Death Blog Lady — Blog post screenshot showing a Wii Mario Kart steering wheel

Death Blog Lady

2008internet legendclassic

Published October 9, 2026

Death Blog Lady is the nickname for Japanese model and TV personality Aki Higashihara, whose Ameba blog gained a reputation for jinxing anyone or anything she wrote about. The legend crystallized during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when Japanese athletes she cheered for started underperforming, and spawned one of the most famous online superstitions in Japanese internet lore.

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Overview

Death Blog Lady centers on the belief that whatever Aki Higashihara writes about on her Ameba blog gets hit by misfortune, from athlete injuries to failed products to natural disasters1. Japanese netizens nicknamed her blog the 'Death Blog' (デスブログ), a riff on the manga and anime Death Note, where writing someone's name in a notebook kills them3.

The format is less a visual meme and more a running copypasta tradition. 2channel users compiled lists of 'hits' in a collection called 'The Legend of Aki Higashihara' (東原亜希伝説), stitching her blog mentions to later news stories about crashes, bankruptcies, and losses4. The humor hinges on pattern-matching after the fact, which keeps the legend self-renewing every time she posts about a brand or team5.

Origin & Background

Platform
Ameba Blog (source) / 2channel (viral spread)
Date
2008

Aki Higashihara was scouted by Tokyo talent agency Platinum Production in 2000 and broke through as the face of Asahi beer's 2002 advertising push1. From April to December 2007 she co-hosted a Fuji TV horse racing program, and her picks began losing so consistently that co-hosts dubbed her the 'Favorite Killer' and started calling her winner forecasts 'Death Notes'3. In one on-air exchange, a jockey begged her not to write his horse's name down, and two months later he fell during a race and suffered concussions and lacerations3.

The 'Death Blog' label itself emerged in August 2008 after Higashihara's Ameba posts from the Beijing Olympics were linked to a run of underwhelming results from Japanese athletes she had cheered on in person1. 2channel's /occult/ board kicked off a thread on August 11, 2008 titled '[不幸を呼ぶ] 東原亜希の呪い [最強さげまん]' (translated from Japanese: 'Aki Higashihara's Curse: Strongest Sageman'), which generated thousands of posts that month4.

How It Spread

The curse narrative picked up speed in 2008 after Higashihara married Olympic judoka Kousei Inoue, who had captained Japan's 2004 Athens team3. Inoue was dropped from the 2008 Beijing roster in April and retired the following month, which Japanese tabloids and bloggers blamed on his new wife, saddling her with the slur 'Sageman' (さげまん), a term for a woman thought to drain luck from the people around her3.

During the Beijing Games that August, Japanese internet users began cross-referencing Higashihara's Ameba posts1 against the results of athletes she had met or cheered for, and the pattern of underperformance went viral on the Japanese blogosphere3. On August 11, 2008 a dedicated 2channel /occult/ thread opened up and racked up thousands of replies4, while sites like Livedoor and Nico Nico Pedia started maintaining running lists of alleged victims5. Higashihara addressed the rumors directly in an August 16, 2008 blog post from Beijing, saying the harassment did not bother her2.

The copypasta tradition kept going for years, with each new blog entry about food, weather, or appliances treated as a potential omen, and the 'Death Blog' nickname sticking as a recurring joke in Japanese internet culture3.

Timeline

2002

Aki Higashihara debuts as the face of Asahi beer's advertising campaign.

2007-06

Co-hosts of her Fuji TV horse racing show nickname her the 'Favorite Killer' and label her picks 'Death Notes'.

2008-04

Her new husband Kousei Inoue is cut from Japan's 2008 Olympic judo team; he retires the next month.

2008-08-11

A 2channel /occult/ board thread about Higashihara's curse opens and racks up thousands of posts.

2008-08-16

Higashihara publishes an Ameba blog post from Beijing responding to the curse rumors.

2008-08

The nickname 'Death Blog' (デスブログ) catches on across the Japanese blogosphere during the Beijing Olympics.

How to Use This Meme

The classic Death Blog Lady format is a copypasta pairing a quote or screenshot from one of Higashihara's blog entries with a later news headline about a disaster, death, or product recall involving the same subject5. Posters typically add a one-line punchline like 'she wrote about it again' and leave the reader to connect the dots3.

Frequently Asked Questions