election

Elections are a serious business everywhere in the world. In Japan, as election time draws near, huge boards go up around town where each local candidate has a square for their poster. (Also, since door-to-door canvassing is forbidden, they instead drive around with a loud-speaker at all hours of the day shouting about how great they are, which is totally not annoying at all.)

But don’t worry, this isn’t a boring politics post! Apparently not everyone takes the decision to stand as a candidate as seriously as they’re expected to.

The first stage of the 18th unified local elections took place on April 12, with further mayoral and assembly elections on April 26, and one candidate’s poster on a board in Akihabara, Chiyoda Ward, caught people’s attention.

Goto Teruki is an independent candidate, but beyond that not much is known about him. A cursory Google search brings up a rather strange official website containing his manifesto where his tag line is ‘to make Japan the strongest, kindest, most interesting country in the world’ – truly a lofty goal. His main page encourages people to make their own election posters for him, the best of which will then be chosen by net users. The only rules are to not “get your dick out” (his words), not do anything illegal, and not to be racist or hurtful towards people. Other than that, anything goes. It’s unclear when exactly the post was written, so whether or not he designed the poster below himself is a mystery, but it sure does catch the eye.

He certainly stood out from the other candidates, all of whom went for the standard awkward-school-photo-style approach. On a background of sunbursts and nationalistic designs, only Teruki’s name emblazoned in kanji characters appears to protect his modesty.

According to one tweeter, this guy does something wacky whenever election time comes around. The first time they noticed his poster was when he went with a visual kei design and English writing, which is a no-go when it comes to campaigning in Japan.

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▼Previous attempts were unsuccessful in getting the aspiring politician elected. The text on the left reads “Go, Goto Teruki!”

 You could say that at least this time he’s gone for a more patriotic approach, however more than a few commenters found it embarrassing and not in the least bit funny. What do you think? Would this kind of out-of-the-box campaigning encourage you to vote for someone, or does it make a joke out of something that should be taken seriously?

Also, spoiler alert: he didn’t win. Maybe next year.

Source: TwitterTogetter,  Hachima Kikou, Naver Matome, Goto Teruki Official Site
Header Image: @kaztsu on Twitter