After the election and inauguration of President Obama, who has already reversed the Mexico City Policy and has promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act if it is introduced and signed, one of my few consolations was the recent election of Taro Aso as Japan's first Catholic Prime Minister. You can only imagine my grief last Friday, when reading the New York Times that Aso's days are numbered; according to Reuters, 71% of Japanese voters want him gone. A right-winger even in the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, Aso has more going for him than his religion. He's my type of politician, dare I say an oriental Silvio Berlusconi- and as such he is meeting his end largely as a result of politically incorrect slip-ups.

Among his notoriously funny words, he has said that Americans diplomats in the Middle East are ineffective because of their "blue eyes and blond hair", whereas the Japanese will be trusted owing to their "yellow faces". Blue-eyed myself, I can only giggle, wishing Mr. Aso's yellow-faced compadres had taken it as lightly. A tireless patriot, he has praised his nation for being "one nation [with] one civilisation, one language, one culture and one race". At the same time, while a more capitalistic than I would like a dream politician to be, he is singular in his honesty concerning the objectives of his policy, affirming that "the best country is one in which rich Jews feel like living". Even his own religion has not been spared. He declared, "Our values in Japan regard hard work as important... To work is good. It's completely different thinking from the Old Testament... We should share our philosophy with many other nations". While Adam was punished with physical labor, I would argue that work is important to living a complete human life in our fallen state, where idleness is a sure road to vice. And as the Bible (New Testament) says, "if any man will not work, neither let him eat" (2 Thess. 3:10). Still, this can't exactly be considered an insult given the speaker. There are other reasons for the seemingly imminent fall of the PM, but, like Bushisms, they are a sign and symbol of his unpopularity (and they certainly aren't weightless, given the impact eloquence and the lack thereof have had on our President and his predecessor).

Alas, I do not doubt there will ever be such a fine head of government in the Land of the Rising Sun. Despite Aso's rule being in a land halfway around the world, he even improved the life of this American. Not only is he Catholic, conservative, nationalistic, and a fixture in media lampoons; he's a big manga fan. And I mean big- the shares of manga-related corporations surged as soon as it became apparent he would soon be PM. Whereas most of our young people are Obamatrons, Aso's passion made him unusually popular among the youth of Japan, and he festoons comical billboards and manga shop advertisements across the land. I cannot resist reposting some in full size, as they appear here, here, and here:










Let the point not be lost amid my Cusackian imagerial excess. As I read on Wikipedia and later elsewhere, he's a particularly big fan of Rozen Maiden, to the point that he's been nicknamed Rozen Aso. Taking the clue from a fan measurelessly more the veteran than myself, I purchased volume 1 of the beautiful series last evening, and am very happy. Although manga and anime aren't nearly as popular here as they are in the Land of the Rising (or perhaps the Setting) Sun, were I ever to become a politician, the manga fans among my supporters (yes, both of them) could perhaps bestow upon me the nickname Rozen ~. In any case, it sounds much better than Rozen Aso.