Chisato Morishita wins election, becomes Japan’s hottest politician

The polls closed in Japan on Sunday and the votes are in, but the results are inconclusive: the Liberal Democratic Party has lost its House of Representatives majority for the first time in 15 years, but neither did any of the opposition parties win a majority. Things are now in flux as the LDP attempts to build a coalition so it can form a government.

One thing’s for sure, though: Japan’s new hottest politician is duly elected Chisato Morishita.

The 43-year-old singleton has succeeded in her second attempt at becoming a lawmaker, having previously lost in 2021.

The former race queen, gravure model, and occasional actress was a big name in the 2000s and attempted a comeback in the late 2010s, but these days has focused on her political aspirations and working as a university educator.

She won a seat for the LDP on the proportional representation vote in her constituency in Miyagi Prefecture (despite being from Nagoya). She moved to Ishinomaki three years ago to embark upon this second career while making ends meet as a Pilates trainer, golf teacher, and more.

It still feels strange to see her looking “respectable” in dark pantsuits instead of the more revealing attire she usually wore in her prior career, but this is her new uniform, so to speak, and she wears it well.

As she now wanders the corridors of power in Kasumigaseki, we imagine she’s going to get a lot of looks from her colleagues, who are mostly much older men. (Sunday’s election saw a record 73 women elected, though that’s only 16% of lawmakers.)

Despite its staid reputation, the LDP’s nature as big tent party and position as the ruling party in Japan for almost all of the past decades means it attracts celebrities who want to move into politics. This includes attractive women who we might assume have other options, like former Speed singer Eriko Imai, who is a member of the House of Councillors, though her political career has been hit by scandal. How will Chisato Morishita’s career turn out?