00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo Station. I saw the newspapers, the news—it's hard to avoid it here in Japan—but Japan has a new Prime Minister, Prime Minister Ishiba, who's just taken office after Prime Minister Kishida stepped down. Kishida had been in office for about three years since Prime Minister Suga stepped down during the pandemic. He had to leave because of so many other issues that were going on, in particular a scandal, but in general I think he did a pretty good job. We'll see how history judges him.

00:00:40 John Daub: And in this episode I'm going to go down my own history here because I can say very easily in Japan, I've been here during I guess five U.S. presidents and a countless number of Japanese prime ministers. It's really hard to try to name them all, but I came here in '98, so we had Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden—that's so easy to list on my hand. The number of Japanese Prime Ministers since then, it's a little bit off the charts, but we're hoping that this guy can do some good stuff. Here's his cabinet—he just took office yesterday, and Kishida has stepped down, he said goodbye. In the middle is Shigeru Ishiba, and I know him, I know others. I love him because he's been in the news for years and years. He's the first Prime Minister from Tottori Prefecture, which is a good thing because they hadn't had one before, so it's nice to put some attention onto Tottori on the Sea of Japan side there.

00:01:49 John Daub: You can also see some familiar figures in his cabinet perhaps. If you don't follow Japanese politics, you probably don't know anybody in there, but there he is in the center of the screen. And Ishiba, you're going to be hearing his name quite a bit over the next several years. Typically, if you look at this chart here, these are the Prime Ministers since I came to Japan: Hashimoto, Obuchi, Mori, Koizumi, Abe, Fukuda, Aso, Hatoyama, Kan, Noda, Suga, Kishida, Ishiba. There's a lot of names in there. And going back even further, Hashimoto was in office and left a month after I came to Obuchi, and he's the one I kind of remember the most when I first came to Japan, seeing him all over the news. And of course, the longest—the two longest-serving Prime Ministers were Abe-san and Koizumi-san. Kishida in that list, not too long. You see the green line's fairly long. So you've got to give him a lot of credit. Abe-san, I think the longest serving Prime Minister during that time.

00:02:33 John Daub: Let's know a little bit about Ishiba, who is headlined as stubborn ex-Defense Minister. The guy knows politics quite well. He's been in this business for quite a long time. And hopefully can unite the country and the party after this scandal. Your ex-Defense Minister and veteran lawmaker Shigeru Ishiba, widely seen as a lone wolf with a stubborn streak, won the presidency of Japan's ruling LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) in his fifth bid for the party leadership, paving the way to become the next Prime Minister. The 67-year-old is known for his expertise on defense. He's something of an otaku—kind of like a military geek—and security affairs, although some consider him a genius. He's known for his personal interests and hobbies, and was one of the public's favorites to be Prime Minister in the media polls. I think some of the Prime Ministers in the past, including Taro Aso, were otaku, like manga and anime otaku. So we've had some pretty interesting Prime Ministers, although they don't last very long.

00:03:36 John Daub: In the LDP, however, some have expressed concerns over his lack of enthusiasm for making allies in the party. I guess he's like a maverick, something from the 2008 US presidential election. Ishiba left the LDP in 1993 after declaring the need for political reform. Although he rejoined in 1997, some party members resented his defection. Sometimes leaving the party and coming back is a good thing. It gives you a clear vision. He created his own faction within the party in 2015, but it later ceased to exist. I think his separation with the party due to scandal might be one of the reasons why he was so attractive this time around. The 12-term House of Representatives member holds in great esteem a motto of former Deputy Prime Minister Michio Watanabe, who called for telling the truth with bravery and sincerity. Ishiba's own motto refers to how powerful birds such as hawks and eagles tend not to flock together. Birds of the same feather tend to flock together—well, not hawks and eagles, Ishiba says.

00:04:45 John Daub: You can see younger photos of him as a politician. He's been in this game for quite a while. Probably good to have a steady hand on the wheel right now, or an experienced hand with everything that's going on in the world today. In 2007, he gained attention for giving serious answers as defense minister regarding hypothetical attacks of Godzilla and visitations by UFOs, which every politician should probably do. I think you should take this seriously. At least have imagination, which gives you the insight to take care of situations that might come along at the last second. He's prepared, should Godzilla attack, or anything for that matter. There's no concrete evidence that they don't exist. We must consider a myriad of possibilities, he told a press conference, noting that it would be difficult to determine whether a UFO visitation should be designated as an airspace violation, as the object would technically not be an aircraft from another country. I like that. You don't have to take politics 100% serious all the time, but if you do, it's kind of interesting to take hypothetical situations like this seriously in a funny manner.

00:05:52 John Daub: Ishiba also juggles many hobbies from making plastic military models to cooking and has boasted about his curries. He's a massive fan of the 1970s girl group Candies with an ability to sing their songs by heart when in karaoke. Yeah, you know, it's kind of good to have somebody who understands people, who understands the people that he governs. He's also an otaku. He also cooks. He's a good guy. He's also from Tottori, which is a very regional, rural area of Japan. Check out Greg Lam's Life From Tottori video on an area there. And here is the current prime minister making curry at a festival. He also enjoys eating and reading alone, once admitting to cutting back on sleep to read and lists Japanese novelists. He also takes the sleeper train, the Sunrise Izumo, to return to his constituents in Tokyo. And this is a local train from Tottori Prefecture due to his love of railways. That is amazing. I love the Sunrise Izumo, which is a sleeper train. It's a lot better than flying there all the time. Ishiba additionally serves as head of the Intraparty Ramen Society. Sign me up. I'd love to be a part of the Intraparty Ramen Society.

00:07:10 John Daub: So, when you learn a little bit about the current prime minister, he's an interesting fellow. I like the fact that he's kind of a lone maverick—he kind of does things his own way, he's not a yes man so to speak. The son of former Tottori governor, Ishiba graduated from Keio University—of course he did—worked as a banker before winning a seat in the House of Representatives in '86. That's a long time ago. In 2012 presidential race he tried to take over for Abe in the runoff and he's been trying ever since. Finally in his fifth try he gets in there. You could see Prime Minister Abe winning the race there but I think all in all he understands the military quite well in many capacities and I think he's a good person for this particular time.

00:07:52 John Daub: You all know I'm a fan of Kono Taro, who was the digital minister for Kishida to try to modernize Japan and he's got an English Twitter or X handle that is extremely humorous about the food at the government building and other things that are happening. So he's a very funny dude, studied at Georgetown in the US so he has a pretty good balance of international politics based on his own personal experience studying abroad and that's sort of an experience that's necessary these days for anybody who's not in there. Kono Taro is cool. He's still young—he'll get there one day. But it seems to be like next guy up or next lady up because it was—I think—Sanae, I forget her last name, but she was second in the voting so we almost had a female prime minister which would have been something huge, historic. But I think it's for this time and this moment I think Ishiba is most likely the right choice and I'm wishing him a lot of luck because Japan really has a lot of stuff to overcome.

00:09:16 John Daub: One of the things that I'm a huge fan of with Ishiba is his desire to help regional revitalization. I'm so in tune with him on this particular issue that I think he's going to do an amazing job because there's never been a time where Japan's countryside needed an advocate as much as him. Kishida was from Hiroshima and Ishiba is from neighboring Tottori on the other side which is even more rural and I think that this is going to be a really great thing for Japan. He's somebody who knows the countryside very well, let's just say, and it should be a good thing hopefully at this time with all the tourists that are coming to Japan he finds ways to bring more people away from the cities and into places like Tottori. And Mr. Ishiba if you're watching, I'll help you—let me give me a call bro, sir. I'll be happy to help you.

00:10:16 John Daub: This is the funny part of the live stream—these are the prime ministers that I've gone through living in Japan since and I'm glad I really hope he lasts for more than one year. You can see the pictures—to me they all have a point in time. Hashimoto I didn't know him well, Obuchi I knew quite well from watching my TV, I kinda liked him. Mori—harder to be likable but he's still around. Koizumi the lion—very likable. Remember with George W. Bush and the meetings that they had with his lion-like hair. Strong leader. His son is in the running for prime minister and high political office in the future. Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated out of office. He'll be missed for sure. Strong leader in the end. He didn't do such a great job the first time around, and he learned from his mistakes. The second time around, he did a fairly better job.

00:11:14 John Daub: Fukuda-san, who I remember. I want to stop here for a second. Fukuda-san started with the internet. He was the first person to get on podcasting. And I know that because I competed with Fukuda-san on iTunes in 2007 and 2008. And my podcast was—I had something called Weblish, where I was teaching Japanese-English. This is the time where YouTube just started. And my video podcast was number one in Japan for a very long time. A lot of you don't know that. To my expense because I had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the bandwidth. Which is the bad thing about Apple. You don't have to do that nowadays. It's a lot cheaper. But back then, my gosh. Being popular hurt. And it was hard to get sponsors. But anyways, I was able to beat the prime minister and Sony Music at that time. So I have a fondness for Fukuda based on that. I could beat the guy.

00:12:10 John Daub: Taro Aso, who's still around. He's sort of a maverick himself. He's a funny guy. But he's a strong leader. He puts his foot in his mouth sometimes. Then, this is where things really changed after Aso. A different party came into power. Hatoyama, Kan, and Noda. Those three prime ministers. And I think it was the Great Tohoku Earthquake that really hurt that party. Because I don't think any leader would have done a really good job with that. It was just something intense. Think about a nuclear meltdown. An earthquake that devastated a region. The things that you had to tell the public. And still be positive. It was an incredibly challenging time for Prime Minister Kan. And there's a Netflix drama on the decisions that he had to make. And I still have, just thinking about those eras, I still have trauma from that. So I can understand how he felt trying to be a leader at that time. It wasn't easy.

00:13:20 John Daub: Despite the fact that maybe he won't be seen as a successful prime minister, it was a really challenging time. As well as Prime Minister Noda. And then after that, of course Shinzo Abe came back as a stronger leader, learning from the mistakes. The public giving him a second chance. The prime minister isn't elected directly. It's the leader of the party who's elected within the party who ends up becoming prime minister. Which is what we just had. Suga, who I thought was a really good prime minister. But he didn't get really much of a chance because the economy was bad due to the pandemic. There was scandal. There's always a scandal. And he had to go. He stepped down because it was just—when a new face comes in, you get new capital to try to do good things. And he could sense that was time and maybe he'll be back. I don't know. But he always gave me the sense of being a fairly good leader.

00:14:10 John Daub: And then Kishida came in and battled, man. My opinion of Kishida—he's quite positive. But for domestic politics, there's a lot of negatives for the people here. But it's a hard one. For a new politician, they're always going to have baggage. But he really battled. He battled through some tough times because the prime minister has to stay in power for a long period of time. Because you really make those connections. And if you keep changing every year, the public doesn't have a lot of confidence in government at all. But he was able to stay in for three years despite the battling. And I think that's great. And then, of course, we have Ishiba-san who fought for this job for five tries. So I think he's going to be around for a while. But he seems to be the kind of guy that is tough. And maybe we need that kind of a leader right now. Because the world and our neighbors right now are kind of tough. But I like the fact that he's very much into the regional revitalization.

00:15:21 John Daub: Throughout the history of Japan, the LDP or Liberal Democratic Party hasn't always been the party in power. But for the vast majority of it, they've been in power. And whether or not that's a good thing, I don't know. But it seems like they find a way to reset and try to keep the public's trust in them. And I think Prime Minister Kishida stepping down was one of those moves. It's just he had to go because of the scandals and the stuff that has been mounting. Politics in Japan seems like a dirty, dirty thing. You've got to be really, really tough. I don't know anybody who would want this job. There's so much stuff in the background in Japanese politics that it's really hard to find a leader who is still a good person and able to handle all of these factions that are pulling and pushing you. And in Japan there's so many of them. I have a lot of respect. But I seriously hope that maybe one day it'll be this guy Shohei Ohtani who will be running the country.

00:16:43 John Daub: From the outside looking in, Suga and his team contributed to the demise of the Japanese economy via the delayed reopening. Yeah. I think though that he had a lot of things going against him. It's not really an excuse. The way that it was handled was bad. But Japan rules on consensus. And I think perhaps he wanted to reopen the country a lot sooner. I think he saw the economics. I did. I once traveled out to a place called Fujinomiya. And it was still something of a state of emergency. We left the car and people got upset. And I thought that that was something that really didn't understand. Because my wife and I, we bought stuff from a lady who was selling goods. She said she hadn't seen tourists in a long time. She was making a livelihood out there. Hotels, family businesses went under. I don't know how much we can contribute that to the Prime Minister. But I can tell you the people didn't really want to open. They were scared. And I'm glad that we're past that. And I think that the Prime Minister learned a lot from it. The LDP did, I'm sure. And that's not going to happen again.

00:18:11 John Daub: I think that's a good introduction to Prime Minister Ishiba. Who I'm hoping and wishing for some good luck. Thank you, Tony, for some snacks. I appreciate it. I'm hoping for some good luck from this cabinet. You know, whoever is the President of the United States is going to be in November. I'm going to wish them good luck as well because the world needs a strong leader. Right now we need some strong direction. And in Japan, there's going to be a general election in October. There is an outside chance that we get a new Prime Minister again if the LDP does not win the general election. I think it's going to be October 25th. So it's coming pretty quickly. So he's going to get a mandate if he wins the election. It's expected that he's going to win. And he'll be Prime Minister going forward. But the party got rid of Kishida. Or he stepped down. And now Ishiba is here from Tottori Prefecture, which is a good thing. Tottori is representing. And I'm kind of happy about that because it was one of the prefectures that hasn't had a Prime Minister yet.

00:19:10 John Daub: These are the 12, as far as I know, the 12 prefectures that have not had a Prime Minister yet. And having a Prime Minister is good because it puts light on your area. Hiroshima was in the spotlight a lot because of Kishida, including a G7 summit. Aomori, Akita, Yamagata, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Yamanashi, Shiga, Nara, Kagawa, Saga, and Okinawa have not had a Prime Minister yet. And it shows. Tottori, they never really get the amount of funding because politics is so much corrupt. And Shimane did have a Prime Minister and they sort of had better highways. I remember driving from Tottori to Shimane. And Shimane had more money. There could be a lot of reasons for that. But they sort of blame the fact that they never had a Prime Minister. I love the Sanin region, but the politics behind it is hilariously complicated.

00:20:01 John Daub: Alright, guys, that's all I got for you. I'm at Tokyo Station today. Got a new episode dropping tonight. And, yeah, hope I see you guys again tomorrow with another live stream. A lot of stuff to talk about. A lot of things to get over, including this episode. I got two back-to-back episodes for the main channel. So please wish me some luck as I try to get these all out. And, yeah, get back to work. Mata ne.