"You can't risk your life," said Natsuaki Fusano, a senior managing director of Keidanren, a business lobbying organization. Dealing with the sokaiya, he said, has become "a matter of violence, not a matter of sincere discussion."

Actually, the chances of anyone's being hurt or killed are quite small. At the annual meetings, sokaiya rarely do anything more than fulminate and occasionally throw a bottle or two. Only certain executives at certain companies are worried, not all of Corporate Japan. .

Still, the police are making a big show of toughness this year. With all the police around, "it will be like a shareholders meeting under curfew," said Hideaki Kubori, a lawyer who helps companies fight gangsters. Making Arrests

Last week, in a pre-emptive strike, the police arrested several notorious sokaiya. One was hauled in on charges of registering a car under a false name. Another was charged with calling up the president of a stationery company and telling him to "beg for your life."

Sokaiya -- the name comes from "sokai," Japanese for general meeting -- thrive in Japan because shareholders have relatively little say in running a company and little information about corporate affairs. Executives place a premium on holding an annual meeting that runs smoothly and takes no more than an hour.

The sokaiya, who buy shares in a company so they can attend the meeting, take advantage of this executive attitude. Unless the company pays them off, they threaten to disrupt the meeting by asking embarrassing questions about the company's strategic blunders, the misuse of company money or the romantic dalliances of executives. Companies are also pressed into subscribing to worthless magazines peddled by sokaiya at prices as high as $100 an issue.

Since the enactment of a 1982 law banning such payoffs, the number of people involved in sokaiya activities is estimated to have shrunk from more than 7,000 to about 1,200. But it is clear that many companies still deal with them.