Election? What election?

All the hoopla surrounding the election really seems to have died down. Most of the formerly-ubiquitous campaign posters have been torn down, and apart from the occasional news article things seem to be back to normal, which fortunately for us means no more irritating megaphone vans. Save for a few newspaper articles, it's almost like it never happened... that is, until the DPJ actually takes power for the first time in the coming weeks. We'll see how that turns out.

Despite my own interest in the subject, I know a lot of this stuff can be pretty boring in the abstract. That's why I found this hourlong documentary that ran on PBS so fascinating: it's a rare look inside the Japanese political machine, through the campaign of a young, inexperienced candidate.

The candidate, Yamauchi, is an admitted LDP ringer from Tokyo who was sent by the party to run to fill an unexpected vacancy on Kawasaki's City Council. This is a documentary where the LDP bosses really don't come off well, in both their tactics and their attitudes toward the newcomer. Yamauchi himself comes off as a sincere and affable guy (if not especially principled), and you can tell during more candid moments how much he resents the way he and his wife are treated by the party.

There are some unique aspects to the campaign gauntlet that I found quite interesting, but some of the ridiculous events he's forced to participate in are definitely reminiscent of the more embarassing political stunts that seem so common in our own election season. And, yes, like any respectable Japanese candidate, he has his own irritating megaphone van.

Here's the official description:

This is democracy — Japanese style. Campaign provides a startling insider's view of Japanese electoral politics in this portrait of a man plucked from obscurity by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to run for a critical seat on a suburban city council. Kazuhiko "Yama-san" Yamauchi's LDP handlers are unconcerned that he has zero political experience, no charisma, no supporters and no time to prepare. What he does have is the institutional power of Japan's modern version of Tammany Hall pushing him forward. Yama-san allows his life to be turned upside down as he pursues the rituals of Japanese electioneering — with both tragic and comic results.

A little context: this was filmed in 2005, when the LDP was at the height of its modern power under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was exceedingly popular primarily for his hairstyle. No, seriously. He was a self-described reformer who made a lot of big promises and charmingly impersonated Elvis from time to time, but only really succeeding at two things: privatizing the postal service and pissing off millions of Chinese and Koreans by visiting shrines dedicated to World War II-era war criminals. Spoiler alert: you'll get to see ol' "Lionheart" himself making a half-hearted speech at a campaign rally for our guy Yamauchi!

You can watch it online right now for free: POV: Campaign. Even if you're not into politics, this is an entertaining little documentary on its own merits.

A hundred hand slap in the face of one-party rule

You've probably heard by now that the long-reigning LDP has been completely pwned, to use a political science term. I thought I should give a closer insight into one small part of the enormous DPJ wave: Kanazawa City, a.k.a. Ishikawa Prefecture's 1st district.

Japanese politics is sort of like The Bachelor, in that media outlets give a rose to each winner. The runner-up, rather than walk away empty-handed, receives an orange rose(?), so I guess they're a little more generous here. In this result, the top guy is the DPJ challenger to the 2nd guy, the LDP incumbent. Kind of a close race; in fact, Ishikawa was one of the last holdout prefectures where they couldn't call any of its three races for several hours because the results were so close.

The DPJ candidate prevailed, ousting the incumbent LDP member whose prior occupation was listed as "pro wrestler." Not sumo, from what I gather, which is kind of disappointing. The LDP's political philosophy (such as it is) is pretty terrible in its emphasis on a kind of socially conservative, semi-corrupt stagnation, but how cool would it be to be represented in government by a sumo wrestler?

And not to be overlooked in third place was the Japan Communist Party candidate, who eked out a respectable 4 percent. As you might imagine, Kanazawa's kind of a hard place to peg politically.

Speaking of sumo, Andrea and I might have the opportunity to attend a sumo tournament up north in Hakui, which is also Japan's UFO capital. We'll keep you updated, since I'm sure you'll want to know if we see any large men in loincloths getting beamed up into a flying saucer.

Elections, please!

During US election season, anyone with a TV or radio will typically have to brace themselves for a deluge of negative political ads. "Senator Jones says he won't raise your taxes, but can you really believe him after he cheated on his own wife? Who will you cheat next, Senator?"

Well, folks, I'm here to tell you that the Japanese have a political messaging system in place that is somehow even more obnoxious and abhorrent-- and I should know, since the election is tomorrow and despite the result being something of a foregone conclusion, the media machine is still going full tilt.

If you've ever seen the Robert Altman movie Nashville, you're already familiar with this campaign style: a van or series of vans with loudspeakers that will drive around town all day, blaring political messages and propaganda to anyone within earshot. Unfortunately, their paths seems to often include the street we live on, and our windows don't really have much in the way of sound insulation. And these suckers are loud-- I assume the thinking is that the louder and more obnoxious they are, the more likely people will be to vote for them. Okay; maybe that works here, I'm not sure.

I'm sure the two main parties, the Democratic Party and Liberal Democratic Party (confusing, eh? Not to mention that the Liberal Democratic Party is the more conservative of the two...) have been using this tactic. Without an obvious sign, though, figuring out which van corresponds to which party can be tough. Squeaky-voiced women are the usual messengers, and their voices are heavily distorted due to the volume being cranked up so high. It doesn't help that my Japanese listening skills are weak, so I don't really pick up most of whatever messages each van might be blaring. I gather that the bulk of what they're saying is "Please vote for [Candidate X]! Please vote for [Candidate X]! Thank you very much!"

Occasionally, you'll see them as you're walking on the street, and the most noticeable ones are always the weird fringe parties. Two stand out in my mind: one is the Happiness Realization Party, whose two main platform planks are happiness realization and being excessively paranoid about North Korea. They're run by some kind of cult group that I don't really understand, but they're nice, they wave from their van, and they have a happy, colorful light-blue van with cartoon birds on it. So, given that they're not likely to pick up any seats in the Diet, I'm okay with them.

At the other end of the spectrum is a party whose name I don't know, but their platform is not that difficult to glean. They drive three huge, menacing black buses in tandem adorned with blood-red lettering and angry, hoarse men shouting through the loudspeakers. The best part is that each bus has its own distinct message going, so the effect is something like three loud, pissed-off men shouting completely different things at you through megaphones all at once, which I imagine produces a totally incoherent noise assault even if you can understand what they're saying. I was later told that they're the "We don't like foreigners" party. Somehow I got the message even when I didn't catch the words.

America has plenty of its own xenophobic lunatics, but they generally have the decency not to rent enormous, intimidating black buses and shout things at you from the street. Instead, they show up at town halls, have their adorable "tea parties" and write anonymous Internet comments about Obama being a Kenyan-born Muslim Communist, and when you have the luxury of being 3000 miles away from all of that, it's all very amusing. But the difference is that in two days, the vans here in Kanazawa will be gone, while back home, the armed peanut gallery will be making noise for as long as I can foresee.

If you want to read more about tomorrow's election and the (major) Japanese political parties, be sure to check out the excellent English-language blog Observing Japan. You might think of it as 538.co.jp.