Politics

Japan's political landscape is noisier, more varied, and more consequential than most English-language coverage suggests. (Did you know, for examplke, that Japan is home to the world's largest elected Communist party?) This category covers the Diet and local governments, constitutional debates, party politics, fringe movements, and the moments when a pop star's lyrics or a brand collab become flashpoints for something much larger.

Our reporting draws directly from Japanese-language sources: party manifestos, Diet testimony, domestic polls, and the journalists and activists inside Japan covering these stories. Rather than treating Japanese politics as background noise in a foreign-policy dispatch, we try to understand it on its own terms: who holds power, who is fighting for a seat at the table, and who gets talked about rather than listened to.

There's a lot going on here. The rise of the far right (Sanseito's MAGA-borrowed tactics and calls to restore an imperial-era constitution) marks a real shift in Japan's political terrain. We track how populist politicians spread misinformation about foreigners and immigrants, and how that misinformation sticks.

We also follow civil liberties fights: anti-spy legislation that could criminalize fandom, proposals to make flag defacement a crime. We cover the Ainu's ongoing struggle to have their indigenous status recognized rather than relitigated by politicians who find it inconvenient. And we pay very close attention to gender politics: the women politicians dismissed as 'honorary men,' the debates over spousal surnames that still draw death threats, and the welfare proposals that right-wingers attack on reflex.