Death Stranding Creator Hideo Kojima Misidentified As Shinzo Abe's Assassin

On 8th July 2022, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed in an assassination at a campaign event outside a train station. According to reports, the suspect, who is now in custody, pulled out a handmade gun and began firing at the politician.

Shinzo’s death still rings terror after his assassination, and the world mourns the loss of one of the longest-serving Japanese prime ministers in history. But in a recent report by Kotaku, vile people online have been using this moment to share misinformation and racist remarks.

Hideo Kojima Misidentified As Shinzo Abe’s Assassin

Following the announcement of Shinzo’s death, the internet's darkest parts and most trashy people seized the opportunity to share images of Hideo Kojima, the creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid. They stated how similar he looked to Shinzo Abe’s assassin.

With these racist posts continuing to trend, it eventually reached Twitter, where far-right French politician Damien Rieu retweeted the image of Kojima with a comment translating, “the extreme left kills.” 

In a now deleted tweet, French far-right politician Damien Rieu accused the far-left of murdering Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and used photos of game developer Hideo Kojima instead of pictures of the current suspect Tetsuya Yamagami pic.twitter.com/2zpmL5kVnD

— Nox Dawn 🐸 (@NoxDawn) July 8, 2022

Damien deleted the posts later on; however, the damage was already done as the disgusting joke continued to fester on Twitter. News and media sites later picked up these misinformed posts, resulting in reporting of the wrong person online.

A Greek news station aired the images of Kojima in correlation to Shinzo’s death and the assassination. As a result, Kojima was misidentified as the killer on live television. Fortunately, the video has since been removed to avoid spreading further misinformation about the incident.

Still, some people online, including the news station, are mistakenly connecting the killer to Che Guevera based entirely on one of the photos of Kojima showing him standing next to an image of the Cuban revolutionary leader. But none of these posts, photos, or reports are true.

Because of dark, racist, and disgusting online jokes, Shinzo’s death has been transformed into a series of misinformed flaming trashbags of posts, which led those without knowledge of the assassination to believe vile internet stunts.

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So to clarify, Kojima isn’t the assassin behind the former Japanese prime minister’s death. According to The Guardian, 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami was arrested for the murder of Shinzo Abe after reportedly confessing to the crime, saying he "was frustrated with the former prime minister and targeted Abe with the intention of killing him."

We are otherwise saddened by the news of Shinzo Abe's passing and extend our condolences to his family during this moment of tragedy.

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Featured image courtesy of Hideo Kojima / Kojima Productions.