Whether you’re Japanese or foreign, one question comes up often: Do I really have to pay NHK fees? Answers vary wildly, but the truth is simple. If you own a television, you’re legally required to pay. Haven’t paid? Then expect an aggressive knock on your door sooner rather than later.
For years, this unpopular system has been ripe for exploitation. No one tapped into public frustration more than Tachibana Takashi. A bombastic former NHK employee, he founded the NHK Party, officially “The Party to Protect the People from NHK.” With his trademark slogan “NHK o bukkowasu!” (“Let’s smash NHK!”), Tachibana turned resentment over monthly fees into a national movement.
At the heart of his pitch was a bold promise. “You don’t have to pay the reception fee.” Lawsuits, he said, were rare. Even if NHK sued, the party would cover all costs. Thousands believed him. Many stopped paying.
Now, the bills are due. Literally.
Demands for payment
Across Japan, former NHK Party supporters are getting demand notices for years of unpaid fees. Late interest and litigation costs push totals even higher. Some households now owe more than ¥100,000 ($678).
Lawyers warn that penalties can spiral further. Risks include seized bank accounts and mortgages being called in early. One attorney calls it nothing less than “delinquency hell.”
We first covered Tachibana’s rise back in 2019. That year, the NHK Party stunned observers by winning a Diet seat on little more than this single issue.
At the time, the party appeared to be political theater —a protest movement poking fun at NHK’s fee collectors. But what seemed fringe in 2019 has become a consumer crisis in 2025.
Since 2024, the NHK Party has lost recognition as an official political party. It failed to keep seats in the Diet. Subsidies are gone. So is guaranteed airtime. Even ballot access is now limited.
The populist vehicle that once carried Tachibana into the national spotlight has collapsed. And now, as the party itself crumbles, former supporters are facing the real consequences of his hollow promises.
The NHK Reception Fee: Small bills, big resentment
The NHK reception fee itself isn’t especially large; between ¥1,100 and ¥2,000 per month, depending on your TV broadcasting type. That’s roughly the price of a couple of lunches from the combini.
But what makes the fee so controversial isn’t the number on the bill. It’s the principle. Payment is mandatory under Japanese law if you own a television. NHK collectors are legally empowered to knock on your door and demand that you sign a contract. This is a process many residents, whether Japanese or foreign, find intrusive. Sometimes even intimidating.
Although NHK is Japan’s public broadcaster, critics often question whether it deserves such guaranteed funding. While NHK produces acclaimed documentaries and drama, it’s also accused of being out of touch, politically biased, or bloated with public money. For many households, the fee feels less like civic duty and more like a tax they never consented to.
That simmering resentment made the idea of “just don’t pay” irresistible. A quiet form of resistance in a country that tends to value peace over confrontation.
Turning quiet defiance into a political movement required a ringleader. And Tachibana Takashi was ready to fill that role.
A former NHK employee turned crusader, Tachibana styled himself as both whistleblower and firebrand. What began as a single-issue protest quickly snowballed into a real following.
Disillusioned viewers, frustrated homeowners, and even young people tired of NHK collectors saw him as a hero. He even promised that if the broadcaster fought back, the party would shield its supporters from legal consequences.
The “Invoice Proxy Receipt Service”
To turn his rhetoric into something even remotely resembling a strategy, Tachibana unveiled what he called the “Invoice Proxy Receipt Service.” The pitch was simple: appoint a lawyer or scrivener, and NHK bills went to them, not you.
At first glance, it looked ingenious. Supporters took it as proof that their obligation to pay had been magically sidestepped. After all, if the bill was no longer arriving in their mailbox, didn’t that mean the problem was solved?
But the legal reality was far less forgiving. Having a proxy receive an invoice doesn’t actually erase the underlying debt; it only forwards the paperwork. Month by month, arrears continued to stack up, interest quietly ticking higher in the background.
The illusion held for years. And when it finally shattered, the shock was devastating: instead of being free of NHK’s reach, they suddenly owed several years’ worth of back payments all at once.
Collapse of the scheme
Eventually, as entirely expected, NHK caught on. The broadcaster announced it would ignore proxy addresses and send bills straight to viewers.
Overnight, the “Invoice Proxy Receipt Service” lost whatever flimsy legitimacy it once had. Judicial scriveners acting as middlemen resigned, issuing terse end-of-service notices. Some even suggested clients could find another lawyer, though that advice became meaningless once NHK refused to deal with any proxies.
For supporters, the reckoning was brutal. Lump-sum demands for years of unpaid fees arrived in inboxes. Late interest and court costs ballooned those amounts even higher. What promised liberation from NHK instead brought an even worse nightmare than previously imagined.
Court rulings in 2024
The legal hammer finally came down in 2024, when election reporter and commentator Chidai sued Tachibana Takashi over the so-called service. Chidai (better known online as Senkyō Watcher Chidai) has built a following of tens of thousands across platforms like Twitter and note.com by covering elections nationwide. He analyzes campaign strategies and publishes detailed reports for both political insiders and ordinary readers.
In the first trial, the court minced no words: the “Invoice Proxy Receipt Service” amounted to an illegal act that inflicted harm on ordinary citizens.
Tachibana appealed, but the second instance upheld the ruling. With that, the judiciary had spoken clearly: what the NHK Party promoted wasn’t a clever loophole or a form of civil resistance; it was an unlawful scheme that left its supporters exposed to heavy financial losses.
Privacy risks and political misuse
As if crushing debt weren’t enough, the “Invoice Proxy Receipt Service” carried another hidden danger: personal data. Buried in the service’s terms was a clause allowing users’ information to be shared with the party itself, affiliated groups, and even candidates it endorsed, all for political activity.
Whether participants ever received clear explanations or gave informed consent remains doubtful. For lawyers watching the case, the implications are alarming. Instead of simply shielding people from NHK fee invoices, the scheme may have doubled as a pipeline for harvesting and exploiting citizen data.
That meant more than financial losses from unpaid fees. It raised the possibility that the party would misuse private information to bolster its campaigns. As one attorney put it, the risk wasn’t just of delinquency hell, but of supporters’ own identities being weaponized against them.
Tachibana’s rhetorical shift and supporter disillusionment
Faced with mounting criticism and the collapse of his legal strategy, Tachibana abruptly changed course. In a recent press conference, he admitted that he had “changed policy” because a return to national politics was no longer possible. Gone was the bold assurance that the party would shield its supporters from the courts.
Instead, his new advice was almost surreal: “Just throw away your TV.”
The pivot stunned many who had once taken him at his word. Where he had once promised to cover court costs, he now insisted that people discard their televisions if they wanted to avoid NHK fees. Some supporters likened the reversal to a cruel prank, and frustration rippled through the party’s base.
Disillusionment quickly followed. Former backers began publicly apologizing, admitting they had been misled by false promises. Others clung to loyalty, defending Tachibana even as legal bills piled up. The result was a fractured community, split between contrition and denial, with bitterness growing on both sides.
From political struggle to consumer protection scandal
What began as a populist battle cry against NHK has now taken on an entirely different shape. Lawyers warn that this is no longer about political theater or even about freedom from public broadcasting fees; it is a consumer protection crisis.
Through misleading claims and inadequate risk disclosure, ordinary citizens were persuaded to stop paying. Instead of liberation, they now face ballooning arrears, the threat of property seizure, and damaged credit. For many, what started as a small monthly protest has become a life-altering financial disaster.
Attorney Ishimori Yuichirō puts it bluntly:
This is a new form of mass consumer harm. People were induced into non-payment without understanding the risks, and now they bear crushing liabilities. The Consumer Affairs Agency and the Bar Association should investigate.
The irony is sharp. A slogan that once rallied voters (“Let’s smash NHK!”) has instead smashed the lives of those who believed it most.
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Sources
「NHK受信料は払わなくていい」立花孝志氏を信じた人に督促状が… 「裁判費用は党が持つ」約束も破られ. Tokyo Shimbun
「テレビを捨てろ」NHK党・立花孝志氏に支持者も呆れ顔 受信契約者増加に一役買っていたという皮肉. FRIDAY
