In an effort to spare her young daughter from being ostracised by other children for not having a father, a Japanese single mother made the controversial decision to hire an actor who has been posing as the girl’s father for the last 10 years.
Megumi was only a baby when her parents separated and her father disappeared from her life. The mother, Asako, remembers that the girl started asking where her father was very early, but that her father’s absence didn’t seem like a big deal until she was about 10-years-old.
That’s when Asako noticed a change in her daughter’s behavior; she stopped talking to her, became withdrawn, and eventually stopped going to school.
Her mother soon learned that she wasn’t just blaming herself for her father’s absence, but she had also become a victim of bullying at school, as often happens with children of single parents in Japan.
Asako was heartbroken, and after appealing to Megumi’s teachers for help, decided to give her daughter the thing she wanted most, even if it meant lying to her.
Asako had heard about people rental agencies that could send actors to play fake relatives, wedding guests and even romantic partners, for a fee, so she started flirting with the idea of renting someone to pose as Megumi’s estranged father.
She auditioned five candidates and settled on Mr Takashi, who she found to be easy to talk to and kind. He ran his own rental agency with a staff of around 20 and about 1,000 freelancers able to take on whatever role and personality the client’s needs required.
An actor by training, Takashi had already played boyfriends, businessmen, friends and fathers, and even a groom at several fake weddings, so posing as a girl’s father didn’t seem that complicated at the time.
He met with Asako several times to understand what was required of him and also studied several Hollywood films to prepare for his role.
“My requests were very simple,” Asako told the BBC. “Firstly, I wanted him to say how sorry he was that he couldn’t be in Megumi’s life until then. Secondly, I wanted him to listen to whatever she wanted to tell him.”
Asako then told her daughter that her father had remarried and now had another family, but that he had recently contacted her because he wanted to meet Megumi.
At first, the girl was shocked, but eventually she agreed to meet him. And that’s how, 10 years ago, Mr Takashi became Yamada, his longest-running and most controversial role.
“It was a very complex emotion that was there,” Takashi recalls about his first meeting with Megumi. “She asked me why I hadn’t come to see her before, and I felt her resentment.”
The actor started seeing Asako and her daughter two times a month. He joined them on outings, trips to the cinema and birthday parties, and the mother recalls that it didn’t take long for Megumi’s behavior to improve considerably.
She was happier, more outgoing and talkative, and she even decided to go back to school. That’s when Asako knew that her deception had been worth it.
“Gradually she became happier and more confident,” Takashi confirms. “I used to meet her with Asako, the three of us together, but one day she said, ‘I want to go out with my father, just the two of us,’ so I took her out and she held my hand for the first time.”
Hiring Takashi every month requires Asako to manage her finances carefully. Every time she requires his services, she has to pay around 10,000 Yen (Sh9,000), so she has to cut costs elsewhere in order to afford it.
But remembering how unhappy her daughter was before her “father” came back into her life, she believes it’s money well spent.
But money has never been the real problem with this bizarre arrangement. It’s the emotional attachment and ethical implication of faking a relationship for over a decade that makes this story controversial.