Japan General Discussion: You Gotta Be Kishid-ing Me

[NewYorkExpress]

Suga has appointed Tetsushi Sakamoto as Minister of Loneliness.

The Japanese prime minister has appointed a “minister of loneliness” to his cabinet in response to a recent rise in suicides.

As The Japan Times reported, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga created the role in early February, taking after the U.K., which created its own such role in 2018.

Tetsushi Sakamoto will take on the role, the Times reported, while also handling the country’s falling birth rates and regional economies.


Figures from the National Police Agency showed that 20,919 people committed suicide in 2020, a 750-person increase from the previous year and the first consecutive rise in suicides in 11 years, the Times reported. According to the outlet, the surge is most noticeable among women and young people.

Suga said to the country's budget committee earlier this month that people from all walks of life are vulnerable, the Times reported.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Suga has appointed Tetsushi Sakamoto as Minister of Loneliness.

The Japanese prime minister has appointed a “minister of loneliness” to his cabinet in response to a recent rise in suicides.

As The Japan Times reported, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga created the role in early February, taking after the U.K., which created its own such role in 2018.

Tetsushi Sakamoto will take on the role, the Times reported, while also handling the country’s falling birth rates and regional economies.


Figures from the National Police Agency showed that 20,919 people committed suicide in 2020, a 750-person increase from the previous year and the first consecutive rise in suicides in 11 years, the Times reported. According to the outlet, the surge is most noticeable among women and young people.

Suga said to the country's budget committee earlier this month that people from all walks of life are vulnerable, the Times reported.

Interesting move. I hope it can have a positive material impact.

[Frodo]

I admit to having some instinctive anxiety, but nonetheless I am glad Japan is stepping forward to carry more of its weight in our alliance even if it means they ultimately abandon their post-war pacifism entirely:

Japan to Build a More Powerful Military, Citing China as Its No. 1 Menace

[PSOL]

Moving from soft to hard power dominance of your vassals is never a good thing. Japan’s moves will just be used to threaten democracy and peace abroad, just as it’s business deals and economic “aid”/bribes do so in Latin America and—recently topical—Burma.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I admit to having some instinctive anxiety, but nonetheless I am glad Japan is stepping forward to carry more of its weight in our alliance even if it means they ultimately abandon their post-war pacifism entirely:

Japan to Build a More Powerful Military, Citing China as Its No. 1 Menace

Japan has been steadily increasing its military budget since the early 2010s. This is a continuation of a long-continuing policy on part of Japanese lawmakers and in fact in many ways the hawkish rhetoric of Shinzo Abe in the 2012 general election campaign re: the Senkaku/Diayo islands anticipated the current climate in the region.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Changed the thread title after Frodo's necro.

[Frodo]

Changed the thread title after Frodo's necro.

I am not kidding.  This is a 'Japan General Discussion' thread, an all-encompassing umbrella title with no expiration date that I am aware of.  And the article I posted is a perfectly valid reason to necro it.  Are you suggesting otherwise?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Changed the thread title after Frodo's necro.

I am not kidding.  This is a 'Japan General Discussion' thread, an all-encompassing umbrella title with no expiration date that I am aware of.  And the article I posted is a perfectly valid reason to necro it.  Are you suggesting otherwise?

No, I didn't mean that as a veiled criticism, don't worry. I'm actually glad you bumped this thread, but it has been a long time; the previous title was a pun on the previous Prime Minister's name so I changed it to a pun on the current one's. It wasn't supposed to be directed at you; sorry.

[NewYorkExpress]

Reconstruction Minister Kenya Akiba is out, becomes the fourth Minister to resign or be sacked in the past two months.

Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has ended the year facing fierce political headwinds after his reconstruction minister became the fourth member of his scandal-hit cabinet to resign in two months.

Kenya Akiba announced his resignation on Tuesday after opposition MPs accused him of election law violations and of having ties to the Unification church, a controversial religious group whose connections to the ruling party have sent Kishida’s approval ratings to record lows.

Akiba joins Daishiro Yamagiwa (Economic Reconciliation), Yasuhiro Hanashi (Justice), and Minoru Terada (Internal Affairs) as having been forced out since October.

[CumbrianLefty]

So its all going well, then?

[NewYorkExpress]

Kishida has fired an aide who said he did not want to look at same-sex couples.

The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has sacked an aide who said he would not want to live next to LGBTQ+ couples and that people would flee Japan if same-sex marriage was permitted.

In remarks reported by local media, Masayoshi Arai, an economy and trade official who joined Kishida’s staff as a secretary in October, said he did not even want to look at same-sex couples.

“His comments are outrageous and completely incompatible with the administration’s policies,” Kishida said on Saturday, in remarks aired by the public broadcaster NHK.

[NewYorkExpress]

Kishida is in hot water for stating that Japan's ban on same-sex marriage is not discriminatory.

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has been criticised for saying the country's ban on same-sex marriage is not discriminatory.

Weeks ago, he apologised to the LGBTQ community over homophobic comments made by an aide who has since been sacked.

Mr Kishida's party is under growing pressure to improve LGBTQ rights, as more Japanese support same-sex marriage.

Japan remains the only G7 country that doesn't recognise such unions.

When asked by an opposition lawmaker if the country's existing law constituted discrimination, the PM said on Tuesday: "I don't think disallowing same-sex couples to marry is unjust discrimination by the state."

The prime minister also reiterated his position on Wednesday that a ban on same-sex marriage is "not unconstitutional" but said his stand should not be seen as a form of discrimination.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I mean, of course a ban on same-sex marriage isn't unconstitutional in Japan. In fact the Japanese Constitution expressly presupposes that marriage is between a man and a woman because of how the ban on forced marriage is worded. But that doesn't mean that the lack of any kind of recognition for same-sex couples (other than some local- and prefectural-level stuff that's helpful in terms of visitation rights etc. but not really enforceable--on that front there has actually been a ton of movement lately) isn't discriminatory.

[NewYorkExpress]

Twelve Years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, an area southwest of the plant in Tomioka has had it's evacuation order lifted.

Japan has officially reopened part of a town evacuated 12 years ago in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The area of Tomioka, southwest of the wrecked Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, was evacuated following the disaster in March 2011.


Its reopening was celebrated on Saturday, in time for the popular cherry blossom season.

Former residents and visitors celebrated as they strolled along a street known as "the cherry blossoms tunnel".

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also joined a ceremony to mark the reopening.

"The lifting of the evacuation is by no means a final goal, but the start of the recovery," Mr Kishida said at the ceremony.

He also pledged to keep working to lift all remaining no-go zones.

[Meclazine for Israel]

It's been 12 years, so maybe it's safe again.

[NewYorkExpress]

Someone tried to kill Kishida today in Wakayama. He's okay, one police officer is injured.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was evacuated unharmed Saturday after someone threw an explosive device in his direction while he was campaigning at a fishing port in western Japan, officials said. Police wrestled a suspect to the ground as screaming bystanders scrambled to get away and smoke filled the air.

One police officer was slightly hurt and Kishida continued campaigning Saturday, but the chaotic scene was reminiscent of the assassination nine months ago of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which also came on a campaign tour and continues to reverberate in Japanese politics. Kishida was visiting Saikazaki port in Wakayama prefecture to support his ruling party’s candidate in a local election, and the explosion occurred just before he was to begin his speech.

A young man believed to be a suspect was arrested Saturday at the scene after he allegedly threw “the suspicious object,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters. Matsuno refused to comment on the suspect’s motive and background, saying police are still investigating.

TV footage shows Kishida standing with his back to the crowd. His security detail suddenly points to the ground near him, and the prime minister whips around, looking alarmed. The camera quickly turns to the crowd just as several people, including uniformed and plainclothes police officers, converge on a young man wearing a white surgical mask and holding what appears to be another device, a long silver tube.

As they collapse on top of the man, working to remove the tube from his hands, a large explosion is heard near where Kishida had been standing. The crowd scatters in panic as police roughly drag the man away.

It wasn’t immediately clear what the explosive device was or how many the suspect had, but some reports said it was a smoke or pipe bomb, possibly with a delayed fuse

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Your odds of being murdered in Japan are extremely low if you're not a Prime Minister.

[CumbrianLefty]

And if you are tbf - who was the last one before Abe?

[Logical]

And if you are tbf - who was the last one before Abe?

PM Inukai was assassinated by ultranationalists in 1932. His death marked the final end of Taisho democracy and civilian control of the military in interbellum Japan.

[NewYorkExpress]

Kishida has sacked his son Shotaro from his position as his political secretary following reports of inappropriate behavior at a December Party at the Prime Minister's official residence.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s eldest son, Shotaro Kishida, will be removed from his position as his father’s political secretary on Thursday, following media reports about a year-end party at the prime minister’s official residence last December that featured controversial behavior.

Images of Shotaro Kishida and relatives having photos taken at symbolically important locations in the residence, including at the staircase used to unveil the last Cabinet as they mimicked members of the political body, surfaced in the media last week. The government had initially reacted by saying that the prime minister had reprimanded his son for inappropriate behavior, but had no intention to dismiss him.

The prime minister has taken responsibility for his son’s appointment.

“I will fulfill my responsibilities by listening carefully to the voice of the people and striving to tackle issues that cannot be postponed,” the prime minister told reporters Monday.

Fumio Kishida said that his son’s behavior was inappropriate for a political secretary, and that given the situation in his constituency in Hiroshima has settled down following the Group of Seven leaders summit in the city, he thought this was the best timing.

From Thursday, Takayoshi Yamamoto, a long-term secretary of the prime minister who is currently working as personal secretary in Fumio Kishida’s lawmaker’s office and served as political secretary during the prime minister’s first year in office, will take over the position from Shotaro Kishida.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I have discussed the city of Yubari before. This is a video someone made about it, visiting the city. (CC for close captions, auto-translate into English) Also, a ton of it is visual and thus accessible even without Japanese knowledge.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Japan's top court says trans surgery requirement is unconstitutional
The Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to require citizens to be sterilised before they can officially change genders.

Congrats to Japan, they managed to make progress on an issue that we're sliding back on.

Albeit they were literally requiring trans people to be sterilized before receiving recognition, which is crazy. But here's to hoping it's part of a broader trend, which is my hunch from the other movement we've seen even on the prefectural levels.

[jaichind]

Japan's top court says trans surgery requirement is unconstitutional
The Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to require citizens to be sterilised before they can officially change genders.

Congrats to Japan, they managed to make progress on an issue that we're sliding back on.

Albeit they were literally requiring trans people to be sterilized before receiving recognition, which is crazy. But here's to hoping it's part of a broader trend, which is my hunch from the other movement we've seen even on the prefectural levels.

Just to be clear.  This is about the Family Registration Certificate.  To legally be recognized as a different gender still require transition surgery.