Everyone is different, everyone is good.
Yo, I'm Hana Kimura, the Funky Leader of TCS that makes you fall in love! Yes sir!
Hana Kimura (September 3, 1997 – May 23, 2020), was a Japanese professional wrestler who worked for World Wonder Ring ST★RDOM.
A second generation wrestler and the daughter of retired wrestler Kyoko Kimura, who also was her trainer and manager, Hana was one of the faces of STARDOM, leading her own faction titled the "Tokyo Cyber Squad" and winning diverse championships in the promotion. She also participated in other foreign promotions like Ring of Honor, Pro-Wrestling: EVE and some Mexican indie promotions.
Hana also was part of the last season of Netflix's Terrace House, being part of this reality show during 2020. However, she suffered intense cyberbullying after appearing in an episode where she was involved in a verbal conflict with a housemate for damaging her wrestling gear.note The relentless online abuse she faced sent her into a deep depression, and following a series of concerning tweets on May 23, 2020, she was found dead in her apartment that day at the age of 22. The death was officially ruled a suicide in December.
The news of Hana's death shocked the wrestling world, not just in her native Japan but in American promotions like WWE and AEW. Various ex-STARDOM female wrestlers including Io Shirai (now IYO SKY in WWE) and Kairi Sane (now KAIRI back in STARDOM) paid tribute to her, as well famous wrestlers who met her in Japan like Kenny Omega. Among reactions to the news, a recurring focus was put on mental health issues and the problem of cyberbullying, especially in Japan.
These tropes make you fall in love!
- Action Mom: Kyoko Kimura, Hana's mother, was a known wrestler that was part of diverse list of joshi puroresu promotions, and passing her last years in STARDOM with her daughter.
- Anti-Hero/Anti-Villain: Tokyo Cyber Squad as whole, with the exception Jungle Kyona. They love chaos and hate any authority they themselves didn't appoint. But they accept anyone so long as they can agree with those two points, and sometimes make exceptions to that as Kyona is evidence of, were dedicated to destroying the heels Stars were apparently too soft to handle and handled other faces on their own terms.
- Arch-Enemy: Mayu Iawatani was Hana Kimura's as soon as Hana's very first match in World Wonder Ring STARDOM. Mayu remained Hana's main rival in STARDOM even after Hana's Heel–Face Turn, although she was no longer the one Hana was most hostile towards.
- Bound and Gagged: Hana in Oedo~tai (along with Kagetsu) repeatedly tried to kidnap and or kill Mayu Iwatani, which included trying to bind and gag her with the streamers fans were throwing Iwatani's way.
- But Not Too Foreign: Hana had half-Indonesian descent for part of her father, who never met. She was bullied as a child because of her mixed ethnic heritage.
- The Cameo: Hana appeared in some music videos, first in Ena Fujita's "Dead Stroke"note in June 2020, and in Lalo the Don's "Til The Break of Don", recorded before the COVID-19 Pandemic and released on May 20 2021 as a Posthumous Collaboration.
- Commuting on a Bus: Hana had been appearing in STARDOM with Oedo~tai since the Summer of 2016. She got a lot of attention, what with her dancing, winning of title belts-holding the Goddess Of Stardom for nearly a year with Kagetsu in particular, and her determination to end the career of Iwatani, but Kagetsu was the official leader of Oedo~tai and Kimura wasn't officially considered part of the STARDOM roster until May of 2019. By then she had turned on Kagetsu and was in the process of taking over the International Army and turning it into the miscreant Tokyo Cyber Squad. Granted, Kagetsu herself had been in and out of STARDOM in 2016 before finally getting a roster spot and becoming the official Oedo~tai leader in 2017.
- Cyberbullying: After one discussion when she threw off the hat of some of her roommates in and episode of Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020, various hardcore fans of the show took this as a Berserk Button, who cyberbullied her for months, which sadly she couldn't handle well.
- Cyberpunk: Her last look was based on this aesthetics with bright neon clothes, a transparent katana with LED lights, a gas mask and her pink hair. Also her faction Tokyo Cyber Squad followed this trend with her members also looking in Cyberpunk style as her.
- Dancing Is Serious Business: To Hana anyway, dancing is worth prolonging a match, and breaking the rules of a dance off, even one she is not currently involved in, is a grave enough offense for her to send whatever Power Stable she is apart of after you. As Andras Miyagi found out, headbanging is not dance, Hana will take your legs for it.
- Dance-Off: Hana Kimura considered herself the best and sexiest dancer of Oedo~tai, but when La Rosa Negra returned to STARDOM, and Oedo~tai by extension Hana felt the need to "defend" her title and challenged La Rosa to a dance off. Being a spotlight craving hedonist, Hana decide to do this on a STARDOM show during a three on three tag team match, much to the annoyance of Oedo~tai's opponents...except Christi Jaynes, who tried to "enter" herself.
- Defeat Means Friendship: While Hana made some attempts, she never managed to become the manipulator Kyoko was, and had to earn the respect of many future subordinates by force, such as Jungle Kyona, Zoe Lucas
- Early-Bird Cameo: Hana started her career in Wrestle-1 in 2016, but years before that, she won the DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship one time on 2005, at a live event in Tokyo, then lost the title to her mother Kyoko.
- Evil Wears Black: When she joined Oedo~tai she decided to start wearing mostly black. This wasn't to show she had become evil, as she had done that before without narrowing her ring gear colors, but for the stable specifically. In fact she did the opposite and had evil dressed in all white thing going in Wrestle-1 for a time.
- Femme Fatale: Hana was confident in both her ability to entice as well as do damage. Unfortunately her wiles tended to fall flat on other straight women, or outright repulse in the case of Toni Storm.
- Fighting Your Friend: La Rosa Negra had two established tag team partners heading into Sendai Girls; Hana Kimura from Oedo~tai and Mio Momono from Mabutachi 2 Manji Manji. Rather than choose one it was decided to pair Mio and Hana, La Rosa with Heidi Katrina and see how well the new teams did. Kimura was as friendly as usual but Momono wasn't and the two suffered their mutual friend's wrath.
- Finishing Move: A grounded octopus stretch which she called the "Hydrangea".
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Jungle Kyona and Kairi Hojo/Sane, her best friends inside and outside STARDOM. Kyona was her right-hand in TCS and even winning tag team championships together, and with Kairi who didn't lose communication after she went to WWE and she was one of the first ones to get the news of her death.
- Hope Spot: Aja Kong drew out a match in Oz Academy longer than she had to specifically to send a message to Hana's mom Kyoko. When Hana managed to fight back however Kong stopped playing around and ended the match as soon as she could.
- Irrational Hatred: Hana Kimura's usual antics escalated to attempted kidnapping and murder when the subject became Mayu Iwatani. Things deescalated after Hana split off from Oedo~tai, though she still was very petty towards Iwatani and we never got an explanation for her compulsions.
- The Leader: Of her own faction, the Tokyo Cyber Squad.
- Legacy Character
- Hana followed the steps of her mother Kyoko Himura, another famous Japanese wrestler who also joined STARDOM in their beginnings as a wrestler and later as a manager of her daughter. Specifically, Oedo~tai was initially Kyoko Kimura's Monster Gun before Act Yasukawa took over the stable and wanted it to reflect the last great era of samurai, since she was obsessed with them. Though the name change stuck, leadership defaulted back to Kyoko when Act Yasukawa had an unexpectedly early retirement and it was believed Kagetsu would cede leadership to Hana once Hana was ready but Hana and Kagetsu ended up having a falling out, leading Hana to infiltrated and takeover International Army. This still worked though, given Kyoko's original purpose for Monster Gun was recruiting the nastiest wrestlers from around the world to takeover STARDOM, though Hana's Tokyo Cyber Squad ended up being less despotic. They went out of their way to be the center of attention, but would otherwise let the promotion and its wrestlers do what they wanted, only really becoming excessively violent against the heels they felt invited it.
- Hana's slimmer build, more underhanded less openly rule breaking wrestling style, her general focus on showmanship, desire for attention, falling out with two group members before taking over another and the Ornamental Weapon also made Hana a successor to Act Yasukawa, at least as far as her appearances in World Wonder Ring STARDOM, but since Yasukawa was a STARDOM exclusive wrestler it wouldn't make much sense to imitate her anywhere else anyway.
- Reality TV Show Mansion: Hana became a Reality TV star after her appearance in Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020 as part of the inhabitants of his mansion, being one the few famous stars that appeared in the show in their history. And one of the last ones, since after her death and the polemic surrounds her, the show was cancelled indefinitely.
- Red Baron: "Dangerous Flower"
- The Rival
- Before she her debut Hana Kimura had rivalry with Reika Saiki in Wrestl-1's Pro Wrestling University, that continued until Saiki's retirement when they graduated as professional wrestlers. Reika was an interesting foil, being much shorter but much more muscular than Hana.
- In JWP her main rival was Yako Fujigasaki, who provided the same visual foil as Reika, but in this case Yako was the comparative veteran against an upstart Hana.
- After Iwatani, her next biggest rival in STARDOM was HZK, though it was a bit one sided. HZK usually served as a sacrificial lamb to be beaten up by Hana and avenged by someone else, or a Ricky Morton trying to get away from Hana and the other Oedo~tai members. This didn't change too much after Hana left Oedo~tai and turned face while HZK became Kagetsu's minion.
- Kagetsu in STARDOM as well. Not as often in the ring as with HZK but they were associated with each other for as long as they were both in the company, started out as fast friends and gradually transitioning to bitter rivals.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: In her final years, she dyed her hair as pink. But apart of that, she was really a sweetie and one of the most beloved wrestlers in STARDOM.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Tokyo Cyber Squad as whole, stealing the show usually taken by other established stables like Stars and Donna del Mondo. Also Hana in her time as Heel in Oedo Tai.
- Tag Team: With Jungle Kyona, and also with her mother Kyoko in her first years as wrestler.
- The Tooth Hurts: She and Kris Wolf tried to pull out Christi Jaynes's teeth for making physical contact during a dance off, a sin in Hana's eyes.
- Tournament Arc: Defeated Konami in the finals of the 2019 Five Star Grand Prix
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Sumire Natsu tries to be as vile and ruthless as Kagetsu, but she's incompetent. Kagetsu likes Sumire anyway and that tolerance started the schism between Kagetsu and Hana Kimura, as Kimura and Tam Nakano had much less patience for the dysfunction Natsu brought to Oedo~tai.
- Villainous Legacy: Subverted in World Wonder Ring Stardom, where her career followed many of the same beats as her mother Kyoko as well as Kyoko's lackey turned boss Act Yasukawa, but even though she started in the company being almost as bad as they were, or worse if you were Mayu Iwatani, Hana ended up taking on the more positive traits of her International Army stable mates and became a reflection of what Kyoko and Act both could have been like as baby faces, rather than The Corrupter and corrupted, respectively.
- We Were Your Team: Tokyo Cyber Squad was one of the most known and beloved factions of STARDOM lead by Hana. After her death in 2020, the stable broke up a couple of months later, with their members going to Stars and Oedo Tai.
- Wrestling Family: Her step father Isao Kobayashi is also a professional wrestler and mixed martial artist. She and Kyoko have even teamed up alongside him.
- You Don't Look Like You: Hana had various changes of look during her career, including being a Geisha, a military and a cyberpunk warrior, as others.
