Random observations from a Parisian in Tokyo: It's Tokyo prefecture governor election this weekend, and some candidates are just memes.
There's a Samurai and a Joker. The joker says he wants to legalize cannabis and rename the Shibuya district to "drug-addict" district.
As far as I understand, Japanese people are fairly politically apathetic and abstention is very high.
Not that I could vote even if I did still live in Tokyo. A couple of areas allow for foreign PR holders to vote for local things, but Tokyo does not allow it for the metro level.
I don't really know this guy's politics, but it is interesting to see what issues people are opening. Of course, it will only show a subset of even eligible voters, but it's still neat to read through and see what various constituents are thinking.
As best I can tell, the samurai guy shares a name with one of the legendary 47 ronin and often leads a procession about it. It's hard to find actual policy positions.
https://onodera.akogishi.com/rinen/ appears to be the party platform which is ... odd. The filial piety/loyalty thing is a big yikes for me in most interpretations, but maybe it's more innocent than I'm reading into it (it is pretty vague in at least the couple minutes I had to poke around).
There are vans with speakers shouting political slogans including the pro-emperor xenophobic nationalists.
I was very surprised that this practice is allowed in the country of politeness.