When He Said "Daijobu Da," You Believed It: The Comfort of Ken Shimura
People say comedy has a shelf life. Catchphrases age, gags fade. Yet the laughter Ken Shimura left behind refuses to grow old. The mere sight of his Baka Tonosama makeup still tugs a smile loose, and everyone knows how to make the "Aiiin" face the moment they hear the word. It is a bodily memory shared by not two but three generations of Japanese people.
Born in Higashimurayama, Tokyo, he rose as the youngest of The Drifters before becoming a national comedian. His seventy-year life was, above all, the record of a craftsman who poured everything into something invisible: making people laugh.
A Long Road That Began as an Assistant
Yasunori Shimura was born in 1950 in what is now Higashimurayama, Tokyo, the youngest of three brothers. As a boy he fell for The Beatles and was drawn toward music and comedy.
His turning point came in 1968, when he visited the home of Chosuke Ikariya and became a boya, a personal assistant, to The Drifters. He started not as a star in waiting but as a gofer. In 1972 he debuted in a comedy duo called Mac Bonbon, but success did not come quickly. He only became an official Drifters member in 1974, already past his mid-twenties. He was no early bloomer.
"Higashimurayama Ondo" and the Heart of the Living Room
Soon after joining The Drifters, Shimura carved his name into the public consciousness. In 1976 his "Higashimurayama Ondo," a comic riff on his own hometown, became a hit. By reworking a regional folk dance into something strange and charming, he drew sudden attention.
The stage was 8 Ji Dayo! Zenin Shugo, the legendary variety show that ruled Saturday nights. There he became far more than a man who simply got laughs. The Hige Dance, the Strange Uncle, "Karasu no Katte Desho" — one signature bit after another spread so widely that children would imitate them at school the next day. He stood at the very epicenter of comedy becoming culture.
A Man Who Built His Own Castle
In 1986 came Shimura Ken no Baka Tonosama, and in 1987 Shimura Ken no Daijoubu Da. What matters is that he was not only the star of these programs but also deeply involved in creating them. He did not merely perform roles handed to him; he constructed his own comic world with his own hands.
Both the "Aiiin" face and the "daijobu da" catchphrase were calculated, rehearsed, and polished through repetition. The more foolish a bit looked, the harder he drilled it behind the scenes. Behind that cheerful face was a craftsman who allowed no compromise in his comedy.
What Lay Beyond the Laughter
In 1999 he appeared as a coal miner in the film Poppoya (Railroad Man) and won the Golden Arrow Award for entertainment that same year. On Tensai! Shimura Doubutsuen, which began in 2004, he served as host, winning over yet another generation with the gentle face he showed to animals and children.
In his private life he remained a lifelong bachelor. With no wife and no children, a life devoted entirely to comedy can, seen another way, look remarkably clean and resolute. His hobby never changed from his youth: The Beatles, especially John Lennon, and playing in a band. He was a quiet man, free of tabloid drama, focused on his craft.
A Sudden Farewell
On March 29, 2020, Ken Shimura died of pneumonia caused by COVID-19, at the age of seventy. At a time when Japan had not yet fully grasped the danger of the disease, the loss of such a universally known figure landed as a profound shock.
That year he was honored with the 37th Asakusa Performing Arts Award Special Achievement Award and the 36th ATP Award Television Grand Prix Special Award — tributes of farewell to a man who had made the whole country laugh for half a century.
"Daijobu da" — hear those words and, for no reason at all, you feel that everything truly will be fine. Perhaps that was Shimura's greatest gift of all. What he built was not just a pile of gags but the very atmosphere that could put a viewer at ease in an instant.
Look at the Baka Tonosama makeup and you still smile on reflex. He left behind laughter that simply will not age — a man impossible to let go of.