Election candidate condemns public broadcaster NHK for “car sex”

It’s election season in Japan, which means posters of candidates everywhere as well as election broadcasts on TV. Pretty soon the streets will be filled with the soundscape of the trucks trundling around, calling out the local candidates’ names to all and sundry.

As always, though, it’s the more unusual candidates vying for a well-paid position in the House of Councillors that make the most impact in a gray field.

Takashi Tachibana is standing for election as a member of the Party to Protect the People from NHK (NHKから国民を守る党) — a long-running libertarian-esque stance that opposes NHK for legally compelling people to pay for it.

In his recent party political broadcast, he went on a rant condemning the national public broadcasting organization NHK.

Incredibly, this was shown on NHK itself, which has to allow these political broadcasts to go out uncensored and unedited.

One reason for Tachibana’s hatred of the broadcaster, though, seemed a bit out of the blue. “NHK’s presenters have car sex!” he declared. Huh?

No one was named in Tachibana’s speech but a little online research revealed that he was talking about Mina Hayakawa (早川美奈), who was snapped having sex in a car with Takanobu Saito, a fellow “announcer” from a local branch of NHK in Kofu. Photos emerged in the tabloid Shukan Friday in July 2016. They both lost their jobs over the affair, not least because Saito was married.