Miso Soup and Megaphones: A Day on the Japanese Campaign Trail
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At 6:30 a.m. on a freezing Saturday a campaign aide for a candidate for parliament from Tokyo’s No. 20 district claims a spot outside a train station in a western suburb of the city.
Twenty-minutes later Seiji Kihara, a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, takes over the position at the foot of an escalator near the west exit of Higashi-Kurume station. Sensing an opportunity to speak to a crowd, Japanese Communist Party hopeful Mariko Ikeda moves in just feet away, while Mitsuaki Takeda, candidate for the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, sees he’s lost a prime location and moves to the other side of the tracks.