@rmarcantuoni.bsky.social provides a summary of his recent research article on the far-right conspiracy party Sanseitō. Responding to the media's portrayal of the party as a catch-up moment for Japanese politics, he instead argues that its conspiracy ideology is a novel form of political action.

A very informative article explaining the conspiracy theories and ideologies motivating Japan's new far-right party, Sanseitō, which made substantial seat gains in last July's upper house election. Thanks to @rmarcantuoni.bsky.social & @robfahey.net for writing this.

My latest piece for Tokyo Review:

Viral on Twitter in Japan: Prime Minister Takaichi used to be TV presenter and gave a magazine interview in the 1990s in which she said Japanese men were too timid if they directly asked for consent from women. She criticized men who ask “Can I kiss you?” instead of just taking decisive action.

I really do need to research the occult in Japanese subcultures at some point. H/T @mrjeffu.bsky.social

I just find it impressive that he left his longtime HoC seat in 2021 and moved to the lower house in the hopes of doing just this, and now here he is in second place. Even if he doesn’t get it, I think he’s played his cards really well these past 4 years.

NBC News interviewed me about tomorrow's LDP leadership vote, which will decide who will take over Japan's ruling party and become Prime Minister: www.nbcnews.com/world/japan/...

The overseas betting market doesn't appear to be reacting much to news that Hayashi might make it to the second round of the LDP leadership election. Most still have confidence in Koizumi, who is at 82%.

Japan's LDP race projections from FNN: •Takaichi is leading in 17 prefectures •Koizumi is leading in 15 prefectures •6 prefectures are a toss up: Takaichi or Koizumi •Hayashi is leading in 4 prefectures •Hayashi might come in 2nd place due to lawmakers' votes news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/a73...

CNN interviewed me for this piece about the LDP leadership election: "Japan’s ruling party is in crisis as voters swing to right-wing rivals. Can a new leader save it?" edition.cnn.com/2025/10/02/a...

Today I spoke to Australia's ABC News about Saturday's LDP leadership race. Three candidates currently seem to have a chance at becoming Japan's next Prime Minister: www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_rg...

Video - Emperor Naruhito of Japan and President Donald Trump on Climate Change: Many Japanese netizens have noted that the Emperor strongly advocates action to address climate change, and has often spoken about it at UN conferences. Quite a contrast from Trump's climate change denialism.

Video: a Japanese scientist was attacked by flies while giving the acceptance speech for his Ig Nobel Prize-winning research paper that proved painting Zebra-like stripes on cows led to a decrease in biting fly attacks.

I spoke with Monocle Radio today about the LDP leadership race (my segment starts around the 33 minute mark) monocle.com/player/?uuid...

Japanese YouTuber Nagata Yuri is spreading conspiracy theories about the death of Charlie Kirk. She became a famous as "the first Japanese woman to become an Los Angeles police officer" (she was an airport cop at LAX) & makes videos introducing the "truth" about world politics. [1/3]

A new poll asked Japanese their preference for the next leader of the LDP. Takaichi Sanae came in first with 29%. However, it should be noted that when you isolate for LDP supporters, Koizumi Shinjiro beats her 33% to 28%. Non-party members do not vote in the election. news.line.me/detail/oa-yo...

Charlie Kirk, who was almost unknown in Japan over a week ago, is being incorporated into Abe Shinzo assassination conspiracy theories.

A wrinkle to the social media in polisci debate is that unlike previous iterations, this current slate of platforms have explicit political agendas they are promoting

"Japan needs its version of the AfD to rapidly save the nation." - Elon Musk, reacting to a Japanese user who very wrongly described Takaichi Sanae a "center-left figure." She's so conservative that a former Prime Minister Kishida allegedly referred to her as the "Taliban."

Yamamoto Taro, leader of Japan's left-wing populist Reiwa party, reimagined as character in Hearts of Iron IV (hoi4). [translated from @makahannya7676 on Twitter]:

The Daily Mail is using a random image they found on Reddit to explain the "Notices bulge, OwO" meme that Tyler Robinson Robison allegedly carved into one of his bullets. It's Astolfo, a feminine-looking male character who appears in the Japanese game Fate/Grand Order. [1/2]

An account of one of Charlie Kirk's last speaking events, which took place in Japan on September 7th: •He spoke with the leader of the far-right party Sanseito •1,200 people paid for $68-$200 tickets •"Nearly half" of the audience was "dozing off" kurodoraneko15.theletter.jp/posts/208b5f...

Japan Times Editorial: "The fact that only the U.S. suffers this level of firearm-related violence renders specious the claim that this problem cannot be addressed through gun control." www.japantimes.co.jp/editorials/2...

I was interviewed for the latest episode of BBC's The Inquiry: www.bbc.com/audio/play/w...

An example of Japanese news analysis of the Trump-Putin meeting: YTV noted that US Presidents usually speak first when hosting foreign leaders, but in this case Putin spoke first, speaking for over 8 minutes, compared to Trump's 3 minutes and 20 seconds. youtu.be/kDjOZEE14FY?...

New Open Access academic e-book about Japan! Japan’s Imperial Mythology: The Dynamics of Sacred Narratives in History and Politics lit-verlag.de/isbn/978-3-6...

LDP politician Koizumi Shinjiro represents Kanagawa's 11th district in Japan's House of Representatives. If you zoom into that district on Wplace, someone has written "GO SHINJIRO!!" in an area near the National Defense Academy.

A Sanseito supporter made a music video full of low quality AI-generated footage of the political party's leader. One scene has him the cockpit of an airplane, with his arms coming out of the side of the plane's body. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmIe...

On Japanese right-wing Twitter today: a left-wing protester who gave the middle finger to a Sanseito politician was described as making some kind of violent death threat...because apparently giving someone the middle finger means "I'll kill you." 🤡

The Japanese government presented US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with a manga-style portrait drawn by Akamatsu Ken, creator of Love Hina. Akamatsu was elected to Japan's Upper House in 2022 as an LDP candidate advocating freedom of expression in manga & anime.

A viral Japanese tweet imagines a future in which the BBC airs a documentary about "The Dark Side of Japanese High School Baseball," causing the Japanese media to pay more attention to scandals that are allegedly ignored. (similar to the Johnny Kitagawa sex abuse scandal)

Japan’s chief trade negotiator, Akazawa Ryosei, referred to United States Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick as "Lut-chan" (or Rato-chan #ラトちゃん) in a tweet about ongoing tariff talks.

"Obama said '71 years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky'. This was a totally unacceptable use of words. Death did not 'fall from the sky'. The Americans dropped the bombs. They created the world we live in." My intervu with Terumi Tanaka: www.irishtimes.com/world/asia-p...

I spoke to Monocle Radio today about the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. My segment is about 39 minutes into today's broadcast. monocle.com/player/?uuid...

Prime Minister Ishiba closed his Hiroshima memorial speech by quoting a poem by Shoda Shinoe. It was published in 1947, in defiance of US Occupation authorities, who banned such poems. At the time Shoda believed her act could have resulted in imprisonment or the death penalty.

An interview with Nikkei Asia on Sanseito. Full discolure: I didn’t actually realize this was going to be a long-form video and was mostly trying to hit sound bites. But good experience to be thrown into the deep end these past few weeks of Sanseito coverage. youtu.be/s3K1lzia4eM?...

Grok AI was asked to analyze posts by Sanseito supporters and determine their median IQ. It determined the median IQ of a Sanseito supporter was 55, below the estimated IQ of a chimpanzee. (Other parties: LDP 75, CDP 85, Komeito 70, JCP 82, DPP 76, Ishin 78, Reiwa 68, SDP 80)

A viral tweet about far-right Sanseito merch: the sign says "mostly made in Japan" (with small text for the "mostly" part), but a tag says "Made in China." It's true that some of their merch is made in China, but their website also offers higher priced "made in Japan" merch.

A viral right-wing Japanese Twitter post is calling Saitama University historian Ichinose Toshiya a "traitor" for giving an un-controversial mainstream historical explanation of Japan's 1930s invasion of China on an NHK TV program aimed at teaching history to children.

In the mayoral races in Yokohama and Sendai, the incumbent mayors won reelection tonight. Both were seen as progressive in their initial runs defeating LDP candidates, but seem to have been Ainori in these elections. Still, good news for two major Japanese urban centers.

A viral tweet with 5.7M+ views accused Prime Minister Ishiba of being an "anti-Japanese" leftist because he doesn't visit the Yasukuni Shrine. A Community Note added context: he doesn't visit it because the Emperor also didn't visit it after class A war criminals were enshrined.

Japan's agriculture minister, Koizumi Shinjiro, has talked about deploying water trucks to help rice fields in areas where rainfall has been lower than expected. A viral post compares this to "trying to put out a wildfire with cicada pee," but such trucks are actually used by farmers.

Sanseito politician Matsuda Manabu has been appointed chair of Japan's Upper House Discipline Committee. In 2022, he called Covid vaccines "murder weapons." In 2025, he said Japan fought in World War II to "create a world without racial discrimination."

Edo Naito's Japan Times piece about Sanseito is extremely misleading: "There is no evidence of historical revisionism in the policies or draft Constitution." Sanseito's politicians are very open about their nationalistic views on history.

New piece by Edo Naito on Sanseito does very little other than aid the normalization of far-right views. He also calls this characterization of the party 'snarky, which feels like a dismissal of the time and effort me and others have put into our research 🧵 www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2...

Former Japanese Prime Minister Kishida shared a birthday card he received from fans. It has illustrations of him smiling with US President Biden, drinking a beer with South Korean President Yoon, and throwing a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game. www.youtube.com/watch?v=E793...

A Japanese person took their 10-year-old son to see the new Superman movie, and the kid said "it was totally like the story of Momotaro" (a Japanese folk tale about a hero who was discovered as a baby & raised by a childless couple, and later teams up with a dog, bird, & monkey).

Japanese right-wing influencer Himasora Akane is trying to prove a woman who ran as an anti-China candidate in the recent Upper House election is secretly Chinese, using skull structure arguments that resemble racist American WW2 propaganda about how to tell Japanese/Chinese apart.

It is worth remembering that, while the former factions leading the rebellion may appear to have the majority with 169 out of 297 votes, they were the very forces that supported Takaichi in the last leadership election Yet she still lost — because former factions can’t whip votes like they used to

The conservative Sankei Shimbun has been running articles that oppose Prime Minister Ishiba's plan to issue a statement on the 80th anniversary of the end of WW2. Abe's 2015 statement said that future generations of Japanese shouldn't be "predestined to apologize" for the war.