Election broadcasts are a bit of a circus in Japan. Legally, the public broadcaster NHK is obliged to show them and this is why so many fringe and wacky candidates ultimately pay to stand for election, because it means they're guaranteed several minutes of fame. This year is particularly strange with the July election for Tokyo governor, since there are so many candidates (but only two or three serious ones). Already, the "poster hijacks" by the NHK Party, which has sold its candidates' slots to anyone willing to pay, have generated lots of attention, as have the nude images of a woman on ...

Japanese politics can be a dull affair. That's why when a candidate puts himself forward for consideration by the voting public in all his naked glory, people take notice. Teruki Goto is standing in the April 26 Chiyoda ward assembly elections in central Tokyo. His campaign poster features his posing naked against a backdrop of imperialist iconography. Images via GetNews.jp His rambling website seems to place Goto firmly in the ultra-nationalist camp, though we wonder what the uyoku think about his nude antics. The thirtysomething wannabe politico has stood before as an independent ...