We reported earlier this summer on the silly circus that was the Tokyo gubernatorial election, with a female candidate stripping off during her TV broadcast and another using pornographic posters that police ordered to be taken down.
One of the slightly more serious candidates, at least in terms of mainstream fame, was Toshio Tamogami, who finished fourth with 3.9% and around 270,000 votes.
The right-wing former Air Self-Defense Force general has stood for election several times, never winning public office but using the campaigns to maintain his profile and platform as a nationalist ...
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 ...
A candidate for the upcoming Tokyo governor election is using a naked female model on his campaign posters.
Yusuke Kawai's schtick is cosplaying as the Joker and doing provocative stuff, though this might be the most extreme of all his stunts to date.
The model is Miu Sakurai, a gyaru model, music idol (with the group Devilsis), and race queen who has appeared in beauty contests and who appears to have Filipino roots. She describes herself as the "world's top will-do-anything gyaru" and has also been helping Kawai put up the posters of her naked body on boards around Tokyo.
Various ...
We have written before about political candidate Yukiko Kaname, who is hoping to win election one day as a Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker.
Having failed to win a seat in 2022, the sex-positive feminist Kaname is undeterred and her main campaigning revolves around key issues related to equality for sex workers.
With a Lower House election likely to happen this year, the 47-year-old Kaname is still working hard to make a name for herself among potential voters.
She recently stirred up controversy by promising a since-deleted tweet to ask the prime minister if he has ever ...
In March, we wrote about the former Self-Defense Force nurse and sex worker running for election for a local assembly in Tokyo this month.
Hasumin Yoshikawa has promised to debut in porn after the poll, whether she wins a seat or not.
Well, her party, the anti-NHK fringe right-wing populist Politician Girls 48 Party (aka Political Party Girls 48), has become mired in in-fighting among its leadership and accusations about misappropriate use of party funds, but Yoshikawa continues to campaign in Setagaya. In fact, we even received one of her pamphlets through our letterbox at the Tokyo ...
Last week, we wrote about the Politician Girls 48 Party (aka Political Party Girls 48), the latest incarnation of an anti-NHK fringe right-wing populist party. The candidates are all female and feature many former idols, models, and minor celebrities.
Now, as the party fields candidates in various upcoming local elections, more details have emerged about its prospective lawmakers.
In April, Hasumin Yoshikawa is standing for a seat in the Setagaya City Assembly election. Setagaya, incidentally, is where the Tokyo Kinky offices are located. It's a large, mostly residential part of Tokyo known ...
It's election season, which always brings out the weirdos all competing to be the next governor of Tokyo. On the same day, there are also by-elections in two of Tokyo's special wards and two other districts to select Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly representatives to make up for assembly members who are standing down for some reason.
So far we have seen one candidate dressed in anime cosplay to promote his campaign. The same candidate, Teruki Goto, once had a poster that featured his half-naked body.
The much-maligned Abenomasks -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's personally launched initiative that ...
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 ...
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 ...
