September 19th marked the tenth anniversary of human rights activist Debito Arudou’s first visit to the Yu-no-Hana Onsen in Otaru, Hokkaido and the first of three times he and some of his companions were turned away due to an explicit “Japanese Only” policy that turned out to be, according to the explanation offered by the management of the onsen, a “Japanese-looking” Only policy.

As most TPR readers or listeners know, after trying many other avenues of reconciliation, Arudou and two other plaintiffs filed and won a civil suit against Yu-no-Hana, as well as two appeals. The first and only decision against the plaintiffs was in a civil suit before the Supreme Court against the City of Otaru for negligence.

The case generated more publicity and hardship than Arudou or his co-plaintiffs had anticipated and wound up launching Arudou down a new path of human rights advocacy, on which he continues to this day. (Read on …)

As expected, Yukio Hatoyama officially became Japan’s 93rd Prime Minister yesterday and just the second since the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party was founded not to belong to it. Just as importantly, after roughly two weeks of managing to keep the press at bay and leaking little, if anything about the make-up of the new Cabinet, the new Prime Minister formed the first Cabinet since 1955 to contain no LDP members.

In fact, as promised, the new Cabinet is made up entirely of elected representatives. Every portfolio went to a DPJ member, with only two positions going to the DPJ’s partners: State Minister in Charge of Consumer Affairs and the Declining Birthrate to SDP head Mizuho Fukushima and State Minister in Charge of Financial and Postal Issues to People’s New Party chief Shizuka Kamei.

So, without further ado, the Cabinet: (Read on …)

Continuing on with the Kinki region, we reach Kyoto (which, just in case no one’s told you in the last few minutes, is historical), home of some big names. Sadakazu Tanigaki, a likely leader of the newly-chastened LDP, held on to his district 5 seat while former Education Minister and LDP Secretary General Ibuki Bunmei lost his district 1 seat, but remained in the Diet through proportional representation. On the DPJ side, heavyweight Seiji Maehara won his seat for the sixth time.

KYOTO

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Continuing with Hyogo, district 8 was fairly interesting: neither a DPJ nor and LDP candidate ran as both deferred to smaller allies - the New Party Nippon in the case of the DPJ and the New Komeito in the case of the LDP. The NK candidate, who lost his seat, was the powerful Tetsuzo Fuyushiba, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport under PM Yasuo Fukuda.
District 9 also saw the DPJ defer to the postal rebel People’s New Party and not run a candidate.

HYOGO

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Continuing with the second most-represented prefecture Kinki region. . .

HYOGO

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In the DPJ’s routing of the LDP-New Komeito ruling camp, they not only pushed out the ruling party, but swept out one of the tiniest parties to have an incumbent Diet member. Take a look at district 17, where, amazingly, there was no HRP candidate. (Yes, I know. I’m obsessed with parties so minor as to be trifling.)

OSAKA

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Moving on to Japan’s second-largest metropolitan area and the site of some interesting possible harbinger races. . .

OSAKA

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While former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda won his district 4 seat for the seventh time, former Finance Minister (under PM Shinzo Abe), Education Minister (under PM Junichiro Koizumi), and Director of the Economic Planning Agency Koji Omi lost his seat in district 1, a significant upset as, even in this table-turning election, real LDP heavyweights generally found their way back into the Diet, either by winning or through proportional representation. No such luck for Mr. Omi, who, given his advanced age, might now be looking at retirement.

On the whole, though, Gunma was a relative bright spot for the former ruling party, with big name Yuko Obuchi also winning her district 5 seat for the fourth time (albeit without running head to head against a DPJ candidate.)

GUNMA

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In the North Kanto proportional representation block, the election returns from the August 30th general election bring at least one interesting item: Your Party (or Everyone’s Party) candidate Yoshimi Watanabe, who very publicly left the LDP earlier this year, running in district 3 and winning perhaps the highest percentage of the vote of anyone anywhere. More than a landslide - the hills collapsed.
Highly unusually, neither the DPJ nor the LDP ran a candidate there. How could they? The front-runner had been a member of the LDP, but was a near-hero to the opposition.
Who ran against him? Why the party that you, dear reader, could also trounce: the Happiness Realization Party.

TOCHIGI

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Another member of the rarified ten term-plus club of the LDP falls, while an exceedingly rare ten term-plus Independent gets his eleventh notch in Ibaraki’s 7th district, where every plausible candidate managed to get a seat. Following Saitama, we move to the coast and the next prefecture in the North Kanto proportional representation block, . . .

IBARAKI

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