Rena Masuyama (増山麗奈). Writer, artist, journalist, painter, film director, left-wing activist, and all-round wacky woman. She was part of Momoiro Guerrilla, a performance group that did a "torture talk show" at Fuchu Art Museum in 2004, where she had a vibrator stuck up her pussy while she talked about the tragedy of war. Born in 1976, Masuyama performed body painting where she squirted milk from her lactating breasts over a live audience. She made many examples of provocative "breast milk" art, often clad in the kind of gear that the Hooters girls wear to work. And ...

Japanese politics is not a pretty sight. Lots of wrinkly men from powerful dynasties arguing over their factions and minor policies while ignoring the bigger issues. At night they take off to the expensive hostess clubs of Ginza and spend time with their younger mistresses. But there are a few lights in this world of darkness. One of them is the rather attractive Ayaka Shiomura, a 35-year-old politician for Setagaya in the Tokyo Assembly, one of the members of the left-leaning Your Party. Yesterday she was giving a speech to the Tokyo Assembly on improving government support for women ...