectively and acceptably. Some of them told me that its the feature of the Japanese language that it is more adequate to explain end express intellectual contents than emotions.

Anyhow, once the bucket is full, any tiny affair is enough and they blow. Go for killing. We only read about the incidents that were the last drop in the bucket.

Otherwise I must mention, that although the Japanese basically tend to consider death as a solution to problem solving, ( see extra high suicidal rate) this craze seems to grow bigger. It might not only be Japanese after all, as reading the comments here lately, I meet more and more grizzly ones, that suggests torture and death as a problem solving to crimes, most of them triggered by social tension, depression, lack of education, ignorance, and poverty.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Is Western society any better?? Abandoning parents in hospital/nursing home carparks over the holiday period?? Or letting them live on their own because they are too much of a pain or a hassle??

I Think ' the Munya Times' has articulated the problem very well, there are plenty of stories out there where people did take a step back, take that breath then handle the situation appropriately. Unfortunately these stories don't sell newspapers or make the front page.

-4 ( +5 / -9 )

wow..

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I find some Japanese so annoying when they talk about food. All they think is about balanced meals not about enjoying food. Maybe the breakfast was not balanced but was tasty and the daughter had got up early in the cold morning to prepare it for her mother and expected her appreciation. If this happened every day, she prepared meals and somebody only complained and nagged at her, I understand it is possible to snap. But to kill...too much. In this country people get so easily irritated and crazy...

1 ( +4 / -3 )

I still find it pretty amazing that most of the people who kill or try to kill / assault are the ones that call the cops and dob them selves in. This would never happen in most western countries.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Oh, come on...everyone knows Trix are for kids.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Killed her mum over an argument about a balanced DIEt..... as you do!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Guess the daughter will now be getting breakfast made for her......in prison. Or is that what she wanted?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

The mother should have kept her mouth shut or cooked her own meals.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

I'm sure there's so much more to this story. I also hope Japan doesn't become as crime-ridden and violent as some other western countries, but it seems as if it's on that slippery slope.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Did she need to kill her? Wasn't just hitting her head with a pan enough?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

sad news when you should fel safe at home and that happens! to have done that the girl must need some sycho help, shame other family members didn't observe that she was about to snap.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

you don't have to make breakfast anymore enjoy your prison food

0 ( +1 / -1 )

very ironic. the mother wanted to 'lengthen' her life by eating healthy food and what she got is the opposite of it

1 ( +3 / -1 )

I thought this must be April Fooling Day at first. What's going on here?

And why must they argue over breakfast at 1pm in the afternoon?

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

tmarie: "I'm laughing at the uproar of mom and the balanced diet. This from a nation who eats white rice and tells me ut is good for you!"

You know what's more amusing, people here will never believe you when you say that white rice is not good for the body. I had this debate just yesterday with a Japanese colleague and she assumed it to mean I was suggesting we should all eat bread instead. When I said that white bread, or any bread made from processed flour and including processed sugar was just as bad, she was at a total loss. Point is people will take the slightest things as a slight, and it sounds like Mom was a power-jockey who got knifed by a daughter who was tired of mom's insults and complaining.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Should have walked down to the conbeeny and gotten her one of those nutritionist bars, or a hot dog at 7-11.

-10 ( +0 / -10 )

<chewstroke.com> would have made her day a lot better...sad

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Sometimes I think these kinds of crimes happen because of the small houses/apartments in Japan plus the factor of all-too grown ul children living/taking care of their parents. I could be wrong. I hope this won't ever happen again. It's terrible.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

In this case I think the parents were taking care of the 37 year old daughter. She was unemployed. It seems likely she got up at 11.00 am or so and made her nutritionally suspect breakfast.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I think you may be right omicron. Certainly doesn't help anyway.

I don't think Japanese rice is necessarily bad for you. I just don't think it contains the magical powers that some people attribute to it. I think there are more factors at play in the longevity of Japanese than just the rice.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

just be thankful that Japanese cant own guns easily, or the suicide/murder rate would match the mental heath problems here, ASTRONOMICALLY HIGH

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Stan, that's being questioned actually. Japan hasn't done a stellar job keep track of the elderly locals - pension fraud anyone?- so the average life expectancy here is inflated.

Besides, look at what the 10-40 year category eats. Hardly healthy. Not near as bad as some nations but certainly not healthy.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I seem to be seeing more of these stories everyday. It's really sad that this is happening!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

37 and 65 y/o .. different taste and different likes in foods, the old woman why not cook for herself? 65 years old here still young and still doing a hard wok. ohhh well can't blame the daughter.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Maybe needed more balance but surely this is a little too much mineral additive?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

See how dangerous it can be, trying to be a loving parent? Better to be ruthless and they will spend their lives trying to win your love.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Cleo: "If she'd had access to a gun, she might have gone out and shot up the whole neighbourhood"

Heck, she could have sliced up a bunch more people with that knife, Cleo.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Just stating the obvious, but I think it's reasonable to assume that they also argued about things other than the nutritional value of the daily breakfast menu.

But, I am another one glad there aren't lots of gun owning households here.

Not many OJ Simpson types here are there? Instead of riding down the shuto expressway on their mama chari they dutifully call the police.

You must be pretty angry to stab someone with a knife though. I couldn't do it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

her mother had been complaining about the breakfasts she made, saying they lacked nutritional balance

I certainly do not condone any murder - but who gives a rats about "the right nutritional balance" for breakfast? Just eat a bloody bowl of cereal, already!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

BTW - Rest in Peace to the old lady.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Should`ve ate her wheaties..

1 ( +1 / -0 )

A couple of years ago there was a similar sad story where a guy killed his wife of long standing because she gave him too much meat (okazu) with his rice. I imagined him saying, "I told you to time and time again make healthier meals...." Anything can drive someone over the edge but in Japan there are fewer drugs, less theft, and far less violent behaviour so it is usually something seeming trivial that is the eventual catalyst.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

She is right. Trix are for kids.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"Police quoted Reimi as saying she got tired of arguing with her mother about it and finally killed her"

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This is really sick. "Police quoted Reimi as saying she got tired of arguing with her mother about it and finally killed her, TV Asahi reported." I do not mean the reporting. I mean what this says about the history of the mother and daughter relationship. How sad. How terribly sad.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Japanese breakfast consists of what they ate for last night. So maybe the food wasn't great. People here eat fish for breakfast !!!!!!! Cast Iron stomach is needed for a typical japanese breakfast

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Not knowing the mother or daughter, it's hard to comment. People mention mental health care but there's no indication how long the bickering went on for or who was at fault. Mental health problems are also very different to people being hard to live with or those taking advantage.

The fact that the daughter called the police makes me wonder if it was done in the heat of the moment. Not that I support it but things can escalate pretty quickly when people are angry. And as the method and perpetartor are obvious, it's does not come across as a cold calculating murder.

It's a shame in any case.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

just sad. Its like she didnt realize that hey, you CAN just WALK AWAY when someone is bothering you. If she had just left the house.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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