<figure id="attachment_459493" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-459493" style="width: 4453px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="535d823d"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/03/06f2d6ee16e737f1d2bdf96ff8a979ca.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-459493" class="wp-caption-text">NHK Party&#8221; leader Takashi Tachibana currently in Kobe Detention Center</figcaption></figure>
<h2><span class="strongInContent"> Court finds it to be a &#8220;slap trial</span></h2>
<p> Attorney Fukunaga Katsunari (45), who represented defendant Tachibana Takashi (58), leader of the &#8220;NHK Party&#8221; (hereafter &#8220;NHK Party&#8221;), as well as several lawsuits related to the party, and who ran for national office as a member of the &#8220;NHK Party,&#8221; filed a lawsuit against election watcher Chidai (47), claiming that he was defamed and his reputation was violated through SNS and other means. The court ruled that Mr. Chidai was not entitled to compensation for the damages he claimed. Mr. Chidai is also the author of &#8220;What was the &#8216;Party to Protect the People from NHK&#8217;? Mr. Chidai is also the author of &#8220;What was the &#8216;Party to Protect the People from NHK&#8217;?</p>
<p> On April 25, ‛25, Mr. Chidai took to his social networking site in response to receiving the fourth complaint from Fukunaga&#8217;s lawyer,</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> What a slap trial. （They should all be put in the piggy bank together! Antisocial cult group! A fucking cult!</span></p>
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<p> The following are some of the comments he delivered on his SNS: &#8220;What a fucking slap trial,&#8221; &#8220;These people should all be put in jail together,&#8221; &#8220;Antisocial cult group! Fucking cults!&#8221; Fukunaga claimed that these expressions were defamatory or infringed upon his honor.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> 1. The plaintiff&#8217;s claim is dismissed.</span><br>
<span class="strongInContent"> (2) The plaintiff shall bear the costs of the lawsuit.</span></p>
<p> and Mr. Chidai won the case.</p>
<p> In addition, on April 28, 2013, Mr. Chidai posted a note in which the name of Mr. Fukunaga&#8217;s lawyer appeared multiple times,</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The accumulation of the results of their criminal and illegal acts, which they committed one after another with impunity and blindness.</span></p>
<p> In response to this, Attorney Fukunaga countered that it was the &#8220;NHK Party&#8221; that committed a series of criminal and illegal acts, and that he had nothing to do with them and did not commit any annoying or illegal acts. He had sued Mr. Chidai for defamation and violation of his honor, and the February 9 ruling was a complete victory for Mr. Chidai as well.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The most important point is that the court found &#8220;truthfulness&#8221; in the expression &#8220;Katsunari Fukunaga is setting up a slap trial,&#8221; which means that the trial he set up against me was &#8220;true. In other words, it is the same as saying that the trial he set up against me was a &#8216;slap trial.</span></p>
<p> Mr. Chidai, who won the trial, said, &#8220;The slap trial, or the &#8216;slap trial,&#8217; is a kind of &#8216;slap trial.</p>
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<p> What is a &#8220;slap trial&#8221; or &#8220;slap lawsuit&#8221;? What is a &#8220;slap trial&#8221; or &#8220;slap lawsuit&#8221;?</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Slap lawsuits are lawsuits that have no chance of winning, but are filed to harass or suppress the speech of the other party, or to have a demoralizing effect on a third party, so that they will think, &#8220;If I criticize this person, I will get in trouble, so let&#8217;s stop.</span></p>
<p> He explains, &#8220;This is a lawsuit filed with the aim of having an atrophying effect on a third party.</p>
<p> Mr. Chidai has been fighting such a slap trial initiated by the NHK party and NHK party officials. The author interviewed Mr. Chidai not only about the court decision, but also about his battle with the NHK Party and his fear of slap trials.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Why Mr. Tachibana, who used to be friendly, has changed completely"></div>
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<figure id="attachment_459527" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-459527" style="width: 380px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="5ddb8d9e"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/03/1f1649cfe2397d807385cdb667c8be0f.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-459527" class="wp-caption-text">Chidai, an &#8220;election watcher&#8221; who has long fought in court against NHK party affiliates (from official YouTube)</figcaption></figure>
<h2><span class="strongInContent"> I don&#8217;t care if you criticize me. Keep writing!</span></h2>
<p> Mr. Chidai first met defendant Tachibana, the leader of the &#8220;NHK Party,&#8221; about nine years ago in November 2005. It was during the Katsushika ward assembly election in Tokyo.</p>
<p> It was the second interview after I began my &#8220;Election Watcher&#8221; activities.　I found defendant Tachibana, who was a candidate, at the south exit of JR Kameido Station and approached him.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> I found him friendly and open, but I thought he was a bit of a strange old man,&#8221; said Chidai.</span></p>
<p> Later, he saw Tachibana again in front of Shinkoiwa Station. He saw Tachibana struggling with a Communist Party candidate and felt this way.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He said, &#8220;A person who cannot resolve such a trivial matter through discussion and goes out of his way to call the police and cause a commotion is not qualified to be a politician.</span></p>
<p> And in an article reporting on the Katsushika Ward Council election.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He is a troublesome old man.</span></p>
<p> In my report on the Katsushika Ward Council election, I wrote an article that did not go so far as to criticize Tachibana, who at the time was still a member of the Katsushika Ward Council.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I don&#8217;t care if you criticize me. I don&#8217;t mind if you criticize me.</span></p>
<p> Tachibana was still very open to criticism at the time.</p>
<p> The relationship between the two rapidly deteriorated after April 2006. In an article titled &#8220;Nerima Ward Assembly Supplementary Election 2018: The Party&#8217;s Stance on Protecting the People from NHK,&#8221; Mr. Chidai wrote that the defendant Tachibana and the party were &#8220;not interested in the public. Chidai published his first article criticizing Tachibana and the &#8220;NHK Party&#8221; on his notebook titled &#8220;Nerima Ward Councilors&#8217; Election 2018 and the Stance of the Party to Protect the People from NHK.</p>
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<p> Soon after, &#8220;attacks&#8221; from the &#8220;NHK Party,&#8221; Tachibana, and party officials began, starting with a &#8220;negative campaign against Chidai&#8221; on social networking sites. Then, &#8220;slap trials&#8221; were launched one after another.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The first trial related to the &#8220;NHK Party&#8221; was a lawsuit against a publishing company for libel in response to an article in the news media operated by the publishing company. The result was that Tachibana&#8217;s claim was dismissed and the publisher won. The result was that Tachibana&#8217;s claim was dismissed and the publisher won. Next, Mr. Manabu Kubota, a member of the &#8220;NHK Party&#8221; who ran for the Tachikawa City Council election, sued me again for defamation. This time, we counterclaimed and won, and the court officially recognized it as a slap trial.</span></p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The &quot;burden&quot; weighed more heavily on us than money."></div>
<figure id="attachment_459499" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-459499" style="width: 1154px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="62c07dfd"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/03/462508ec23438a12470f2878a2a7d21a.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-459499" class="wp-caption-text">Defendant Tachibana ran a &#8220;two-horse race&#8221; to re-elect Governor Motohiko Saito (left) in the Hyogo Prefecture gubernatorial election.</figcaption></figure>
<h2><span class="strongInContent"> The image of the defendant as an evil person</span></h2>
<p> In a Nico Nico Live video broadcast by Mr. Kubota on May 12, 2007, defendant Tachibana said the following.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> This trial was not originally intended to get money from Chidai-kun, but a so-called slap lawsuit. A slap lawsuit is a lawsuit to cause financial damage to the other party by going to trial. The parties are supposed to pay the attorney&#8217;s fees whether they win or lose.</span></p>
<p> As defendant Tachibana said, the financial burden was heavy on Mr. Chidai.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> He said, &#8220;You are free to hire or not hire a lawyer, and if you don&#8217;t, you don&#8217;t have to pay the lawyer&#8217;s fees, but there aren&#8217;t many people who don&#8217;t hire a lawyer. But in my case, I hired a lawyer because I am in the world of speech, and I didn&#8217;t want to lose if there was a procedural defect. Therefore, I had to somehow raise the legal fees, which was difficult at the time. There were people who supported us, but we had to pay out of our own pocket.</span></p>
<p> Today, many people support him, and he says he has no trouble meeting his legal fees. However, it was not only money that caused Chidai to suffer.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Even if the &#8220;NHK Party&#8221; sued someone, unless the defendant was a well-known person, the general public would not know about it and would not be interested in it. However, the &#8220;NHK Party&#8221; is unique in that they make a big advertisement saying, &#8220;He is the defendant and is a bad guy. The public easily perceives the &#8220;defendant,&#8221; or the &#8220;accused,&#8221; as a bad person, and this tarnishes their image. Every time I checked the videos, I felt bad.</span></p>
<p> Mr. Chidai has been the subject of numerous slap trials by NHK Party affiliates. How many slap trials has Mr. Chida fought?</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Chidai answered, &#8220;The defendant Tachibana, the &#8216;NHK Party,&#8217; and party officials sued not only me, but also anyone who retweeted my notebooks or anything I had written. Including those against the people around me who were involved, there were 20 cases in total. I myself have been sued by Fukunaga in four cases, and by NHK party officials in six other cases. However, there are some cases that have been appealed and some cases that have been concluded but have not yet been ruled on, so I cannot say that all of them are over. Nevertheless, we have results in the district court, and there are none that are being contested judicially right now.&#8221;</span></p>
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<p> And as for the future,</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Fukunaga says he is still looking for more people to sue (Chidai), saying that he will sue up to 200 cases. But if he loses so many cases, I don&#8217;t think anyone will apply. But in case you are wondering, he says he will still do it. Of course, I will accept.</span></p>
<p> He expressed his strong determination. The battle between Mr. Chidai and the NHK party continues.</p>


 Hiroyuki Sasaki (Entertainment Journalist)

 Pasya/Afro

 In a lawsuit filed by attorney Fukunaga Katsunari against election watcher Chidai for defamation, the court dismissed the plaintiff's claim, saying, "The plaintiff's claim is dismissed and the plaintiff shall bear the litigation costs. The court dismissed the plaintiff's claim and the plaintiff shall bear the litigation costs. ......

Election Watcher Chidai Talks about “Fear of Slap Trials” after Being Sued in 20 Cases Related to NHK Party

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