Candidate exercises right to wear poop-stained diaper on head during address.

Teruki Goto is one of the more mysterious candidates in the current race for Tokyo Governor. A perennial candidate in various local elections for the past nine years, he has consistently pushed the limits that campaign regulators set.

For example, during a mayoral run in 2015, Goto designed a poster that somehow managed to both meet the stringent layout rules and feature a picture of him fully nude and brandishing a samurai sword.

An interesting feature of politics in Japan is that public broadcaster NHK is required to allot all registered candidates airtime to present their platform to the people. These candidates are allowed to say whatever they want, even if it’s directly disparaging the TV station they are appearing on. So what would happen if the man in the poster above, who appears to have more recently joined the Transhumanist Party, was allowed to run wild for six minutes on NHK?

I think it’d go something like this.

Without going in and untangling all of that stream-of-consciousness that made up Goto’s speech, the first things that jump out are his nudity, diapers with a big poop stain, T-shirt that reads “Chinko Shugi” or “Penisism,” and his frequent uses of words referring to genitalia. This is all by design, and allude back to another notable appearance on NHK while running for governor in 2016.

In this speech Goto also referred to genitals and feces but had these words censored out by NHK. In total he was muted 21 times, but his simulated oral sex act appeared to have been too fast for them to deal with on live TV.

Afterward Goto sued NHK for violating the election law which states that a candidate’s political views must be aired without any tampering. NHK won the suit, but it appears they were affected by the whole ordeal and refrained from altering Goto’s message at all this time around… surprisingly.

It’s a political experiment that has captivated many around Japan.

“He’s poking around for weaknesses in NHK’s political coverage. It’s brilliant!”
“I watched this with my parents. It was uncomfortable when Goto came up, but I couldn’t help laughing.”
“Knowing who he was ahead of time made me excited for his next speech. He does not give a f*ck.”
“I’m worried these elections are starting to lose the plot.”
“I feel bad for the woman who had to read his introduction.”
“They’re probably going to change the election law so they can arrest him.”
“So is he running for the Chaos Party?”

Believe it or not, if you follow him carefully enough, there does appear to be a method to Goto’s madness in what he describes as “seriously fooling around.”

For example, with regards to his stance on public nudity he says: “Babies aren’t really brought by the stork. It’s an act of nature, and kids getting exposed to men and women’s genitals for the first time by porno is really unhealthy, isn’t it? I don’t think kids are taught about it properly, and I don’t understand why we can’t talk about genitals openly.”

▼ Speaking of nudity, Goto’s poster this year was fully clothed… as the character Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass (the creators of which in no way endorse Goto).

Goto also says that legislative assemblies on all levels in Japan are full of completely serious men and women, and in that way they aren’t truly representative of the public as a whole. For a government to be truly the voice of the people, it ought to have a few goofballs and free thinkers, such as him, for good measure.

Either he’s starting to make a scary amount of sense, or there might be a gas leak my office.

Source: YouTube/Teruki Goto, Teruki Goto Campaign Site, Hachima Kiko
Top image: YouTube/Teruki Goto
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