Yasunori Shimura (志村 康徳, Shimura Yasunori, February 20, 1950 – March 29, 2020), known professionally as Ken Shimura (志村 けん, Shimura Ken), was a Japanese comedian. He was born in Higashimurayama, Tokyo.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (April 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Japanese article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 3,782 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:志村けん]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|ja|志村けん}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2020)

He started his career as an assistant to the comedy band The Drifters, led by Chōsuke Ikariya. In 1974, He joined the group, replacing Chū Arai. He appeared as members of the group on popular comedy shows that gained massive popularity from the 1970s to the 1980s. Hachiji-dayo! Zen'in-shūgō achieved the highest viewership rating of 50.5%, and The Drifters Daibakushō (ドリフ大爆笑) reached 40.4% viewership. These shows made us nationally popular. After the end of Hachiji-dayo! in 1985, he began to work independently as well. He appeared on shows like Kato-chan Ken-chan Gokigen TV (加トちゃんケンちゃんごきげんテレビ), with Cha Katō, a fellow member of the group, Shimura Ken no Daijōbu-dā (志村けんのだいじょうぶだぁ)," and Shimura Ken no Baka Tono-sama (志村けんのバカ殿様), portraying characters like Baka Tono-sama (バカ殿様, Stupid Lord) and Hen na Oji-san (変なおじさん, Strange Older Man). These characters became highly popular.

Shimura's comedic work was inspired in part by that of Jerry Lewis.^[2]

This section does not cite any sources. (March 2020)

Shimura became known in 1974, replacing Chu Arai^[3] in the famous comedy group The Drifters.^[4] With the help of the other members of the group, he learned to act and make the audience laugh. Over time, he showed a knack for comedy. Some memorable pictures of that time are the mustache dance, in which he starred with Cha Katō and the song Higashimurayama, referring to his homeland.

With this group, he participated in the weekly program Hachiji Dayo! Zen'inshugo! from 1974 to 1985, reaching 40% to 50% of viewers at their best. From 1977, he also participated in the television program Dorifu Daibakusho ("Dorifu, big burst of laughter"), which were special sketches, totaling one and a half hours. It is currently possible to see members together only on television specials.

The rapport Shimura had with Cha Katō, also a member of Higashimurayama, kept them together on television. In 1986, they created the  Kato-chan Ken-chan Gokigen Terebi, which aired until 1992. In The Detective Story, they are two detective friends who get into a lot of trouble. The high ratings allowed for high-cost scenes with exploding cars, helicopters and crowds. A famous painting of this time is Shimura as a monk, who asked people to repeat the words "Daijoubuda, ... ueh, ueh, ueh", whereas "daijoubuda" literally means "I'm all right."

This program ran about three times a year since 1986. In it, Shimura is a feudal lord ("tono") who does not want to rule and only thinks about having fun. The character was created at the time of Hachiji Dayo! Zen'inshugo! and is characterized by an all-white face, extremely thick eyebrows and hair tied at the top of the head. The program always featured celebrity stakes.

His show, Ken Shimura Daijoubuda, a satire of modern Japanese society, aired from 1987 to 1993.^[5]

Shimura was hospitalized for severe pneumonia on 20 March 2020; he lost consciousness after being anesthetized and hooked up to a ventilator on the following day. Then, on 23 March it was confirmed that he had COVID-19.^[9][10][11] He was the first Japanese tarento to have his COVID-19 diagnosis made public during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.^[10]

On 24 March, Shimura was transferred to a hospital where ECMO was available.^[10] He had been scheduled to star in the film It's a Flickering Life [ja], but his participation was cancelled on 26 March.^[12] He was also slated to carry the Olympic torch through part of Tokyo prior to the 2020 Tokyo games.^[3]

Shimura died on 29 March 2020 at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine [ja] in Shinjuku, Tokyo.^[13][14][15] He was 70 years old.^[16]

• Poppoya (1999), Hajime Yoshioka
• The Lorax (2012), The Lorax (Japanese dub voice)^[17]
• Yo-kai Watch: The Movie (2014), Master Nyada (voice)
• Yell (2020, TV series), Kōzō Oyamada

• Statue of Ken Shimura