The case of Maruyama Hodaka (丸山穂高) raises an interesting question: what’s next after you nearly bring your country to war with the Russians?
Regular readers might remember my piece on the Protect the People from the NHK Party ( NHKから国民を守る党, or “N-Koku” for short), which, in what might be seen as a fit of aggressive voter apathy, won a seat in the Diet in the July 2019 elections. This, in spite of the party’s full entourage spending its time on (ironically) NHK’s Broadcasting of Political Views segment poking fun at the whole process.
Just when you thought N-Koku’s story couldn’t get weirder, a new player’s entered the stage to crank things up a notch.
Maruyama Hodaka, a member of Japan’s Lower House of Representatives, used to be a member of the Japan Innovation Party ( 日本維新の会; nippon ishin no kai). I say “used to” because he had his membership revoked after nearly causing a diplomatic disaster in Russian territory.

Maruyama Hodaka.
In May, Maruyama was part of a group that visited the island of Kunashirito (国後島) in the disputed Northern Territories. As Noah Oskow has discussed at length on UJ, the north islands have long been an area of dispute with Russia. While Russia currently controls them, Abe Shinzo’s government has been discussion of the fate of the Northern Territories a part of Japan’s larger talks in deepening its relationship with Putin’s government.
Japan’s hard right-wing is fanatical about returning the islands to Japanese control, to the extent that they even created a day to raise “awareness” of the issue (February 7th; 北方領土の日 – Northern Territories Day). On this year’s Northern Territories Day, the far right Nippon Kyougikai (日本協議会) drove a full, colorful caravan past the Russian Embassy in Tokyo in protest. In other words, there’s a knot of fanatical nationalists for whom the Northern Territories issue is critical.
Enter Maruyama, who visited Kunashirito with a group of delegates at Russia’s allowance.
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None of the group’s members had visas to visit the island freely: they went directly to the island’s Friendship House (友好の家), an emergency shelter for island residents that doubles as a diplomatic halfway house for Russia and Japan. When diplomats from Japan come visit, they stay at the Friendship House, and, under an “unspoken rule,” generally remain there so as not to provoke an international incident.
While there, Maruyama got stinking drunk.
Now, anyone who’s followed my whiskey-fueled Twitter Fridays knows I’m not about to lob stones at Maruyama from my glass house. But there’s a time and a place to enjoy oneself, and a time and a place to set aside the good-time, party-guy mentality and do your damn job.
But Maruyama didn’t just get drunk. He got drunk and then crashed a press conference.
No, dear reader…this does not end well.
According to a government source, Maruyama started drinking early, and sat down to drink more with several other members shortly before the press conference began. Maruyama’s behavior during this drinking session was apparently so egregious – he reportedly shouted, banged the table, and belted out “indecent” words – that Kiyomizu Seishirou (清水征支郎), another member of the delegation, left the table after five minutes.
About an hour later, Maruyama stumbled his way into the press conference, where he interrupted his colleague Otsuka Koyata (大塚小弥太) and started arguing about what it would take to “get the islands back.” “Do you support getting them back through war, or oppose it?” he asked a befuddled Otsuka. “Don’t you think,” he continued, “that war’s the only way?”
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Listening to the audio of this exchange, which played on loop on the Japanese morning and afternoon news shows for days, is painful. Poor Otsuka, who handled his colleague’s shitty behavior the best he could (“I don’t want war,” he insisted), sounds like he wants to start drinking himself.
Naturally, a huge diplomatic row ensued – as is expected when you suddenly start talking about attacking a powerful country. Pretty much no one stood behind Maruyama as his ship went down in flames.
In the ensuing days, it came out that Maruyama’s lousy behavior while drunk seemed to know no bounds. According to reports, he tried to leave the Friendship House at one point (you know…the thing he had no right to do, because he had no visa) because he “wanted to buy a girl.” He was also reported to be heard muttering 「おっぱい」(oppai; big breasts) to himself as he hatched an escape route.
Despite all of this, Maruyama didn’t resign. He remains a legislator to this day. And that’s where N-Kuni comes in: the “party” now counts Maruyama as its second elected member.
It all makes sense, in as much as anything involving N-Kuni and Maruyama ever could. Maruyama made the switch because (1) he was party-less and (2) no one else would have him. N-Kuni accepted him because (1) they’ll do anything to disgrace the legislative process and (2) it gives them an extra seat for free (at least until the next election).
Tachibana Takashi (立花孝志), the chair of N-Kuni and its sole member to win a seat in the last election, made it clear he viewed the move as a numbers game. Responding to variety host Koyabu Kazutoyo (小籔千豊) who said he dislikes “people who change the party midway [between elections],” Tachibana responded:
「そのとおりなんですけど、僕からしたら喉から手が出るほど欲しい議席なんです。数がないと、1人というのは本当に質問ができない。ところが2人になると質問ができるんです。丸山さんを入れることに関してまさに小籔さんのおっしゃるとおりなんですけど、それよりもNHKをぶっ壊さなあかんやろと」
I hear that, but from my standpoint, this is a seat we badly wanted. When you’re small, and have just one person, you can’t ask questions [during committee meetings in the Diet]. But with two people, you can. You’re right about Maruyama, but it’s more important we destroy the NHK.
In other words, having Maruyama gets N-Kuni question time in the Diet…which translates to more free publicity to promote the party’s single-issue agenda of dismantling state TV.
There’s no doubt these two deserve each other. But there’s also no doubt that Japan doesn’t deserve them. The two now get free reign to continue Tachibana’s brand of political theater, wasting the valuable time of everyone in Japan’s Diet who’s there to get serious work done.
Even worse: they get to do it all at taxpayer’s expense.
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