Japanese YouTuber Hikaru has revealed he is spending more than 20 million yen (roughly $130,000) a year to raise his girlfriend Kagura Kato’s 1-year-old son, Haku, including tuition at what he called an “elite” nursery school.
In a video posted on October 19, Hikaru documented walking Haku to nursery for the first time, the pair holding hands on a five-to-ten-minute walk from home. Hikaru said he hoped Haku would attend four or five days a week. Afterward, over coffee with Kato, Hikaru explained that the nursery Haku started attending this October is unusually prestigious, with annual tuition of 15 to 18 million yen and a track record of feeding students into elite elementary schools such as Keio Yochisha, the prep school linked to Keio University.
Once babysitting costs are factored in, Hikaru said the total comes to “over 20 million yen a year.” He acknowledged the figure would draw criticism, but said sharing it was a way to show fans “that this kind of world exists,” framing it as part of his role as a public figure.
Who is Hikaru?
Hikaru, 35, is one of Japan’s best-known YouTubers, having built his channel on elaborate pranks, high-stakes challenges, and big-spending experiments, a format that has made him a mainstay of the country’s YouTube scene for over a decade. Kato, 21, announced in July 2025 that she had married and given birth to Haku that March; she later divorced, and her relationship with Hikaru was made public in April 2026.
Hikaru has not said whether he plans to formally adopt or continue supporting Haku’s education long-term, but the couple’s public outings with the child suggest the arrangement is an ongoing part of their relationship.
Author’s Comment
Eighteen million yen for a nursery school. For a one-year-old. I need you to sit with that number for a second before I continue. Look, I get what Hikaru’s doing — the man built an entire career on "watch me spend money in the most Hikaru way possible," so of course raising his girlfriend’s kid becomes content, and of course he frames the backlash as a public service. That’s very on-brand, and also very Japanese internet, where flaunting it always comes with a little disclaimer about how you know people are going to be mad. What actually gets me is the quiet part: a toddler’s path into Keio’s feeder track is apparently already being plotted out before he can talk. That’s not a Hikaru story, that’s a very old Japanese story about money buying you out of the exam-hell everyone else has to survive. He’s just the one dumb enough, or honest enough, to put a price tag on it.
