I'm utterly shocked and dismayed. With great sadness, it was announced today that popular joshi wrestler Hana Kimura has died. It seems very likely that she took her own life, as determined by some distressing photos and tweets she posted in the past 24 hours. She was 22 years old.
Kimura was the daughter of Kyoko Kimura, a popular joshi wrestler in own right. She officially entered pro wrestling at 18 years old and soon was labeled as a natural for the business and a very charismatic performer. She worked her way up to the midcard in various joshi promotions but was often too popular to just stay there. Kimura eventually found a home in Stardom, the top joshi promotion, joining the dastardly group Oedo Tai. In 2019, during the promotion's near annual faction shakeup, she earned the right to lead her own group, later dubbed Tokyo Cyber Squad. Her last match was on March 24 against Stardom's ace Mayu Iwatani as part of the Cinderella Tournament.
Kimura found international fame beyond the wrestling ring by appearing in the recent season of the popular Netflix reality show Terrace House. Unfortunately, this exposure proved to be unwise, as her aggressive attitude and athletic appearance led to extensive hate mail and trolling. Netflix and Fuji TV announced they are postponing all future episodes until further notice given the news today.
This has been an absolutely god awful week for pro wrestling. It was already going to be bad with the release of the Owen Hart episode of Dark Side of the Ring, but it was made worst by the tragic death of Shad Gaspard, the passing of writer Larry Csonka, the sudden retirement of Arisa Hoshiki, and the numerous injuries at the recent AEW live taping. But this really has hurt me to the core. Like many joshi fans, I fell in love with Hana Kimura when she first started and was eager to see her career continue to flourish once the pandemic subsided. Alas, it was not meant to be.
She will sorely be missed.
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