Japanese politicians are a lot more interesting than they used to be

France isn’t the only government dealing with bizarre revelations about a politician’s past. It turns out that Mieko Tanaka, a recently elected Diet representative from Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s Democratic Party, had a very interesting career prior to entering politics. This included a stint as some sort of cosplay sex columnist: A publishing company employee ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
579677_091008_tanaka2.jpg
579677_091008_tanaka2.jpg

France isn't the only government dealing with bizarre revelations about a politician's past. It turns out that Mieko Tanaka, a recently elected Diet representative from Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party, had a very interesting career prior to entering politics. This included a stint as some sort of cosplay sex columnist:

France isn’t the only government dealing with bizarre revelations about a politician’s past. It turns out that Mieko Tanaka, a recently elected Diet representative from Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s Democratic Party, had a very interesting career prior to entering politics. This included a stint as some sort of cosplay sex columnist:

A publishing company employee explains that Tanaka used to pen a rather racy column in the magazine Bubka titled “Beautiful costume play writer Arisu interviews sex workers: a real battle of beauties” under the name Arisu Shibuya. “She would interview fuzoku [sex industry] girls while she herself was outfitted in some kind of costume. It become somewhat of a topic of conversation because nobody knew why she had to dress up like that,” the employee chuckles.

Tanaka had a bit of a film career as well. She appeared nude in cult director Teruo Ishii’s 2005 slasher film Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf:

Tanaka plays one of four widows named Reiko, and she first appears sixty-eight minutes into the film. The ladies are initially seduced by the blind beast, who in reality is a killer, and succumb to his sensual massage, for which Tanaka is seen writhing in ecstasy as the beast fumbles with her breasts beneath her robe.

The politician then reappears at around the eighty-three-minute mark, when she tricks the sightless creature into thinking a doll is her body and subsequently flees in desperation.

Thanks to Tanaka’s election, sales of Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf are apparently through the roof.

Tanaka is one of the so-called “Ozawa girls,” a group of young female politicians recruited by DPJ chief Ichiro Ozawa to unseat aging, male LDP incumbents.

Between Tanaka’s cult-film past and first lady Miyuki Hatoyama’s close encounters, Japanese voters may have gotten more change than they bargained for with the DPJ.

Photo: Democratic Party of Japan

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

Tag: Japan

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