came out of the gate with his foot in his mouth and has remained known for his gaffes, and nothing but his gaffes, ever since. It was no surprise that the LDP declined to back one of the biggest embarrassments to ever make it onto their rolls. What was surprising, though, was that the seasoned politicians of the newly-formed right wing Tachiagare Nippon party would pick up a cast-off incompetent like Sugimura, even if he could inject a bit of youth into their image.

Following on the success of our live streaming video coverage of the Lower House election last summer, we’ll be doing the same this time around.

Join us on the evening of July 11th, on our Ustream channel to follow along with the returns as they come in and to chat with us and other interested parties.

We’ll be live at 8:30 p.m. Japan time.

No, TPR is not dead - just retooling, resetting, and more. We’ll be back soon.

For those of you who are in Tokyo and need a fix, tomorrow night Adam Richards and Garrett DeOrio will be doing a live edition of Seijigiri at the Pink Cow in Shibuya as part of the Pink Cow Connections (PCC) series.

The guys will be taking a look back at 2009 in politics and the headlines and prognosticating about the future, as well as taking any and all questions - some of the folks in the audience were the highlights of the night last time. Could be you this time.

Ken and Garrett did such a show back in June and enjoyed both the good turnout and the good company (as well as drinking almost all of the Pink Cow’s Sam Adams.)

It’s at 7:00 p.m., costs ￥2000 (which gets you a light, but tatsy meal or a drink), and is a great opportunity to network, talk politics, business, or whatever suits your fancy, and enjoy yourself on a Tuesday night.

For more info, click here.

We hope to see you there.

First and foremost, if you’re not watching already, scroll down to the post below this and watch TPR’s coverage of the election returns live on Livestream or Ustream. The audience is big and growing.

Edit: The links - The broadcast will start at 8:00 p.m., and will be viewable at Livestream: www.livestream.com/tprjp

If you can’t get into the Livestream, we are also broadcasting over Ustream: www.ustream.tv/channel/seijigiri-live

Why?

Because no one else is offering continuous coverage of this earth-shifting election in English.

Big night. Big, big night for the DPJ and the opposition camp in a good way; big night for the LDP and New Komeito in a bad way; very big night for the people of Japan, who should be happy with the enormous symbolic change and, I’d say, victory they’re in the midst of achieving right now. (Read on …)

As promised, Trans-Pacific Radio will be webcasting the results of Sunday’s Lower House election. The webcast will include Garrett DeOrio, Christopher Gunson, Adam Richards, and Ken Worsley. The broadcast will start at 8:00 p.m., and will be viewable at Livestream:

www.livestream.com/tprjp

If you can’t get into the Livestream, we are also broadcasting over Ustream: www.ustream.tv/channel/seijigiri-live

There’s no need to log in or create an account, simply open that page and you can chat by creating a nickname. We will also have our Skype account open and ready to take phone calls. Skype us at transpacificradio (one word, all lower case.)

It’s probably also a good idea to follow along with our Twitter account:http://twitter.com/tprjp

We will use the Twitter account to make any announcements in the case that our live stream is broken. Of course, we’ll also take questions via Twitter.

In the event that we exceed the maximum number of Livestream viewers, we have a second account set up at another service that we can switch over to.

We will be starting from 8:00 p.m., but we will not rest until we have conveyed the full results to you, our night owl viewers (unless we get really, really tired.)

So, pull up a chair and enjoy this groundbreaking, earth-shaking, superlatively hyperbolized election with your friends at TPR: at least 10% more fun than network TV.  

Thanks to Japan Probe for this one!

The title at Japan Probe asks, “The worst political commercial ever?” It certainly could be in the running:

The narration basically says something like, “Who can really protect your life and the future of this country? The LDP.”

James describes the commercial well in the final sentence of his post:

Even though I don’t particularly like Aso, it’s a painful to watch this commercial. The LDP’s web attack ads are truly skillful examples of political commercials, but this is a train wreck. Aso is not a popular prime minister. A lot of LDP politicans who are trying to hold on to their diet seats have deliberately avoided placing Aso on their campaign posters. Why would they want their national TV ad campaign to put the focus on an uncharismatic and unpopular leader? It’s almost as if they are trying to increase the scale of the defeat they will likely suffer on the 30th.

It looks to me as though the producers of the commercial forgot to give poor Aso a towel to throw in the ring. He’s sort of staring at them, wondering, “Where the hell is my towel? I went to izakayas to chat up students and talked to common-folk on trains and they can’t even remember to bring my towel?”

For worst political ad ever? I think it’s hard to beat Jerry Springer’s masterpiece from his 1980 Ohio Gubernatorial campaign:

Stay away from cheques!

Greetings, TPR listeners and readers. That most exciting of events is coming up: a general election. Not only will this be the first such event in nearly four years, it marks the first time in over 50 years that Japan might see power really change hands. Will this be the first showing of a new two-party democratic order? Will it be more of the same? Will the challengers upset the reigning champions, or is that the incumbents maintaining their hold on power would be the real upset?

Nearly as exciting: Who, amongst TPR’s politicos and friends, is the dreamiest? On the evening of August 30th (and late, late into the night), you can find out. Adam Richards of Mutant Frog and Chris Gunson will be joining Seijigiri co-hosts Ken Worsley and Garrett DeOrio to cover the election live, in streaming video.

Join us to watch the results come in, chat about what they mean, and hear our takes on it all.

As it will all be live, TPR listeners will have the heretofore unique opportunity to interact with the show as it’s being made - ask questions, tell us where we’re getting it wrong, chastise us for insulting pols - all in real time.

Full details will come out with the next Seijigiri release.

Following our highly successful nomikai in January of this year, some of us politics bloggers have decided to hold another party to give our readers an opportunity to ply us with drinks to put faces to blogs.

Once again we will be gathering at The Pink Cow in Shibuya, at 7pm on Saturday July 25th.

If you are interested in attending, please send an email — the sooner the better — to Tobias Harris (observingjapan@gmail.com) and Ken Worsley (japaneconomynews@gmail.com) so that we can get a rough sense of how many people to expect.

We think the Pink Cow in Shibuya is near the Budokan. You could walk it if you wanted to.

But seriously, we are very excited to announce that the first live edition of Seijigiri will take place at the Pink Cow in Shibuya on Thursday, June 4 from about 7:30pm. This is part of the Pink Cow’s ongoing Pink Cow Connections, a series of networking events organized by Anthony Blick.

The event will open with a presentation on Trans-Pacific Radio, followed by the live Seijigiri. After that, there will be a special announcement and demonstration of TPR’s most recent project.

The live show itself will involve Garrett, Ken and the audience. The essential concept is that Seijigiri and the audience will have no barrier between them, and the show will be an interactive event.

We hope to see all of our listeners on Thursday June 4 and look forward to doing the show with you!

Please follow the cut for venue and show information. (Read on …)

The Japanese media is reporting that Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa is set to resign at a press conference scheduled for 5:00 this afternoon.

Although details are still sketchy, Ozawa must be feeling the pressure of public opinion, which has indicated that his party’s chances will be hurt with him at the helm in the upcoming Lower House election.

More to come on this breaking story.

Post-Press Conference Update: (Read on …)