<figure id="attachment_418232" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-418232" style="width: 973px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3513cd09"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/03/89abdff3eae6d120b2ce5b71f00964ce.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-418232" class="wp-caption-text">Mr. Fujikawa (left) and his former ally Ichiro Ozawa</figcaption></figure>
<h2> Tears in Mr. Ishimaru&#8217;s eyes</h2>
<p> Election planner Shinnosuke Fujikawa (71), known as the &#8220;god of elections,&#8221; passed away suddenly on March 11.</p>
<p> Mr. Fujikawa supported former Aki Takata Mayor Shinji Ishimaru (42), who came in second with 1.65 million votes in last July&#8217;s gubernatorial election in Tokyo, and became a man of the moment.</p>
<p> When asked about the news of Fujikawa&#8217;s death at a regular press conference on March 14, he reflected on the situation in an auspicious manner and with a few tears in his eyes.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I wanted to talk to him more about many things, and I wanted him to tell me more about himself. There were some articles that suggested we didn&#8217;t get along, but that is not true. I am filled with gratitude. In Mr. Fujikawa&#8217;s words, he is an &#8220;interesting person,&#8221; and I was surprised to see someone so lively in an election. He had a passion for Japanese politics and the nation of Japan, and I liked him. He was a hot omoroi.</span></p>
<p> Mr. Fujikawa had been speaking publicly until one month before his death.</p>
<p> On February 12, he was also present at the press conference for the formation of the &#8220;12 (Wannyan) Peace Party,&#8221; headed by TV personality and animal rights activist Devi Sukarno, 85, known as &#8220;Mrs. Devi,&#8221; and said, &#8220;Mrs. Sukarno was close to foreign dignitaries through her charity work, and she is well qualified as a politician. I am excited to see what kind of politician she will become.</p>
<p> Mr. Fujikawa has been hospitalized at St. Luke&#8217;s International Hospital since February 19 due to the effects of bacteria in his right leg. On February 18, the day before his hospitalization, he gave an interview to FRIDAY Digital in which he expressed his enthusiasm, saying, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;If I don&#8217;t get two seats, I will go out of business.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> If possible, I would like to win five seats. That way I can fulfill the requirements of a political party and have a casting vote in the political arena.</span></p>
<p> Although he still limped on his sore right leg, he was, as usual, using his own analysis to decipher the political situation.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I can read your line, so call me anytime.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> He never dreamed that these would be his last words.</p>
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<p> It was last year&#8217;s Tokyo gubernatorial election that brought Fujikawa&#8217;s name to national prominence, but he had also coordinated elections for the &#8220;Tax Cuts Japan&#8221; and &#8220;Minna-no Party,&#8221; and had achieved results in local councilor and chief executive elections.&#8217; In 2005, he became secretary general of the Tokyo Restoration Association. The Japan Innovation Party was able to expand its influence in Tokyo thanks to Fujikawa&#8217;s support.</p>
<p> In 2010, Mr. Fujikawa established the Fujikawa Institute for Election Strategies under his own name, and in order to learn from the &#8220;god of elections&#8221; and &#8220;military strategist&#8221; who boasted a nearly 90% victory rate, politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties, as well as opposition party leaders and former ministers, would visit his office. He never refused anyone who came to his office, and he was always willing to talk with reporters of weekly newspapers, freely sharing his knowledge on everything from how to read political situations to behind-the-scenes stories.</p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" It was like a scene from Patchgi! like the world of"></div>
<h2>The days of his youth, full of fights</h2>
<figure id="attachment_418233" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-418233" style="width: 1477px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="e7258068"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/03/57533c4c94b59000ef9a50e57cbac47e.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-418233" class="wp-caption-text"> Mr. Ishimaru had tears in his eyes during the press conference</figcaption></figure>
<p> After asking Mr. Fujikawa about the political situation before his death, we sometimes talked about his younger days. When he was a student, Mr. Fujikawa was a &#8220;staunch right-winger,&#8221; and if he heard the word &#8220;emperor&#8221; spoken from the seat next to him in a coffee shop, he would approach and say, &#8220;You mean &#8216;His Majesty the Emperor,&#8217; don&#8217;t you?</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent">He was a far-right student and often got into fights. When I was a student, I was like &#8216;Patchugi!</span> I <span class="strongInContent">was like</span> &#8216;Patchugi! Mr. Fujikawa smiled smugly.</p>
<p> Patchugi! (directed by Kazuyuki Izutsu, released in 2005) is a love story about a Japanese high school student who falls in love with the sister of a Korean high school gang leader and overcomes ethnic barriers. While the script was praised, the fight and brawl scenes were also highlights of the film. When Fujikawa was a junior and senior high school student in the 1960s, Japan was in the midst of a long war between North Vietnam and the United States, and the country was in turmoil.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> His hometown was Senbayashi in Asahi-ku, Osaka, and his alma mater, Omiya Junior High School, was a rough school with almost all the glass broken, and some students wore the white run. His mother ran a coffee shop, and he served his fellow students without permission or ate at a local okonomiyaki restaurant on the tab, and his mother almost disowned him several times (laughter).</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> When he entered high school, he joined the Japan Students League, an ethnic student organization, and served as its representative in Osaka Prefecture. Riding the Keihan train while playing military songs on a boom box, students from the Korean High School would get involved. We used to fight a lot. After getting beaten up, I always went to thank them. We would ride into the Chosun High School. If you don&#8217;t go, you will be bullied. I had no choice but to go and pay my respects.&#8221;</span></p>
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<p> This may be a bit exaggerated, but it is a &#8220;chivalrous story&#8221; like a delinquent comic book. As a far-right student, Fujikawa entered Kokushikan University.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> At the university, where the president rode a white horse, he developed a passion for the country. There was also a son of a yakuza boss, and we had many heated discussions about the Emperor System. I can&#8217;t go into details, but he helped me many times after that.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> After dropping out of Kokushikan University, he worked for a time in the private sector, but <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;I was fired from three companies in one year,&#8221;</span> he said.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He gave up working in the private sector after he &#8220;beat up the section manager at his first brokerage firm, beat up the general manager at his second commodity trading firm, and beat up the general manager at his third financial consultant firm.&#8221;</span></p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" To the gold mines of Sumatra..."></div>
<h2>The &#8220;wellspring&#8221; of his toughness</h2>
<figure id="attachment_418234" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-418234" style="width: 1477px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3450bbf9"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/03/fa334791ba6cade191773395eef8d3fb.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-418234" class="wp-caption-text"> Mr. Fujikawa interviewed by FRIDAY Digital the day before he was hospitalized.</figcaption></figure>
<p> A senior student from his university days had become a secretary to a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and asked Mr. Fujikawa, who was hanging around, <span class="strongInContent">if he would like to help with the election</span>. He became fascinated with elections during his 12-year stint as secretary to former Local Autonomy Minister Yukio Yamamoto, a member of the Tanaka faction (at the time).</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He was fascinated by the election process, &#8220;I would think about election strategies based on data, and devise strategies on who to defeat in order to break the opponents&#8217; camps. He was so fascinated by elections that they became his life&#8217;s purpose. At the same time, I am constantly thinking about how to move Japanese politics forward, not only by winning elections, but also by ensuring fair policy debates that are beneficial to the community and to Japan.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Incidentally, Yukio&#8217;s grandson, Sachiko, is now a member of the House of Councilors and Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry. When I see him in Nagata-cho, he gives me a subtle look when I say, &#8216;When I was secretary, I changed Sachiko&#8217;s diapers.</span></p>
<p> In 1991, he ran for a seat on the Osaka City Council from the Liberal Democratic Party and won, at the age of 37. In the middle of his second term as a city councilor, he ran for the Osaka 6th House of Representatives seat on the former Democratic Party of Japan, but was unsuccessful in that race.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He was left with a debt of 180 million yen at a time when &#8220;money politics was in full swing.&#8221;</span></p>
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<p> Dreaming of getting rich, he went gold mining in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra in Indonesia.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> For nine months I worked together with Islamic guerrillas to dig for gold. I got malaria along the way. Finally we started getting gold, and they said, &#8216;With this we can pay off our debts. I thought, &#8216;With this, I can repay my debts and dig up enough gold to establish a new party,&#8217; but the conflict between the guerrillas intensified, and I was forced to return to Japan.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> After returning to Japan, Fujikawa visited Ichiro Ozawa, 82, former secretary general of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and returned to the world of elections.</p>
<p> In the 2009 lower house election, he supported Yukiko Miyake in Gunma&#8217;s 4th district, the stronghold of former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda (1988), and led her to a proportional return to the House of Representatives. Ayako Masuda, who worked with Mr. Fujikawa as his secretary at the time and has known him for 35 years, recalls, &#8220;We fought a lot when we were young.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He had fought a lot of fights since he was young and had dealt with guerrillas in Indonesia, so he was a skillful negotiator. He is skilled in the art of winning elections, and in order to get a candidate elected, he will even persuade the leaders of rival camps and influential backers. His experience of going through numerous rough patches has left him with an unthinkable winning percentage. I doubt there will ever be another maverick like him.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> Fujikawa was said to have a smiling expression on his face as he left St. Luke&#8217;s International Hospital for the casket.</p>
<p> With two major elections coming up this summer, one for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly and the other for the House of Councillors, it would not be surprising if the parties involved with the &#8220;god of elections&#8221; were to be the center of the storm in both elections. Even though he has passed away, Fujikawa&#8217;s will will remain.</p>
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 Daisuke Iwasaki

 On March 11, Shinnosuke Fujikawa, an election planner known as the "God of Elections," passed away. Last year, he joined the campaign of Shinji Ishimaru for the Tokyo gubernatorial election and created "Ishimaru fever. He had just begun full-fledged preparations for this summer's Upper House election.

Shinji Ishimaru also cried] The &#8220;God of Election,&#8221; who had fought with guerrillas and passed away suddenly, spoke of the &#8220;eye of the typhoon&#8221; in this summer&#8217;s Upper House election.

Shinji Ishimaru also cried] The “God of Election,” who had fought with guerrillas and passed away suddenly, spoke of the “eye of the typhoon” in this summer’s Upper House election.

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