Fans of veteran slapstick comedian Ken Shimura were so shocked by his sudden death in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when next to nothing was known about the novel coronavirus that they went looking for someone to blame.

They found their scapegoat in the form of Mariko Fujisaki, the proprietress of “Club Fujisaki,” a nightspot in Osaka’s Kita-Shinchi district, even though she had never met the 70-year-old entertainer.

In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Fujisaki talked about how she refused to take the blame for the comedian’s death in March 2020 and fought back.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

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Fujisaki: I made the decision to close my nightclub in late March (2020) to safeguard my customers, employees and their family members from infection.

After that, posts appeared on social media saying that Club Fujisaki had shut because its staff members had been infected with the novel coronavirus.

Online posts quickly linked the closure to reports that Shimura and baseball player Shintaro Fujinami of the Hanshin Tigers had been infected with COVID-19 and started suggesting I was the source of infection.

Well, I have never even met Shimura or Fujinami.

Question: Am I right that their defamatory online posts spread in only a matter of days and quickly escalated?

A: My smartphone never stopped vibrating, even for an instant.

At one point, I received as many as 400 to 500 intimidating and baseless direct messages on my Instagram account each day.

“Drop dead!” said one. “Watch out when you walk alone or at night,” said another.

Some online articles cited baseless stuff as if it was true.

Frankly, it reached the point where I thought I would be better off dead than to have my colleagues and relatives embroiled in such a fuss.

Kozo Inoue, the former showbiz reporter who is an old acquaintance of mine, phoned me around that time because he was so worried.

“Your life will be over unless you issue a denial,” he said. He warned that things would escalate into something serious if I left matters unchecked.

That prompted me to work with a lawyer to issue a statement to set the record straight and post it on social media. The message was written partly by myself and partly by the lawyer.

Friends began to help me by spreading the message online.

I also got online articles rescinded that were based on false information.

But to my horror, people continued to send spiteful messages to me.

“You are just as duplicitous as one would expect from a nightlife worker such as yourself,” one person wrote. “The information is already online to show that you infected Shimura,” said another.

I issued counterarguments, but those people wouldn’t listen. My voice was drowned out. I was alone in a sea of people shouting out falsehoods about me. I thought then that was probably what witch-hunts were like. 

Q: And you took action. You sued 26 people in the Osaka District Court, seeking damages for the false posts they made or spread. What did that feel like?

A: Professional wrestler Hana Kimura killed herself after she was slandered on social media around the same time that the false rumors were spreading about me.

I decided to go to court partly to prevent a repeat of the same thing and partly to let people know that they could be sued if they posted false information or slandered others online.

It was not at all easy to track down those who had spread messages on Twitter (now X) because they would delete their posts. I have managed to identify the posters of messages in only a handful of cases.

Q: A decision was handed down for two of the 26 defendants in February. The district court ordered them to each pay 120,000 yen ($777) in damages, as opposed to the 1.26 million yen you had demanded from each of them. The court decision recognized that the false rumors created the impression you were responsible for Shimura’s death, and thereby lowered your standing in society.

Decisions have still to be made in the remaining 24 cases. What do you say to that?

A: I am happy the court decision showed under the law that what I am saying is not wrong.

I am, however, not satisfied with the February decision. The reparation amount of 120,000 yen sends a message that could be taken to mean that slandering individuals, shops, restaurants or businesses with the intention of bringing them down would only cost you a small sum of money in the end.

I wanted a court decision that warned people of slightly more risk, so they would think twice about banging out a message on a keyboard or a smartphone.

Q: You waged an inner struggle over the wisdom of having gone to court, am I right?

A: Yes. The trial took years. (The offenders) lose and they pay. I also lose the litigation costs, and I pay. This causes everybody to lose money in the end.

The fact is people wouldn’t have taken interest, or wouldn’t have learned that something like this was happening, unless I had done what I did.

Japanese law still remains hard on those who are slandered. I hope people will think better of that, or I would say, I hope society and law take a turn for the better.

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Born in Osaka, Mariko Fujisaki served as hostess and proprietor at a nightclub in Osaka’s Kita-Shinchi entertainment district before she opened her own “Club Fujisaki” in May 2017. Her hobby is to try out different eating places around Japan, of which she has written reviews on her own social media account and on the Tabelog gastronomy website.