Haruna Yukawa is far from your average hostage. Over the past 10 years, Yukawa, 42, has lost his business, gone bankrupt and mourned the loss of his wife to lung cancer.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In that time he was also homeless, once attempted to cut off his genitals and altered his name so it sounded more feminine, reports Reuters.
He is not a journalist nor an aid worker, but rather an enigma in a war-torn country, being held captive by Islamic State militants who are demanding $200 million for his release and that of freelance journalist Kenji Goto.
The Islamic State group issued a video online showing the two men kneeling and demanding the enormous bounty from the Japanese government within 72 hours to save the men's lives.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday condemned the act as "unacceptable" and said the international community should not give in to terrorism.
"The international community needs to respond firmly and co-operate without caving into terrorism," Mr Abe said.
Since August, IS has murdered three Americans and two Britons.
Journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, American aid worker Peter Kassig and British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines were all beheaded,
Islamic State posted grisly video footage of their executions.
Yukawa's background is in stark contrast to those of the previous hostages taken by the group.
According to a Japanese news website, Yukawa opened a military goods shop in Chiba, near Tokyo, after leaving high school. He married in 2000, five years later his business shut down.
About 2008 he tried to kill himself by cutting off his genitals before his wife rushed him to hospital to save his life.
He likened the act to the ritual suicide of a samurai and said in a blog post: "I thought if I failed I would live as a woman and leave the rest to destiny."
His wife died of lung cancer two years later and an online journal that Yukawa maintained said he lived in a public park for a month at one point.
He dabbled in extreme right-wing Japanese politics and eventually borrowed enough money to travel to Syria where he claimed to be a security consultant to large Japanese companies in dangerous parts of the world.
But according to his Facebook page and blog posts, he never did any work as a consultant. The firm he created existed only on the internet.
It was in August that Yukawa's strange antics came to the surface when footage emerged of his apparent interrogation in Syria by Islamic State militants. It was supposed to be his last solo trip to Syria.
Lying on the ground, wearing a black T-shirt as blood trickled down his face, Yukawa tried to explain to his captors who he was and why he was in such a high-risk area.
He said he was a "photographer" and a "half doctor" but most definitely not a soldier. His captors thought he was lying and placed a long knife to his chest. He has remained in captivity since.
Finding a sense of self has also been a priority for Yukawa, even if it has been done in an unconventional manner.
He decided to change his name from Masayuki to the feminine-sounding Haruna, because he believed the change of characters would herald a shorter life.
Yukawa also believed he was a reincarnation of a cross-dressing Manchu princess who spied on Japan in World War II, and talked about working with the Free Syrian Army, wanting to make his "mark on history".
With AFP, Reuters
