Japanese politics is politer and more understated than most.
It’s perhaps the reason that Western audiences do not always pay a huge amount of attention.
But something feels different this time, and that’s largely down to the woman at the centre of this story; the drum-playing, Trump-hugging, China-provoking prime minister who has raised the stakes for both Japan and the region.
In central Tokyo, just a few hours before polls opened in the snap election she called, hundreds of people crowded into a small local park to see Sanae Takaichi.
Supporters at a rally
Despite the bitterly cold temperatures and the fact that many struggled to see her over the sea of heads, there was a sense that something significant was unfolding.
“I was just passing,” one woman told me, “but I couldn’t not stop to see her!”
There is no disputing the fact that Takaichi is just different to those who have gone before her.
She’s a former heavy metal drummer and motorbike rider, and she is happy to jump around the stage at rallies and sing to visiting foreign leaders (Italy’s Giorgia Meloni was greeted with a rousing happy birthday).
Her outsized character in a scene historically so male and so dry has led to soaring personal approval ratings, 2.6 million followers on X and a one-year wait to buy her signature black handbag.
Not to mention the reversal of fortunes seen by her struggling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP): it now looks set to take a majority in Japan’s Lower House, just four months after she assumed the leadership in the wake of her unpopular predecessor’s resignation.
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A cardboard cutout of Sanae Takaichi
A hat worn by supporters has ‘Sanai’, Takaichi’s first name, written on the back and ‘Japan is back’ on the front
Japan’s ‘Iron Lady’ will pursue conservative vision if she wins
But she’s also far from the liberal champion many might have hoped for in the country’s first female leader; she is, in fact, ultra conservative.
She’s anti gay marriage and a vocal defender of traditional gender roles; she sees Margaret Thatcher as a role model and has leant into a rising feeling of “foreigner fatigue” in Japan, directed both at immigrants and tourists.
If she secures her own mandate at Sunday’s election, it is this conservative vision that she will be pursuing.
The ‘battle bus’ drumming up support for Takaichi
‘She’s like a friendly neighbour or sister’
In her hometown of Nara, they think that is a good thing.
Here, a small minivan has been converted into a “battle bus” of sorts, and her dedicated team of supporters are driving it around the traditional streets, asking locals to sign it, calling her name through the megaphones and asking for their votes.
“She’s like a friendly neighbour or sister,” one old man tells us as he remembers her starting out in politics.
This man describes Takaichi as a ‘friendly neighbour’
‘She is simply doing what is necessary to protect Japan’
When I ask one of her team what he makes of her conservative views, he simply responds: “Rather than labelling it conservatism, I think she is simply doing what is necessary to protect Japan.”
Of course, in any election, domestic policy is a focus; she favours tax cuts and increased public spending to boost a sluggish economy.
But the area of her policy that has brought the most attention and the most ire has been her approach to foreign policy and, particularly, her approach to China.
A member of her team says Takaichi was ‘doing what is necessary to protect Japan’
This voter in Nara says he has been supporting Takaichi for 20 years
Support from Trump
According to its constitution, Japan is still a pacifist country, and it has thus long relied on the US for its security.
Takaichi has made a particular point of cosying up to Donald Trump’s America; his visit to Japan last year was notable for the excess of its warmth, and Trump has actively endorsed her campaign.
But she has also been highly hawkish in her attitudes to Japan’s largest and most powerful neighbour.
The two were already set to be at odds; Takaichi’s plan to spend more on and build up Japan’s military is a deeply sore point in China, which suffered enormously at its hands during the Second World War.
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The prime minister’s supporters at a rally
Mixed feelings about standing up to China
But things plunged to a new low in November when she said that a Chinese attack on the island of Taiwan (a self-governing democracy that China sees as a breakaway province) would amount to an “existential threat” to Japan, and it would have the right to intervene militarily.
The comments have caused outrage in China, drawing a raft of damaging retaliations, from the banning of the imports of Japanese seafood to restrictions on its access to crucial rare metals and a pointed suggestion that Chinese travellers should avoid it.
Relations are at their lowest ebb for over a decade, and while some Japanese are happy to see their leader stand up to China, others are anxious.
“Seeing China imposing economic sanctions, it proves how thoughtless her remarks were,” one man at her rally tells me. “It’s definitely more dangerous.”
Takaichi has been targeted by Chinese state media
A man addressed Takaichi’s Taiwan remarks at her rally
The reality is that for all the Instagrammable moments, Takaichi’s stance on China might well be the key issue that plagues and potentially even defines her leadership; it is not a disagreement that the Chinese will just let go.
Japan’s lean to the right under a Takaichi-style nationalism might well bring a renewed sense of pride to some, but it could also bring a new jeopardy to all.
