Who Is Hezumaryu?

Last updated: October 2026

Name (Japanese)	へずまりゅう (Hezumaryu)
Born	1991, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan
Category	Former YouTuber / Local politician
Active since	2020 (as a YouTuber)
Known for	"Nuisance-style" prank videos, Nara deer patrols, winning a Nara City Council seat in 2025
Platform	X (Twitter), @hezuruy
Current role	Nara City Council member (since July 2025)

Hezumaryu may have the most improbable career arc in modern Japanese internet culture. In 2020 he became nationally infamous as the face of Japan’s meiwaku-kei — “nuisance-style” — YouTubers, a wave of creators who filmed themselves breaking rules and bothering strangers for views. He was arrested, convicted of theft over a stunt in which he ate supermarket sashimi before paying for it, and given a suspended prison sentence. Five years later, in July 2025, voters in the ancient capital of Nara elected him to the city council with the third-highest vote total of any candidate in the race.

Born Shota Harada in 1991 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, he is known to almost everyone in Japan simply by his handle, which he also used as a politician. His reinvention — built largely on a self-appointed mission to protect Nara’s famous free-roaming deer from misbehaving tourists — has made him one of the most hotly debated figures on Japanese social media, with supporters praising his rehabilitation and critics questioning his confrontational methods.

Rise to Fame

Before YouTube, Harada’s life was fairly ordinary. A wrestler from high school through university, he competed in national-level tournaments. After graduating from Tokuyama University with an economics degree, he worked as a company employee, including a stint at a stainless-steel manufacturer.

In February 2020 he launched a YouTube channel as Hezumaryu and quickly became notorious for totsu (“ambush”) videos — showing up uninvited to confront famous YouTubers and streamers on camera. In only about half a year he built a national reputation, though not the kind most creators want: his channels were repeatedly suspended, and mainstream media began citing him as the prime example of the nuisance-YouTuber problem.

The stunt that defined him came in May 2020, when he posted a video of himself eating a pack of sashimi inside a supermarket in Aichi Prefecture before paying. He was arrested that July, and tested positive for COVID-19 while in custody — after having traveled between prefectures — which intensified the public backlash. In August 2021 a court sentenced him to one and a half years in prison, suspended for four years with probation — a common arrangement in Japan where the sentence is not served if the person stays out of trouble. The conviction was finalized by the Supreme Court in 2022. With YouTube effectively closed to him after repeated bans, he rebuilt his following on X (Twitter).

What Hezumaryu Is Known For

The 2020 sashimi incident, still the episode most Japanese people associate with his name, and the theft conviction that followed.
Ambush-style videos targeting major YouTubers during his brief, chaotic 2020 run as a creator.
Repeated attempts to enter politics: he lost a 2021 House of Councillors by-election in Yamaguchi and a 2023 Toshima Ward assembly race in Tokyo before finally winning in Nara.
Near-daily “deer patrols” in Nara Park, which he began in the summer of 2024, confronting tourists he saw mistreating the park’s sacred deer. The deer are designated a protected natural monument, and videos from his patrols spread widely on social media.
Winning a Nara City Council seat in July 2025 with 8,320 votes, campaigning almost entirely through social media on pledges such as deer protection, security cameras and more trash cans in Nara Park.

His patrols coincided with a real public debate in Japan over tourist behavior toward the deer; from January 2025, Nara Prefecture explicitly banned harming the deer, such as hitting them, under its park regulations. At the same time, his aggressive on-camera confrontations — often with foreign visitors — drew heavy criticism, including accusations of harassment, while supporters credited him with forcing attention onto the issue.

Recent Years

Hezumaryu’s council term began at the end of July 2025, and got off to a turbulent start: after a heated exchange with the mayor during his first question session that September, the assembly issued him an official warning for conduct deemed to lack dignity. He has remained a polarizing presence in local politics ever since.

April 2026 brought a symbolic turning point. His four-year suspended sentence period ended, and he publicly declared that he had completed his rehabilitation, saying he wanted to “brighten Japan from Nara.” That same month he launched Reiwa Voice, a service that uses AI to help ordinary citizens draft chinjousho — formal petitions to local governments — and submit them to municipalities across Japan under his name.

As of late 2026, Hezumaryu continues to combine council work, deer-protection activities and a heavy posting schedule on X, where he has hundreds of thousands of followers. Whether seen as a genuine redemption story or a master of attention, he has become a fixture of Nara’s public life — something almost no one would have predicted in 2020.

FAQ

Why was Hezumaryu arrested?

In 2020 he was arrested after posting a video of himself eating sashimi in a supermarket before paying for it. In 2021 he was convicted of theft and given a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence, suspended for four years, so he never served prison time. The suspension period ended without incident in April 2026.

How did Hezumaryu become a politician?

After failed election runs in 2021 and 2023, he moved his activities to Nara, where his near-daily patrols protecting the city’s sacred deer from misbehaving tourists went viral. In July 2025 he won a Nara City Council seat with 8,320 votes, the third-highest total of any candidate.

Does Hezumaryu still have a YouTube channel?

Not really. His channels were repeatedly suspended during his 2020 nuisance-video era, and since then he has been active mainly on X (Twitter) under the handle @hezuruy, where he posts about his council work and deer patrols.