When she passed away, he ate her dead body so she could be a part of him forever.

Love really is a crazy thing. For some people, cupid’s arrow comes along when you meet a person you’re attracted to, but for others that special someone doesn’t always have to be a human being.

By now, you may have heard stories about men tying the knot with virtual wives at lavish wedding ceremonies, but today we’d like to introduce you to an even more bizarre kind of romantic coupling. This is a man who dated a cockroach for a year, and he was so smitten he longed to have sex with her.

Meet Yuta Shinohara, who talks about his love for Lisa the cockroach at around the 11:11 mark.

While Shinohara’s love for a cockroach might seem hard to comprehend at first, the video shows he has a passion for all insects. As an entomophagist who eats and makes dishes using insects, he regularly creates his own insect dishes from scratch and sells them to diners.

▼ Deep fried cricket is one of his specialties.

Although he harboured a fascination with insects from a very young age, Shinohara didn’t really share his love of bugs with anyone until he turned 19. This was when the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation released a report discussing the benefits of eating insects as a good source of protein in an increasingly populated world. With a reputable agency throwing their support behind edible insects, Shinohara was able to “come out” and share his passion for entomophagy about five years ago.

▼ So no more eating insects behind mum’s back.

Now, Shinohara is making a name for himself as the creator of a delicious cricket ramen, which he’s made for 7,000 diners so far, using 100 crickets in every bowl. When he’s not in the kitchen though, Shinohara is happiest out in nature, and whenever he sleeps on his favourite tree, he describes it as “heaven”.

This is where he’s able to open up about his past love, a cockroach called Lisa, whom he purchased from Africa and dated for a year. He became so attached to her that he started to feel as if they were communicating, but it was destined to be a short romance due to her short life span.

When she passed, Shinohara says he reverently ate her so that she now lives on in his body. He speaks fondly of her as his first love, and openly admits that when she was alive, he imagined what it would be like to have sex with her, in a fantasy world where either she was supersized or he was miniaturised.

It’s an unconventional love story, but it’s one that appears to have moulded Shinohara into the person he is today. Now, he says he hopes to share his love of entomophagy with more people around the country, which might not be a difficult goal to achieve, given that insect restaurants and vending machines are on the rise in Japan.

Source, images: YouTube/Asian Boss