mytest
Books, eBooks, and more from Debito Arudou, Ph.D. (click on icon):
UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
DEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
“LIKE” US on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/debitoorg
https://www.facebook.com/embeddedrcsmJapan
http://www.facebook.com/handbookimmigrants
https://www.facebook.com/JapaneseOnlyTheBook
https://www.facebook.com/BookInAppropriate
If you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:
All donations go towards website costs only. Thanks for your support!
Hi Blog. Here’s my latest column on the Japan Upper House Elections last month, developing something I wrote before the elections. I’ve decided that, despite all the feedback on Debito.org saying we should be alarmed, I’m offering a shrug. Hear me out, below. I look forward to more of your feedback. Debito Arudou, Ph.D.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
THE JULY 2025 *RIGHTWARD-SWING” ELECTION IS OVERBLOWN
Yes, there is a new far-right party in Japan. But at this point the media hype about Sanseito is sensationalism, as what it’s offering is neither new nor well-planned.
By Debito Arudou, Shingetsu News Agency Visible Minorities column 69, August 24, 2025
By the time I had completed my column last month, Japan had its July 20, 2025, Upper House Elections. They deserve comment in this space, but not for the reasons you might expect.
The major takeaway was the ruling conservative parties (the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito) lost seats, while the opposition parties on the right, left, and center generally gained.
Notably, for the first time since the LDP was founded in 1955, the party lost its ruling majority in both the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament. This meant they had to expand their coalition to stay in power. Which they did—Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba stayed PM.
So my read is that we’ll have to wait and see whether Japan’s parliamentary system will become as fragile as, say, Postwar Italy’s has been, with elections every few months (until recently) as coalitions fail.
My read is pretty milquetoast. But that’s not what the media shouted about.
SANSEITO AS THE NEXT BIG POLITICAL MOVEMENT?
The headlines were dominated by the rise of new far-right party called Sanseito, a “burgeoning” “election force” that “won big” and became “the talk of the town”.
Sanseito nakedly trumpeted Trump themes by campaigning on a *Japan First* strategy, singling out foreigners as the cause of Japan’s woes, and promising all manner of xenophobic policies to further disenfranchise, penalize, limit if not expel Non-Japanese. Their essential point is that foreign residents aren’t real members of Japanese society—even if they naturalize—and should never be entitled to equal access to the things they pay taxes for or are guaranteed under the constitution.
Now, one would expect that I would be “doing a Debito” here, megaphoning from the rooftops about a new era where Japan is becoming fascist.
But I’m actually going to argue the froth is a bit overblown. I won’t go so far as to tell people to ignore Sanseito, but this election is more a case study of media hype than of a definitive political shift. Because Sanseito is saying nothing new and still has no real power.
SANSEITO GAINED SEATS, BUT…
First, let’s start with a sense of scale. Sanseito is now at 15 seats in the Upper House, up from only a single seat before the election. It did punch above its weight in terms of total votes from constituencies and proportional representation votes. But that’s really the strongest case you can make for a new rightward swing in Japan.
But in terms of raw numbers, in a chamber of 248 seats, Sanseito only occupies six percent of them. It still remains only the sixth largest party in the Upper House. That’s not really power-broker or even swing-voter status yet. They can’t, for example, submit budget bills involving public spending until they reach 20 seats.
Second, bear in mind that the Upper House is the less powerful of the two chambers anyway. In my experience, the Lower House is where the serious politicians dwell and have tugs-of-war with the ministerial mandarins, who are the real policymakers in Japan. The Upper House, however, is where the celebrity, larker, clown, and dilettante candidates have some fun before they rubber-stamp what’s tossed up to them.
That means that Sanseito is right where they belong—in the clown-car fringe-party zone that every developed parliamentary system provides venting voters.
SANSEITO IS IN FACT NOT SAYING ANYTHING NEW
Sanseito has indeed said outlandish (and outright false) things about the foreign element in Japan, proffering propaganda that is hateful, overt, and unabashed. I have no doubt that if in power, they would relish sticking it to anyone who doesn’t fall under their definition of *true Japanese* (including ideologically). They are not merely authoritarians who want to dominate by any means necessary. They are fascists, in that they imbue their populism with racist and ethnocentric ideologies, and they would dismantle democracy with a smile.
But I’ve written about Japan’s politicians for decades now, and for all of Sanseito’s racist statements, every single one of them I’ve seen in other parties and candidates, both in slogans during elections and while in office afterwards. Bigotry was always intrinsic, for example, to ruling LDP policy proposals (recall Nippon Kaigi in the highest echelons of elected government), and it went down easily with the fearful and ignorant.
Now recall how blatantly racist former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara was, and re-elected to power for decades. Then factor in the decades of prejudicial performance art in prefectural representatives, city mayors, neighborhood associations, local assemblies, etc. Unlike Sanseito, these people were in positions of real power to craft actual xenophobic public policies. And they did.
And how about the regularized racial profiling and search-and-seizure powers (sometimes with deadly force) of the Japanese police? The local businesses putting up unconstitutional yet completely legal “Japanese Only” signs? The unfettered racist landlords who make every apartment hunt an ordeal for Visible Minorities? And the constant drumbeat of “We Japanese* exclusionary narratives in Japanese media?
That’s why you get constant alienation as the rule rather than the exception in Japan, whether as part of political sloganeering or merely as part of daily life for Japan’s foreign residents.
In other words, it’s not much of a leap from *Japanese Only* to *Japan First*—either in terms of content or intent.
Given that “Japanese Only” signs have been around verifiably since 1992, and Japan still hasn’t made them illegal despite signing international treaty in 1996, I could argue that Sanseito have been laggards, behind the curve for more than thirty years.
My point is that Sanseito is nothing new. What’s new is the LDP is now being seen as part of the problem by Japan’s reactionaries.
It was the government’s bright idea to bring in all those foreigners as laborers and tourists to man convenience stores and shake Japan’s moneymaker.
But I’m not being sarcastic here. It was a bright idea. “Cool Japan” etc. has been a resounding success. The Japanese economy has grown so dependent on foreign inflow that even the LDP has changed its tune, denouncing discrimination and prejudice (while also tossing out some right-wing chum to lure some votes away during the election). Clearly that strategy didn’t work.
WHO’S MORE WORRIED ABOUT SANSEITO? THE MEDIA
So Sanseito’s rise isn’t altogether unexpected. It’s what you get when voters feel their regular valve for voting their regular pet grievances has disappeared. It’s a protest vote.
But it’s not clear this is a bellwether of a sustainable social movement, as plenty of dead parties in Japanese politics can attest.
So why did we get the big headlines? Because of the rise of the Global Far Right.
America, despite being the world’s flagship “arsenal of democracy,” is turning fascist.
Accordingly, hot-fingered journalists are asking whether Japan is the next domino of rising xenophobic parties, as seen in Hungary’s Orban, Italy’s Meloni, Britain’s Brexit, Netherlands’ Wilders, France’s Le Pen, Germany’s AfD, or India’s Modi.
Yet, as argued above, Japan’s politics has been politically ethnostatist for decades. It’s just now the media has a peg and a fringe party to hang their articles on.
So despite all that, Sanseito still has no real power to change anything. Yet.
WHEN SHOULD WE WORRY ABOUT SANSEITO?
As noted by scholars of how modern democracies die (see for example Levitsky and Ziblatt’s groundbreaking work), we should fear political pendulum swings when the pendulum cannot swing back, i.e., when the opposition can never take a turn again at leadership because they have been systemically shut out of power forever.
This happens when the anti-democrats voted into office have concrete plans for domination, not just populist slogans.
For example, they make unconstitutional activities legal by targeting people’s civil rights, “capture referees” by stacking judiciaries and politicizing the civil service, sideline the opposition by portraying political rivals as evil and unentitled to power, and dismantle institutions offering checks and balances that fetter fascists with the rule of law.
Sanseito is nowhere near that threshold of planning. They have scribbled out some rewarmed prewar ideas about constitutional reforms and enforcing patriotism (again, all LDP policies that didn’t cause such alarm before), and some populist slogans about restoring traditional family values, lowering taxes, excluding foreigners, restoring the primacy of the Emperor, etc.
Yes, some worrisome stuff incompatible with a modern democracy. But it’s nothing as workable as the U.S. Heritage Foundation’s 920-page “Project 2025.” Read it sometime and see how granular it is.
Plus if Sanseito went from fringe to real power, they would have to face the formidable Japanese bureaucracy, which has steered Japan basically from its inception. It’s even more siloed and impenetrable than the one Trump is dismantling.
That’s why, even in Japan’s one-party state, Japan’s Diet Members do not draft policy. Even PM Cabinet Members are expected to listen to what’s going on in their ministries but never touch the controls. You’d need a lot of pages in your Project 2025 to tackle that.
THE NEXT STEPS: BIRDS OF A FEATHER
What is worrisome is that in Sanseito, finally the Global Far Right has someone they can relate to.
Both Trump and Steve Bannon tried hobnobbing with their far-right hero, former PM Shinzo Abe, and only got so far. After all, in terms of staying in power, Japan’s LDP is the most successful political party in any liberal democracy, and as such is as institutionalized as the mandarins at maintaining the status quo.
But the next steps are in progress. This was seen when the U.S. Republican Party adopted Hungary’s Orban’s tactics for consolidating control, representatives of the Global Far Right have already met with Sanseito and offered their playbook.
One could also argue that Japan is more susceptible to the appeal of fascism. It’s much easier for the latent bigotry of “Japan First” to sell to a public that intuitively believes it anyway.
Those are the warning signs. But I still believe we’re not there yet. Even the LDP is talking with the leftist Constitutional Democratic Party to preserve ideological centrism, which is how other imperiled democracies have historically warded off their authoritarians.
CONCLUSION: WAIT AND SEE
That’s why my conclusion is that the alarmist headlines about last month’s elections are premature. it will take a few more elections for the staying power of Sanseito to become clear.
After all, it took Trump’s operatives ten years to learn how they could fix the system in their favor forever.
And despite the Global Far Right’s playbook, the fear of fascism itself might offer enough cautionary tale (as seen recently in Canadian elections) for Japan to stave it off.
Recall what happened recently in South Korea, where they routed a soft coup in mere weeks. Why? They’ve been through a brutal authoritarianism before.
So has Japan, albeit a few generations ago, but their fascism utterly destroyed the country. Historical amnesia is on the rise, but that basic fact has not been forgotten.
Sometimes societies have to go through an autocracy before they develop antibodies to it. It’s entirely possible that Trump is as much a vaccine as he is a plague.
But to return to my original point: I still say that Sanseito is still half-baked cosplay fascism at the moment. Belay the sensational headlines and see how this plays out. At this stage, only time will tell what side will learn well enough to seize or preserve power.
ENDS
======================
Do you like what you read on Debito.org? Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? Please consider donating a little something. More details here. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.
60 comments on “My SNA Visible Minorities col 69: “Japan’s Rightward Swing is Overblown” (Aug 24, 2025), on how the emergence of Sanseito shouldn’t be ignored but it doesn’t deserve the media hype, as its ideas are neither new nor well-planned”
Debito, tangent (except that a lot of people oppose Sanseito for its clearly anti democratic aspirations, like Ishihara saying anyone who disagrees isnt a real Japanese yada yada ) but what do you make of all the ridiculous arrests in the UK e.g. girl arrested for going into Macdonalds after 5pm, guy for sayng “we love bacon”, woman for praying in her head maybe (literal thought crime), guy for caling a police horse “gay”, woman for driving an illegal migrant out of her house (yes, she was arrested for complaining too loudly, etc etc. )
Yet, JD Vance, Joe Rogan etc have called this out and said the UK (Yookay) doesn’t have free speech, like in the USA. I think they have a point.
I am just trying to figure out how Kier Starmer’s unpopular Labour Govt fits into the above narrative, i personally would say they are fascists of the left which I do not see as a contradiction given his nickname of “Stalin”.
Not a criticism of what you have said, just as Trump is a right wing demagogue, he calls out Two Tier Kier in the UK for his human rights abuses, the most obvious being the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly for a deleted tweet of an unwise if not particularly offensive nature, which was obviously a politically motivated hit as her husband is a Tory councillor.
I personally conclude they are as bad as each other, IMHO.
🙄
‘Free speech warrior’ J D Vance has a point?
I America they search your social media and then inprison you/deport you/deny entry.
You come here with this Russian backed Farage agenda every time🙄
It’s not free speech to go on social media and incite others to burn down a hotel housing refugees whilst there is an anti-immigrant riot outside the same building.
I dont trust Farage. And I am extremely anti Russian.
That should be enough for you.
I dont “come on here every time” with this, stop being ridiculous. I usually comment on completely different topics.
Lose the hyperbole and comment on individual topics rationally, please.
I think I will edit my comment to conclude Trump and Starmer are both anti democratic, using Lawfare etc to shut down debate and any dissent.
Well, it might look overblown to you, but my anecdotal experience tells me that Japan has suddenly got a lot more openly hostile in its everyday interactions. The election result is being taken as ‘permission’ to side-eye, mouth off, and threaten violence.
— Agreed. But all of these things have been in the background for decades, and they come to the surface in everyday interaction periodically when the media whips up public panic — for example, World Cup 2002, where I personally experienced all this in Sapporo. But it died down not long after. My point is I have a longer view after decades of witnessing these sorts of blips. We’ll see if it’s a trend more deep and permanent than the one we have had for decades anyway.
I dunno dude. I’ve been here 25+ years. This time feels different.
The hatred against NJ tourists, and conflation of NJ residents with NJ tourists is profoundly new in its scale and intensity.
It’s like another country now.
— Fair enough. You’re on the ground a lot more than I am now. I really appreciate your perspective.
I appreciate that, thank you.
I fully accept that the plural of anecdote is not data, and others mileage may vary.
I think that the Abe/Nippon Kaigi was a very ‘smoothly produced’ operation that was careful to not ruffle allies feathers whilst pursuing the LDP’s most long lived fantasies, and without its ‘smooth’ front man has largely stalled.
In the same way that Abe was ‘Trump before Trump’, the economic damage Abe-nomics did to Japan is in part responsible for the dissatisfaction Japanese have with standards of living and the importation of so much cheap NJ labor, and Trump’s policies have created (real or perceived) the same grievances in the US and will soon deliver similar stagnation IMHO.
What I fear we are seeing now (in contrast to the ‘heard it all before’ narrative of the LDP) in Japan is that there seems to be a desire for (at now petty levels) performative cruelty as a cathartic outlet for frustrations that NJ are not responsible for. My profound fear is that this will escalate; ‘my life is terrible, but I can still enjoy making life unpleasant for NJ’.
It’s a fast moving situation; this has only come on since the election. Maybe it will disappear when the weather gets cooler again, but the media is pumping it relentlessly. Before the election it was hotel and rice shortages, now it’s sea urchin and matcha prices.
The constant media drumbeat that NJ are the reason *why* Japanese standards of living are decreasing displays a staggering lack of honesty.
Even the LDP now appears to fear that this unleashed genie will undo them.
I’d be interested to hear what people in other regions are experiencing.
‘my life is terrible, but I can still enjoy making life unpleasant for NJ’.
This is 100% correcct and has been written about in academia during Abe’s tenure; he traded high taxation for greater national pride i.e. your living standards are falling but hey, you’re still privileged to be one of the “Divine Race Nihonjinron”.
Cant find the source but AI immediately states “Abe’s vision for economic revival was tied to a goal of national renewal, which he believed would be supported by a stronger Japan and a revised national narrative. The narrative of national pride was used to justify the tax increases and other economic policies designed to improve Japan’s position. ”
The stereotype of NJs as honored guests (as a polite default because do not know where to place them in the hierarchy), as “outside people”, natch seems dead though. Instead replaced by the “Gaijin Yori Saiaku” expression which I was utterly shocked to hear from my ex in Hamamatsu; that bad Japanese behavior was seen as somehow worse than a foreigner, reminiscent of that police statement that foreigners and Yakuza have no rights.
#2 ‘my life is terrible, but I can still enjoy making life unpleasant for NJ’.
When I returned to Japan and my visa was processing, a disgruntled colleague who was arguing with my boss would take it out on me to the point of going to the Koban and saying I was an illegal, and bursting into board meetings to ask me something and if I didnt drop everything to cater to him, he would swear at me- in front of the other directors-with racial slurs. It was hot and even gifted him a fan, but he forgot about that five minutes later and was back to his destructive behavior, taking out his frustrations with an innocent bystander who by nationality he percieved as being lower on the social hierarchy than him.
Shortly after, his female replacement was not much better and absolutely resented that the Gaijin who had been there for 10 years as opposed to her 10 days would come in 30 minutes later (and leave considerably later), starting to act up in unreasonable racist ways.
This was during Abe’s first tenure, no doubt fertile ground for what is happening, i.e. more ” desire for (at now petty levels) performative cruelty as a cathartic outlet for frustrations that NJ are not responsible for.”
Also been here 25 years. Agree it feels different this time, online and in the media.
Haven’t noticed anything in real life, but then again my real life is pretty boring 😉
Ah, it’s not all in my mind, others are saying this;
[NJ] ‘were no longer able to walk the streets because they fear for their safety’.
https://japantoday.com/category/politics/feature-foreign-residents-weigh-in-on-japanese-first-slogan
Totally agree with JDG, the daily behaviour has changed totally. It’s really horrible to the point we are considering leaving Japan for good
I agree that this is nothing new for Japan, as the country and its institutions have always been racist and xenophobic at its core (see „embedded racism“ obviously), but I still can‘t shake the feeling that Sanseito will pull the overton window even more to the right, as happaned with Trump in the US, AfD in Germany, Meloni in Italy, etc.
I don‘t see any option where any of this turns out to be a net positive for NJs in Japan. At least the LDP always had to save face internationally when pressure mounted and Ishiba is more of a centrist compared to Abe, but now that his positiin is extremely weakened, I‘m pretty sure the right wing Abe fraction will take over again and it‘s even possible that they form a government with Sanseito in the future. Not going to happen soon, but give it 10+ years…
Maybe I‘m wrong and Sanseito implodes like pretty much every Japanese opposition party, but I have a strong feeling that they‘re here to stay. Especially as more foreign workers come into Japan which is unavoidable at this point, such populist parties will get more popular.
But I agree that we‘ll have to wait and see. But judging by what‘s happening in Europe and the US I can‘t imagine that Japan will be spared from right wing populism. Especially since Japan is way more prone to it, since racial based nijonjiron mythology is basically hammered into every child at school.
Which leads into this funny article I found where the GOJ asks the Chinese government to censor social media clips that make fun of Hirohito.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250826/p2g/00m/0in/058000c
Let‘s not forget that almost all independent historians agree that he was a war criminal, but in Japan he‘s still treated as a god and any discussion about his crimes are a taboo. In my opinion the whole social structure of the country perfectly fits a party like Sanseito.
— I may have to eat crow after the next election. Please keep the feedback coming, everyone.
I’ve been thinking about Debito’s analysis of this situation and why I disagree with it.
I think this time is different *because* the circumstances creating are the direct result of LDP nationalist policies, and specifically brought to a head by Abe regime’s implemented 2 of 3 ‘arrows’; the ¥ was weakened, the stock market was juiced, standards of living dropped further, and without the third ‘arrow’ stagflation continued. The sugar-rush of Abenomics is now in its comedown/crash stage.
Abe reminded people of all the myths of Japanese uniqueness and exceptionalism so they would buy into his ‘good times around the corner’ ‘Japan is back!’ narrative that blinded people to his hollowing out of the middle class and kleptocratic use of tax revenue to support the Bank of Japan juicing the stock market.
No more do you hear ‘we Japanese are all middle class’.
Stagflation means that Japan can’t pay enough to offset its stifling work culture and attract high-level foreign talent.
The level of English in Japan’s corporate world is so poor that they are finding it increasingly more difficult to remain relevant and competitive globally.
Outside of the boardroom, it’s not skilled professionals that Japan needs (aside from nurses); Japan has enough teachers, architects, lawyers, dentists, doctors, etc. What Japan needs is (still!) the KKK jobs; combini staff, cleaners, delivery staff, drivers, packers, etc.
The NJ Japan *needs* are exactly the kind of NJ Japan wants to feel most superior too, so having an economy that now relies on them must be pushing all the cognitive dissonance buttons when the Japanese really wished that all the NJ they saw on the street looked like they just walked off the screen of an Audrey Hepburn movie (dreamy!).
It must be really killing a lot of people that they can’t get a full time job with a decent salary or afford a holiday in Korea, Thailand, Hawaii, Taiwan, and then they see all the ‘freeta’ jobs they used to turn their noses up suddenly taken by NJ from around Asia, and they are still trying to emulate their parents standard of living in the face of stagflation. Their expectations are unrealistic but they can’t see it because of all their narratives.
People are even starting to say to me that ‘money isn’t the most important thing’ in the context of meaning that they would happily see Japan’s economy suffer and standards of living drop further if NJ workers and tourists left and they didn’t have to face the indignity of having to rely on them.
This is easy to say when you’ve lived your whole life in post-war Japan and enjoyed all the benefits of being a boomer in Japan’s bubble era, but seems absolutely insane for anyone under 70 or with kids/grandchildren.
I predicted more that 10 years ago on Debito.org that the Japanese would blame everyone and everything else before fixing the structural problems in Japanese society and that I believed at the time that they would prefer a ‘Wagnerian twilight of the gods’ ending rather than giving up on the ethno-nationalism, and it seems I was (sadly) right.
What a waste.
— Keep disagreeing with my analysis and providing counteranalysis. I’m perfectly willing to admit that I might not be seeing the picture clearly from afar, or that I might be distracted by just how bad it’s getting in the US and having a rosier view of Japan by comparison.
Didn’t take but a couple of weeks and one fabricated scandal about African ‘twin cities’ and the Overton Window in Japan has lurched further to the right!
I warned about this after the election; Japan NEEDS these NJ to do the jobs that there just aren’t enough Japanese to do! But anyway, let’s put a cap on the number of people Japan allows to save Japan. I’m sure that’ll work out great 🙄
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/08/29/japan/society/immigration-policy-report/
Yup, here‘s the Mainichi version of the article.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250901/p2a/00m/0na/012000c
I actually agree that Japan can‘t continue with ad hoc „solutions“ like their revolving door policies where immigrants are registered as „trainees“ and told to go back after 5 years a physical labor.
That being said, I‘m sure that nothing good will come out of this. They will only put more screws on all NJ, with more policing and even less human rights. The fact that caping the number of immigrants is even an option is hilarious. Japan is really the last country that can afford to turn away young workers.
Dr. Debito,
I actually agree with your analysis.
Yes, the “rightward-swing” narrative is overblown — Sanseitō is not a governing force and faces structural barriers to getting their hands anywhere near the levers of power.
However, dismissing Sanseitō as mere “cosplay fascism” belies their agenda-setting power (i.e., pulling the Overton Window even more to the right as @Niklas and @JDG have mentioned) as well as the risk of long-term entrenchment if a) economic malaise persists (e.g.,￥3000+ for 5 kilos of J-Gov ‘bichikumai’ 備蓄米; ￥4000+ for 5 kilos of new rice ‘shinmai’ 新米; continual price jumps in foodstuffs ‘shokuzai no koutou ga aitsugu’ 食材の高騰が相次ぐ) b) mainstream parties (read: LDP) fail to adapt their rhetoric, or don’t adapt it as fast (e.g., JICA’s Africa “hometowns” gaffe), and c) NJs continue to comprise more and more of the population (Why do you think Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki just released this report that morphed from a “summary of key points” into a de facto policy proposal? Hint: it’s not “Europe-style rifts” that the J-Gov fears, but rather an upstart political party that moved their voter ‘bloc’ of cheese!).
Dr. Debito, I’m going to back-peddle on my previous comment; due to the following article, I now disagree with your analysis:
Sanseito expanding collaboration with other parties in Japan local assemblies: survey / 参政党、地方で他党と連携拡大 自民が最多14議会 維新・立憲とも
Whoa, this is serious coalition-building, not just symbolic protest politics!
Well, they clearly have a roadmap for influence!
So while Sanseitō lacks immediate access to national power, dismissing them as “half-baked cosplay fascism” mischaracterizes them as a serious long-term player because:
a) Sanseitō is not just a protest vote phenomenon — they are actively networking across ideological lines, even with centrist and left-leaning parties (CDP, DPFP).
b) They’re not confined to the “clown-car fringe zone.” Rather, they are integrating into local governance structures and positioning for national relevance.
c) Sanseitō’s willingness to partner with anyone (except Communists / JCP) suggests they could become a kingmaker in fragmented legislatures.
— They very well could. Looks like they are now following the international fascist playbook they’ve been given, having been legitimized by the previous election results. Let’s see if that plays out in future elections.
Well, we won’t have to wait long:
宮城県知事選挙に参政党が候補者検討 村井知事と水道事業で“因縁”【もっと知りたい！】【グッド！モーニング】(2025年9月6日)
Below is a GPT-5 mini + Llama 4 Scout generated translation of the video title + text extracted from auto-generated subtitles from the video:
Japanese text extracted from the auto-generated subtitles:
Thank you for posting this.
Just like Trump and Farage, Kamiya has learned that you can just plain straight up lie to the voters and enough of them will believe it because ‘the queue for the Ghost Train is always longer than the Speaker Your Weight Machine’; people want the NJ scare stories they’ve been primed to believe all their lives, a society with virtually no education in critical thinking skills don’t want the truth about how their supremacy narratives have failed them and won’t be able to spot the difference between truth and lie.
Japan is going to fall straight down Sanseito’s nationalist rabbit hole and it will be devastating economically and socially for Japan.
Sanseito got spanked in Miyagi in the Upper House election (17.9%). They have no chance of winning the governor election.
In 2022 Sanseitō’s candidate (Ayako Lawrence) finished 4th with 52,938 votes (5.81%); in 2025 she finished 3rd with 181,773 votes (17.87% as you mentioned); in 3 years she more than tripled her previous vote total (a 243.37% increase!).
Sanseitō getting ‘spanked’ misses the point — the roaches are well and truly present in Miyagi and will be a factor in the upcoming gubernatorial race.
References:
https://election.work/2022sanin-miyagi-tokuhyo.html
https://www.asahi.com/senkyo/saninsen/koho/B04.html
Again, just to clarify understanding, I want to say again categorically for the record, that this particularly nasty performative cruelty directed at NJ residents we are seeing is because many Japanese people are unhappy that their most famous spots are now inundated with millions of NJ with money to burn, by invitation of the Japanese government, and there is a deliberate ongoing effort in the mainstream and online media environment to say that NJ residents need regulation, control, punishment, because of the frustrations Japanese people feel regarding NJ tourists *with no sense of self-awareness that they are conflating two completely different groups of people* (because ‘gaijin’ = ‘gaijin’. Meiji era neo-Confucian scholars behind the restoration would be aghast; is a white horse a horse? Is a resident NJ a ‘gaijin’?).
It’s insane.
It’s reminiscent of ICE chasing farm hands across fields because they are unable to actually detect (as in police detective) any illegal immigrant criminals.
The richest man in the world has got nothing better to do than demonstrate his stupidity?
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/02/japan/anti-immigration-support-musk/
Thousand right wing thugs march through Osaka and demand an end to immigration lol.
https://panasiabiz.com/111504/osaka-protest-immigration-video/
Again, we‘re talking about less than 3% of the population. Just imagine what would happen if Japan had actual immigration numbers like countries in Europe, the US, or Canada.
PS: What does immigration even have to do with Japan? Abe said that Japan doesn‘t need it because there are robots!
Dr. Debito, forgive me please. I’m about to put another nail in the coffin of your thesis here.
Ishiba has resigned. The constant campaign against him led by the Aso faction contrary to the Japanese public’s overwhelming wish for Ishiba to continue, has finally won out.
Now they will install right-wing loon Takaichi as the next leader because they believe she is rightwing enough to starve Sanseito of votes.
They are wrong.
All the will do is legitimize Sanseito by further pandering to rightwing narratives that have very little to do with the real problems facing Japan going forward.
What a shame.
Life for NJ is going to get even more unpleasant as the LDP tries to show voters it’s just as tough on NJ as Sanseito.
— Entirely possible. Political Science is a very soft science. I’m happy (well, not really in this case) to be proven wrong. But again, we’ll see.
@JDG great post. Like Dr. Debito, I too hope you’re wrong about Takaichi.
@Dr. Debito, as I commented here, your analysis of “Trump’s Weak Mandate” was a great article, so given that “Japan’s Rightward Swing is Overblown” hasn’t aged very well, I think what regular readers of Debito.org would really like to see right now is an in-depth analysis applied to Sanae Takaichi vs. Shinjiro Koizumi (perhaps consider submitting such a piece as a future Shingetsu News Agency Visible Minorities column?).
Otherwise we’re going to have to start calling for 『出人下ろし』. Just kidding!!
Keep up the great work that you are doing!
— Thanks. Look, part of the strength of these ‘orrible little men (usually men) who feed off all this social media attention is the fact that the media just keeps giving them that attention. All that free publicity. It worked in 45’s favor and still works in 47’s favor more than a decade later.
I could make a case that overhyping these fascists just makes them stronger. I’m still arguing for not feeding the trolls. But the trolls will troll, because that’s what they’ve always done.
Meanwhile, the LDP dinosaurs will probably continue to do what they’ve always done — use the traditional campaigning strategies that have seen off challengers and killed off every single opposition party in Postwar Japan. They are probably not going to “get” that they shouldn’t do that anymore before it’s too late.
It’s going to have to be left up to the voters. Here’s hoping they have antibodies to fascism. But one could make a convincing case either way on that. Hence my “wait and see for a couple of elections before drawing conclusions” stance.
Yeah, I really don‘t want to pull the „see I told you so“ card, especially not when it comes down to fascism winning, but Ishiba quitting before the year‘s going to end was really obvious to me. He was basically powerless within his own party after the election, continuing would make no sense.
I‘m honestly wondering if they LDP is „woke“ enough to elect a woman though lol? She‘s definitely the logical answer if you put yourself in the shoes of the average LDP oyaji, since she‘s basically the female Abe, but still, FEMALE. The average LDP oyaji probably shudders when even thinking about a woman leading the country.
She almost beat Ishiba a year ago though, so maybe they‘re actually ready to finally accept a woman (which they failed to do with Koike).
Anyways, whoever wins will definitely come from the right wing Aso fraction which has been the loudest and strongest ever since Abe left. There‘s no way in hell that the LDP will even come close to being pulled towards the center in the next 10+ years. I absolutely expect them form a coalition with Sanseito in the next 5-10 years and make immigration and life for NJ even harder.
I honestly hope that I‘m wrong and Debito is right, but I just don‘t see it. I was a bit optimistic in 2018-2019 when they finally announced a way for „trainees“ to stay in Japan for more than 5 years and even qualify for PR, but even that bit of openening up ended with covid and they basically doubled down on the trainee system ever since and just changed the name (and you can change your job after 2 years, instead of being a slave to one for 5 years, yipee!).
Now I‘m expecting a full sakoku policy, except for toruists (even though there will also probably be some policy changes against „overtourism“ and more policing of „bad foreigners“).
I honestly think I have to quote Ghosn again and just say „Leave while you still can“.
I know it’s not a politics blog, but I think it will be Takaichi. But even if it is someone else, they will be out the revolving door in a year, and Takaichi will be PM then.
The key thing is that all other serious LDP heavyweight contenders are sitting it out (haven’t heard a peep out of Konno for over a year!) because no one wants to be PM whilst Trumpbisbin the White House; it’s a poison chalice of guaranteed humiliation for the next PM and voter dissatisfaction.
But Aso doesn’t care because none of that touches him, just his puppet in the hot seat. So he will push her for the job until she gets it and until Trump is out no other serious contender will step forward.
As for Koizumi, yeah sure, he doesn’t want the job either for the same reason, but he will pretend he does, enjoy the free publicity, and then say how regrettable it is that the LDP don’t value his youth when then don’t select him (and he breathes a sigh of relief). His main goal was to get rid of Ishiba who has been embarrassing Koizumi by giving him (failing) responsibility for rice prices. If this has continued six more months it could have destroyed Koizumi’s credibility for ever.
Well, here she comes, I guess.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250912/p2g/00m/0na/045000c
If she can claw back votes from the roaches (read: Sanseitō), then the LDP is ready for her (i.e., perhaps this their twisted version of gender equality?).
See my recent post here.
Debito here. Sent by a media maven friend. Now even tarento are helping Sanseito with their sloganeering. It’s nice to not have to care about fascists when they think their racist policies won’t affect them. Lack of empathy for others strikes again. Debito
参政党・神谷宗幣代表 テレビ番組で次の選挙のキャッチコピーを発表「日本人ファースト」改め…
日刊スポーツ２０２５年9/7(日) 17:27配信
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/97c57b42a7a087aa716a7f43a660ae5924c18386
日刊スポーツ
参政党の神谷代表（2025年7月撮影）
参院選で14議席に躍進した参政党の神谷宗幣代表が7日放送の読売テレビ「そこまで言って委員会NP」（日曜午後1時30分、関西ローカル）に出演。番組では「外国人問題を徹底総括！ 日本人ファーストを考える」をテーマに各パネリストが意見をぶつけ合った。
【写真】神谷宗幣代表に新キャッチコピーを勧めた竹田恒泰氏
神谷氏は参院選のキャッチコピー「日本人ファースト」の“真意”について「日本人が1番で外国人が2番、3番という意味でつけたのではなく、反グローバリズムを訴えていて、自由経済が広がり、巨大な資本が富を集めていく。世界中の国の中間層が貧困化していく状況を止めたい」とし、「それが外国人差別だと言われた。ちょっと意味が取り違えられた」と説明した。
作家の竹田恒泰氏が「なんで日本ファーストではなく日本人ファーストなのか？」と質問。「日本人と言った瞬間、民族や国籍になるんですよ」と指摘した。
神谷氏は「なぜ日本人ファーストにしたかって言うと、日本第一、日本ファーストって過去に言ってる政党があったので、盗られてたとかパクったとか言われたら…。日本ファーストはどこか使ってたよねとなり、日本人ファーストを採用した」と背景を説明した。
竹田氏は「日本ファーストって言った方がいいですよ。本当は日本ファーストのつもりだ、人種とか国籍とか関係ないと言った方がすっきりしますよ」とアドバイスすると、橋下徹氏も「日本ファーストになれば、日本人と外国人の適正ミックスだからね。日本ファーストは日本人ファーストじゃなくなるから」と後押しした。
神谷氏は「この番組に出演したことをきっかけに、次の選挙のキャッチコピーは“日本ファースト”でいく」と宣言した。ENDS
Whatever he says, it’s all lies. Anything to get power;
‘They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs’.
They can just lie as freely as they want. They shouldn’t even have a platform. Japan is repeating the mistake of legitimizing this guy like Trump/Farage have been.
I agree with JDG — ‘Japanese First’, ‘Japan First’ — it’s ‘tomato’, 「トマト」.
What a roach.
Anyway, I was just thinking, Japanese society can tumble down any right wing rabbit hole it wants, but they cannot escape the reality that outside of Japan no nation speaks their language.
They will always have to learn English.
Because they lost the war.
And no amount of feel good reality denial nationalistic selective memory historical revision can separate their economic wellbeing from that fact.
The more successful Sanseito is, the less the world will be willing to engage with them.
They will always have to learn English.
Because they lost the war.
-Yes, and to add to that, having some insights at tertiary level at that, they cannot or will not ever get to widespread Engrish usage. Instead, the best the majority can hope for (except they don’t hope for it, its “mendokusai” or a necessary evil) is pre intermediate level at which the vast majority will default to if they have any short layoff.
Other fun anecdote “We should not learn English properly or we will become a slave of America(!)”. “I hate gaijin but my boss wants me to learn English” (I promptly declined the lesson), or even “Coppola’s Dracula is Christian propaganda” 🙂
Fluency is also nigh impossible to encourage, as they are mono syllabic in Japanese. A nation of introverts are unlilkely to suddenly express their opinions in Engrish, although there is a significant minority who do “re-invent themselves” in English- the kind of person who greets a company director with “How the f**k are you, man?” because they think English = Freedom to say whatever they want, but still, at least they’ve achieved working fluency, though at the loss of formality or business appropriate language. Still, that will work well strawberry picking in Straya, or bar work in the US, etc. So, the Japanese who want to escape Japan can acheive a good level of English by leaving Japan. Many of them will actually be averse to speaking in Japanese outside Japan with a westerner (leading to another annoying subset of people who think its “weird if a white person speaks Japanese”- yes they do exist even outside Japan).
Unfortunately, that does not help corporate Japan much. And the types I describe above are probably seen as “fumajime” and won’t be able to or want to buckle under in many cases.
I would also argue Engrish is culturally against their grain, as are answering complete sentences, critical thinking or general knowledge- a student recently told me 9/11 was a bus crash.
They. Just. Can’t. Be. Bothered. Probably because it is not perceived as fun, but even if you make lessons fun, they will do the activity in Japanese.
The majority of Japan is too pampered, too non competitive, too hedonistic. A kid will cry in a lesson because he wanted to play soccer instead. His mum will make excuses for him like- I shit you not- “The Present Simple Tense is difficult for Japanese”. Geez,lady give up right now if you think single words with hardly any declensions are hard, some of which are used n Katakana anyway (Haroo Werku).
My fave anecdote thugh has to be the antagonistic guy who claimed he needed Business English, but if he didnt know somethng, like idioms, or the perfect tense, would say “Anyway, I don’t need (The Perfect Tense/whatever) for business”. Or the Marketing Planner who insisted on planning his own lessons (“Grammar, I needn’t”) but then never actually did what he planned to do (I guess his job is just planning and the same goes for his life. He did not see the point of applying sentences for functional things like ordering a starbucks; his planned discussions devolved into “yes/no/unn/grunt” answers.
The reality, to add to JDG’s observation, is they would be far far better introvertedly memorizing thousands of Kanji and learning Chinese, but they do not want to do that…..
Because they lost the war. (To China, though they’ll never admit that theatre was lost or acknowledge China was on the winning side). Learning Chinese would be easier and would make economic sense, but nah, because they want to be special and separate from Asia, but this does not need to be discussed here- we all know the reasons.
Because they lost the war. Tangent but something else JDG has mentioned prior which I concur with, is the belief that they lost “Because Americans are physically bigger than Japanese”. Tangentially, I see far more built other Asians, (though its hard to generalize) but going to the gym is not so popular in Japan (correct me if its changing) because “Nihonjin wa gym yori nomi ni iikitai” – my point being the Stoicism/gambaru is mostly for the Kaisha while the hedonistic balance to that has been carousing- they go hand in hand. I know Alcohol Harassment is a recent thing, but I also know that women (still) prefer effeminate men as idols/hosts etc and this worries me as all the countries around Japan have National Service, so even the K pop idols have a few muscles, as well as being far more competitive and productive in studies/business/militaries etc.
Its telling that when Hofstede tried to categorize Japan, he couldnt decide is it was a Masculine (competitive) or Feminine (caring, welfare oriented) society as it seems to be both in contrast with just about every other place. Though not in a good way.
My basic contention is this;
Sanseito’s ’anti-NJ’ stance is popular with voters because voters are frustrated with tourist numbers, but the only group of NJ that Japanese politicians can be strict with are NJ residents.
So, I was interested to see some time ago a report of NJ tourists dissatisfaction with Japanese levels of customer service (used to be ‘world famous’, how the mighty have fallen. Recently had JAL smash my new Halliburton suitcase into unusablilty, so I can relate), (lack of) cleanliness (!), and discriminatory pricing;
https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/15987885
And then today I see this click-bait article telling me than spending at Japanese department stores by NJ tourists has fallen off a cliff this year (and NJ foot traffic is down);
https://japantoday.com/category/features/travel/foreign-tourists-spending-at-japanese-department-stores-dropping-rapidly-study-says
So thinking that the cat is out of the bag, and in the same way we saw ‘explosive’ shopping by Chinese tourists plummet in the year before Covid, the rest of the world has caught on.
Will Japan become a budget destination for those with smaller budgets? I can’t see that the locals can do it given the cost of living in Japan.
Meanwhile, Sanseito councilor already getting ahead of themself and widening their targets to now include LGBTQ. One can only hope that they ‘peak’ sooner rather than later; they are *high* on all the media attention they have been getting about how big they could be in the future and are running their mouths off at Japanese groups they don’t like;
https://japantoday.com/category/politics/sanseito-local-assembly-member-says-transgender-identities-contagious
If NJ tourist numbers take deeper plunges, Sanseito’s platform is going to look pretty stupid real quick.
-(lack of) cleanliness (!)
Street sweeping and obsessive trash sorting aside, I always thought this was a myth, after seeing the state of public toilets’s poopers in JR stations or the ubiquitous vomit from carousing. Cockroach housing/coffee shops/art galleries in supposedly affluent, snobbish Setagaya, crumbling, Dickensian hole in the wall offices even in Azabu, insects in your salad a stone’s throw away from the Imperial Palace.
There is also a lot of stanky junk being sold by Japan recently- the once spotless second hand electronics are now invariably faulty, beat up and come with free cockroach eggs (which seems to suggest desperate scavenging anything to make a few bucks off gaijin) and not cheap either, Fukushima pears in Asian supermarkets (I shit you not), and Second Street (watches, clothes, shoes -ewww) opening outside Japan whereupon you can smell the former owners’ lingering BO wafting from outside the store- definitely lowering the tone in the otherwise spotless East Asian luxury malls.
Sterility isn’t always cleanliness: as P. Fleming (One’s Company: A Journey to China (London: Cape, 1934) pointed out, the Japanese settlements were typically Japanese, i.e. sterile, and “humbug”.
Sure, the road sweeping is just window dressing, like Kyoto/Gion.
Don’t get me started on the stank of the salarymen on trains, the lack of morning showering, the halitosis, the “Kareishu” (they even made a word for it themselves). and the drains (never smelt that in Europe).
This stank has only recently been let out of the bag- challenging prior dominant narratives about Japanese cleanliness and “the Japanese don’t smell” blah blah., both in commentaries and scientific studies https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29573072/
44% (2018).
It’s already started, as predicted.
Resident NJ?
Limit the number of resident NJ!
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/19/japan/politics/nippon-ishin-immigration-policy/
Stricter rules for resident NJ!
https://japantoday.com/category/politics/Japan-is-back-'Takaichi-says-as-she-announces-candidacy-for-LDP-leadership
Because NJ tourists are upsetting the locals…🙄
BTW, I ‘love’ that Japan Innovation Party (in the link above) propose limiting resident NJ numbers at max 10% of the population. These guys are some real geniuses for sure!
Japan’s population is dropping every year so…
Japan needs MORE resident NJ.
But a 10% of population limit means that the number of NJ allowed to reside in Japan will DECREASE each year.
So whose visas are they going to start cancelling?
It’s going to be the resident NJ that are now retired first; they paid into the Japanese system all their working lives, and then they will kick them out so that the dwindling number of ‘permitted’ NJ residents are all of working age.
These people are idiots.
They are either intentionally dishonest with the electorate, or they just don’t understand how the economy works.
Well this is just hilarious, the government wants to rip off rich Chinese tourists, but literally can‘t due to the racist backlash that will follow from easing visa restrictions.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250920/p2g/00m/0na/011000c
I guess that Japan‘s politicians decided to do a speedrun on how to destroy the economy most efficiently.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16041191
I‘m also quite amused by the statement „Based on European experiences, when the proportion of foreign residents exceeds 10 percent of the population, various social issues tend to surface and tensions rise.“, as if there‘s somehow a magic number at which social issues start. Also, what‘s the source and science for this claim? As far as I can see, countries with high numbers of immigrants (much more than 10%) like the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, etc. are doing much better than Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia.
— It would strengthen your argument to add sources for the “doing much better” claim.
Well, sure. I honestly don‘t think that a lot of sources are needed, because I don‘t think that there‘s a single sane person that would claim that Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc. are doing better than France, Germany, or the UK.
You can look at everything, from HDI, press freedom, GDI per capita, women rights, general economic stability, crime rate, etc.
Wikipedia has a list where it ranks countries from first to last on everything I mentioned, so I won‘t post any links.
Serbia is currently a right wing dictatorship:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/14/political-crisis-rumbles-in-serbia-as-duelling-camps-hold-parallel-rallies
Poland and Hungary are also very close to becomming one, so close that other EU member states want to kick them out. (I would argue that Orbam in Hungary already is a dictator, but I will leave that up to political scientists to decide). A few years ago Poland also took away the right to abortion through a political coup where the right wing party basically occupied the constitutional court with conservative judges.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/04/08/member-states-can-leave-the-eu-but-can-the-bloc-kick-one-of-them-out
Bulgaria isn‘t much better:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932025_Bulgarian_political_crisis
There‘s a lot more of course, but I don‘t want to get into the politics and exonomics of like 10 different EU countries.
I definitely think that my point stands.
— That helps, thanks. I require sources from my students, so it’s only fair that I do here too.
Of course, and you’re right. I usually always try to provide a source when I make a factual statement, but my comment was honestly just meant as a sarcastic jab against the common right wing position that “low immigrant countries” in Europe are doing so much better, and I thought that the UK, Germany, France and so on being better of than the other ones I listed is common knowledge.
And I’m pretty sure this holds true for any regular debito.org reader, but you’re correct, since anyone can read this it’s always better to back any claim up by sources.
There‘s just no way they so blatantly lie about it:
https://www.cht.kokusen.go.jp/en/faq/faq.html?id=000037
I actually can‘t believe this. I‘m literally speechless.
I would like to invite anyone who‘s interested to leave a comment about how the information they‘re providing is false. Just click on „no“ on the bottom where it asks „was this information helpful“ and you will be invited to share your opinion.
I sent them a few links to reportable news sources (including Himeji mayor‘s plan to charge tourists up to 4 times more), and told them that it‘s time to tell the truth. I‘m not holding my breath, but I just can‘t believe how they‘re trying to whitewash this, even though it‘s very well documented.
— It would help Readers if you summarized or excerpted from the article if you really want us to read and do something about it. Please do now if not in future. Thanks.
Enjoyed your considered comment on recent (electoral) events in Japan. Kinda harmonizes with my impressions living here in rural Shizuoka.
Got brain-melt from reading (OK, scanning or skimming) most of the (un)-considered prolix comments from your regular responders.
Kudos to you, Debito, for keeping this open to such a wide range of opinion, despite the wild speculation.
Bogfly
Tourism ain’t really happening rural Shizuoka, is it?
But it won’t stop the clampdown from affecting you…
Tell me more about how you get ‘brain melt’ from comments you don’t even read (and yet know are ‘unconsidered’).🙄
Excuse the intrusion Debito, but I think that my comment about the Japanese consumer Hotline literally lying about dual pricing for foreigners didn’t go through.
I think it’s important to archive this on debito.org.
https://www.cht.kokusen.go.jp/en/faq/faq.html?id=000037
— Sorry. The semester is ramping up for me with grading galore. It takes a little time to approve. Apologies. But again, if you want to archive this on Debito.org, please be a darling and include the full text with the link. Otherwise it’s not archived. Thanks.
No problem, but if it’s ok with you I would like to keep sharing links I think belong onto debito.org without copy-pasting the text from them, but with adding my personal opinion on the topic.
I think that anyone who wants to know the whole story can look up the link, while people who don’t care about that particular toping can skip my comment. I don’t like to post comments that are long texts if it’s not my personal opinion about something, because it makes the comment section badly readable in my opinion.
I know that user JK posts long excerpt, including translated once and I have nothing against his style, but it just doesn’t fit my personal style of writing comments on blogs. I hope that there’s room for both kind of comment on your blog Debito, because I would love to continue to participate.
As you surely know, I usually also do post an excerpt in form of a quote from an article an comment on it, but this time it’s not an article but just a few sentences on the Consumer Hotline for Tourists, so I didn’t feel the need to copy-paste it.
The text I was talking about says:
“It is possible that the prices listed on the menu for Japanese people were in yen, while to make the amount easier to understand for foreigners, the menu listed a price in U.S. dollars or Chinese yuan, for example. Or, as a form of hospitality the restaurant created a menu of items popular among foreign visitors and therefore had a separate menu in a foreign language. You can also order from the Japanese menu, so check with the restaurant staff.”
— Thanks for the reply. As a mild (very mild) rebuttal, I might say that fears of the comments section becoming badly readable are a bit overblown (that word seems to linger these days), since on the opposite extreme not knowing what the link will say is not much of a teaser incentive to click. Moreover, those articles do disappear or go behind long-term paywall, so it’s nice to have the text (even as, say, an excerpted paragraph) archived here. Thanks for the excerpt above. I hope future excerpts will not tamp down on your very welcome participation. 🙂
And as predicted, NJ lives will get even harder…
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16043922
Lol, „I don‘t want to exclude anyone“ – makes exclusionist and false statements.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16052996
Interview with local Nara representative who says that no violance agsinst deers has occured.
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/437743
I also love the end where she uses the good old whatsboutism of „other countries are doing it too“.
The difference is that Germany has no cemeteries or other places where they celebrate convicted war criminals. On the contrary, something like that would be unconstitutional there.
I‘m also not really aware of France, or the UK celebrating colonialism. Some right winger, sure. But not the state, and certainly not the prime minister or president.
I‘m not saying that these countries don‘t have problems with whitewashing and downplaying their pasts, because they all do. But Japan‘s government celebrating Tojo and Hirohito is literally as if Germany would celebrate Hitler and Goebbels. I don‘t see that ever happening in the near future, not even with an AfD government (which won‘t happen anyway).
How it started;
‘Japan’s rightward swing is overblown’
How it’s going;
‘LDP presidential hopefuls take hard-line stance on immigration’
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/26/japan/politics/foreigners-policy-ldp-election/
The Japanese are angry about TOURISTS so the LDP is getting tough on IMMIGRATION.
SMGDFH
— Yep. You win. I’m currently writing a column where I’m eating crow.
Well, this didn’t take long.
Just like Trump, Farage, and other ‘popularists’ in Europe, Mr. ‘Japanese First’ has gone scurrying off to (gasp!) GAIJIN (!) to try and get some of Putin’s or Musk’s money!
Nothing like the comedy of pure nationalism funded opaquely by foreigners, is there?
https://japantoday.com/category/politics/Japan's-far-right-party-courts-Trump-allies-to-get-its-message-out-abroad
So now the question will be whether or not association with Trump/Musk will be a toxic deathknell for Sanseito (as it was for popularists in Canada, Australia, and Moldova) and will there be a bigger anti-NJ backlash in Japan if people perceive that Trump/Musk/Putin’s money is meddling in their democratic process?
Here’s what GPT-5 has to say:
Tell me again how the rightward swing is overblown…
Chris, you got time to actually read this?
https://japantoday.com/category/national/Anti-foreigner-sentiments-on-the-rise-as-Japan-faces-a-population-crisis
I called this YEARS ago on Debito.org!
Instead of taking responsibility for all the problems of their own making, Japan is just blaming recent NJ immigrants for DECADES of ignoring demographic timebomb and its economic repercussions.
“Japan has structural issues — such as economic stagnation, declining birth rates, and an aging population — that have been ongoing for nearly 30 years, and realistic solutions to these problems have not been found,” the group told AFP. “Instead, the artificial theme of ‘foreigner problems’ is being brought to the forefront, seemingly diverting public attention toward it.”
https://japantoday.com/category/politics/japan's-next-pm-faces-growing-anti-immigration-fears
When Japanese people talk about ‘tolerating’ NJ they are deluding themselves. In order to tolerate a group, you must be ascendant, and the Japanese are not. They Japanese rely on NJ to do all the jobs they don’t want to:can’t do; healthcare, service economy work.
The balance of power has shifted.
The tipping point has passed.
Strutting peacocks of Japanese nationalism are exploiting nihonjinron-giron superiority narratives that are crashing into the reality of decline. Cognitive dissonance runs amok.
But NJ have all the economic and social power, and to exclude us is to commit state suicide (prediction; the Japanese will commit state suicide rather than admit their narratives are wrong).
— I have no problem admitting that mine are wrong. The ascension of Takaichi is to me an inflection point. I’m going to have to recant my previous column in my next column, out shortly.
@JDG , it appears the discussion — at least in the media — has shifted from ‘tolerating’ to ‘coexisting’:
EDITORIAL: LDP must talk about coexisting with foreigners, not xenophobia / （社説）外国人政策 排外許さず共生を語れ
@JK, that’s really interesting! Thank you!
Using the language ‘co-existing’ shows an implicit awareness of dependency on NJ labour.
Now with Takaichi in the big chair, we’ll have to see how far NJ-labour dependent Japan-Inc will control her xenophobic tendencies with their big-budget bankrolling of her party.
They’ll never give Sanseito that level of financial support, which is why Kamiya has gone chasing Bannon/Musk/Putin dollars.
Hi Dr. Debito,
As JK pointed out in another thread, Takaichi invented the Nara deer kicking narrative to fuel her anti-NJ platform herself. It’s literally the Japanese equivalent of ‘they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs’. Japanese political discourse has reached such a level of blatant unchallenged lies that are lapped up by a public that is absolutely furious with NJ tourists. This is because Japanese superiority myths demand that all NJ in Japan are *inferior* AS CULTURE. So when Japanese people say that NJ aren’t ’respecting Japanese culture’, what they are actually angry about is that the NJ paying visitors and tax-paying workers are expecting to be treated with civility and an equal level of humanity as they would be anywhere else, instead the Japanese are expecting them to show deference and humility to the Japanese since racism *is* Japanese culture.
All those years of western tourists wandering around Japanese temples and shrines speaking in hushed tones because they have bought into self-orientalist Japanese myths of ‘harmony’ etc were misinterpreted by the Japanese as NJ visitors meekly accepting their ‘place’ in the Japanese hierarchical world view.
Now that Japan has an influx of budget travelers on the cheap ¥ the Japanese are getting their noses out out of joint that the visitors are asserting their right to have a good holiday that they just paid for without bowing and scraping over everything.
The ground swell of anger this year, specifically over rice prices, has been immense, and I’m not surprised that NJ aren’t the distraction from the LDP’s inability to manage that. But what we have seen is that the LDP has run out of road and exposed as being incompetent and having created the present reality itself. Abenomics brought Japan right here, so Takaichi doubling down on that will not solve anymore problems. In fact, her fascism demands that she will blame NJ for all of the failure to make social and economic improvements from here on. She will take Japan down a rabbit hole as dark as Trump’s.
Just as observers are shocked by the speed of the USA’s decline under Trump, the rate at which Japan has soured this year is spectacular.
The end result will be that Japan is poorer, cheaper, and nastier.
I think, what I mean to say is that when Japan was an expensive destination back in the day, and Japan was ‘#2!’ the type of NJ visitors it was mostly getting where mainly middle-class white Europeans/Americans or students (the children of such, and still very much children). These visitors were buying into all the Japan myths. They visited Japan and were unsure of all the Japanese social rules that were oh-so-important and *meaningful*. The Japanese just looked at these visitors and (in their racial superiority arrogance) mistook the visitors attempts at good manners as subservience.
Now that the Chinese are enjoying their moment of economic supremacy, they visit Japan with a swagger that defies any attempt to perceive them as being subservient, and in the eyes of the Japanese, an NJ who is not subservient (read; sees themselves below all Japanese on the hierarchy) is not respecting Japanese culture! In fact, such NJ are bad mannered and rude!
Japanese racial superiority myths make it impossible for any NJ who does not appear to act as if they *know* they are subservient to Japanese to be considered ‘good mannered’.
I think that’s the point I’m trying to make.
Anyway, I don’t mean to hammer you over recent political events in Japan. I suspect that this will all trace back from Sanseito, via Musk/Steve Bannon/Russian money, back to the JET teacher Americans you wrote about years ago who influenced the US alt-right. It’s a chain of events largely facilitated by foreign forces with a vested interest in seeing Japan fail in the service of their own distorted and disconnected world view.