On Friday, July 9, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed while giving a speech at a campaign rally in the Western city of Nara. The man who killed him is Tetsuya Yamagami. But, people joked online and said that Yamagami looks like legendary game developer Hideo Kojima which lead to some misidentifying Kojima as the killer. The next day, Kojima Productions, Hideo Kojima’s game studio issued statement on the situation and threatened legal action for the incident. On Twitter, the studio said
Following the jokes online, French comedian Georges Jordito posted the series of jokes “identifying” Kojima as the killer. He deleted his posts but French politician Damien Rieu retweeted it and then made another tweet saying “the far-left kills.” Rieu deleted the tweet later and issued an apology saying “I naively took a joke for information. I didn’t think we could make humor about the assassination of a man but I was wrong to check before sharing. My apologies to Hideo Kojima and to the fans of Metal Gear.”
Eventually, a Greek news station also posted stories about the assassination of Abe. During the report, photos of Kojima were used.
Hideo Kojima has yet to make an official response but retweeted the official Kojima Productions statement. As far as whether or not Kojima Productions moves forward with legal action, we’ll have to wait and see.