Manga Fan To Become Japan's Prime Minister?

by ReverseHarem
Sep 22, 2008 6:02 AM | 56 Comments

Tarou Asou was chosen by the Liberal Democratic Party Monday to become its party president. Due to the ruling party in Japan choosing him, it's mostly likely that he will indeed become the next prime minister. The 68 year old is a former foreign minister and has professed himself a manga fan. During his time as foreign minister he used manga such as Detective Conan and Barefoot Gen to relay his message.

Manga sales have been up since the beginning of his candidacy. A store in Akihabara (Akihabara is known as an otaku shopping haven and where Asou rallied against his former opponent ex-Prime Minister Fukuda), has even called Asou a "cool old dude" in English lettering.

For more information: ANN.

20 of 56 Comments Recent Comments

YamiAtem said:

forlacik said:

dtshyk said:
He put a picture of Captain Tsubasa on the side of a military jeep sent to Iraq. He said manga is mightier than any armor, and it did work.

This man deserves my respect.

Lol. Trust Japanese politics to come up with this kind of candidate. America has strange stuff sometimes.

Lmao! Thats hell funny! In Australia our prime minister doesn't do anything to do with anime/manga :'(

Oct 2, 2008 4:12 AM by Sharpen

forlacik said:

dtshyk said:
He put a picture of Captain Tsubasa on the side of a military jeep sent to Iraq. He said manga is mightier than any armor, and it did work.

This man deserves my respect.

Lol. Trust Japanese politics to come up with this kind of candidate. America has strange stuff sometimes.

Oct 1, 2008 3:50 AM by YamiAtem

Sohei said:

DaeScope said:
Read his wiki page its got some of the stupest quotes i ever heard

"Although Some worry about global heating, it will warm Hokkaido and its rice will become better."

..why..whats wrong with that? XD
i'm guessing he meant that as a joke..?

Whats wrong with it? His the President of a country, he represents the people of Japan. And yet he thinks its funny as a leader to make a joke about Global Warming.

Sep 26, 2008 4:31 AM by DaeScope

It's quite funny that Rozen Aso became Souridaijin now.. but in endeffect it does not matter what hobbies a politician has, his policy is the important aspect.

/edit: btw, I just realized me knowing nothing about Japanese politics or law ~.~ I should read about it, what a shame if someone asked me xD

Sep 24, 2008 8:37 AM by removed-user

An manga fan for prime minister.....hmm......AWESOME

Sep 24, 2008 8:20 AM by StriderMS

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20080924p2a00m0na024000c.html

Complete shakeup of the cabinet too, not just him taking over as PM. Neat. Big changes for Japan by the looks of things.

Sep 24, 2008 8:13 AM by Asako

DaeScope said:
Read his wiki page its got some of the stupest quotes i ever heard

"Although Some worry about global heating, it will warm Hokkaido and its rice will become better."

..why..whats wrong with that? XD
i'm guessing he meant that as a joke..?

Sep 24, 2008 8:03 AM by Sohei

Read his wiki page its got some of the stupest quotes i ever heard

"Although Some worry about global heating, it will warm Hokkaido and its rice will become better."

Sep 24, 2008 5:30 AM by DaeScope

I realize it isn't Asou Tarou, but I still find the "I'm not like you" thing to be fabulous.

Sep 24, 2008 1:44 AM by XD3r3K-chanX1996

guyklc said:

But then again, why care about Japanese politics, unless you live in Japan?

Because it's a) part of the whole worlds political system and b) there are people whose future depends at least a bit on Japanese politics (because they're going to work there or are doing studies centered arround Japan.)

Sep 24, 2008 1:24 AM by Krayt

Wishy said:
Saying he likes manga doesn't really make him look serious. Anyway, there have been worse cases than this (specially in USA :P).

Gee, good thing we don't vote for the Prime Minister of Japan. Hell, the JAPANESE don't vote for Prime Minister xD

Sep 23, 2008 6:48 PM by internetotaku

guyklc said:

But then again, why care about Japanese politics, unless you live in Japan?

Maybe because he'll become the head of state (if you don't include the emperor) of the second most powerful (economically speaking) country in the world..?

Sep 23, 2008 8:05 AM by Sohei

ukonkivi said:
Rozen Maiden fan or not, Rozen Aso is a racist asshole who I'll never support the politics of.

Yep, thats the truth. Asou is a ridiculous nationalist who has said some awfully offensive and insensitive things. He has done some good for the country in his position but I'm not confident that he should be Prime Minister. Not that I'm surprised though, either, given how Japanese politics works and the more nationalist leaning the government has been going lately.

Sep 23, 2008 7:32 AM by internetotaku

dtshyk said:
Seems like some people misunderstood the election system. Mr.Aso was elected by the votes by the Congressmen and the local representatives not general citizens. The manga fan is just one aspect of his character. His policy in diplomacy is summarized in the speech
"The Arc of Freedom and Prosperity"(article in English). In short, he's aiming to build a long arc of alliance among the nations sharing the same policy "Liberalism, Market economy, Human right protection" from EU to ASEAN.

He would probably exclude China from that. But hopefully he won't.

I'm just too pessimistic about politics....

Sep 23, 2008 6:39 AM by wakka9ca

Seems like some people misunderstood the election system. Mr.Aso was elected by the votes by the Congressmen and the local representatives not general citizens. The manga fan is just one aspect of his character. His policy in diplomacy is summarized in the speech
"The Arc of Freedom and Prosperity"(article in English). In short, he's aiming to build a long arc of alliance among the nations sharing the same policy "Liberalism, Market economy, Human right protection" from EU to ASEAN.

Sep 23, 2008 4:23 AM by dtshyk

Never heard of the man before. We really couldn't care less about Japanese politics around here.

But it's a complete stupidity to vote just because "yay we share the same hobbies *-*" or "yay, he considers manga a super high form of culture". It's not like Captain Tsubasa or Rozen Maiden will affect the way he governs. =.= He can be as cool as Akihabara says he is, but that does not imply that he's competent or not.

Good thing the man does not seem to like mecha anime with a special obsession, or else we could have problems in a near future xD

Hopefully he's a nice person after all and Japan will be in peace within itself and the rest of the world and keeps evoluting as it has been for the past few decades.

Sep 23, 2008 2:34 AM by ladyxzeus

I live in NZ but I'm worried as I'm Chinese and I am not sure what the relations with China/Taiwan/other Asian countries will turn out to be like...

Genuine concern for me.

Sep 23, 2008 2:33 AM by BasakaNZ

forlacik said:

dtshyk said:
He put a picture of Captain Tsubasa on the side of a military jeep sent to Iraq. He said manga is mightier than any armor, and it did work.

This man deserves my respect.

I get the feeling he is an otaku of total doom...

Sep 23, 2008 1:55 AM by Serenti

ukonkivi said:
Rozen Maiden fan or not, Rozen Aso is a racist asshole who I'll never support the politics of.

Fact proven wrong. He's just a man who likes to bad mouth lots of things. To especially take up certain quotes of his to portray him racist is low. Very low.

Sep 23, 2008 12:43 AM by Ahenshihael

Anaraine said:

Xenzio said:

guyklc said:
Yeah, I've heard Aso is really racist as well. Oh well, it's stupid to vote for someone just because he's an anime/manga fan =/

But then again, why care about Japanese politics, unless you live in Japan?

Then you heard right, cause he really is. And yeah, that's complete bullshit to vote on someone just because he likes manga.

And once again.. yeah. Why should we (outsiders (:P)) care, as long as he keeps his shit in Japan, it's all good.

It's incredibly stupid for you to base your vote on whether or not you have the same hobbies. And it's highly unlikely that he'll be able to do anything about the prices of manga internationally; that's all up to the companies that sell the licenses of their books for selling in another country, and said companies that try to milk the manga cash cow as much as they can.

Furthermore, unless you are a Japanese citizen, this really shouldn't be our problem. We can whine and bitch about how he's racist, and what problems he might cause, but we personally won't be able to do anything about it. (Unless he does something completely stupid and drops a bomb on the US or something.)

Yeah, that was my whole point in that post, thanks for saying it more.. .. better.. :P

Sep 22, 2008 11:08 PM by Ilyaoh

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