The visitors squeezed into the kiosk near Japan’s national diet building snap up souvenirs bearing the face of Sanae-chan, the affectionate nickname for the country’s leader: chocolate biscuits, dango sweets, stickers and document files proclaiming that “Japan is back”.
“The Takaichi range is incredibly popular,” says a member of staff.
As Sanae Takaichi marks a year since she upended Japan’s male-dominated politics, the country’s first female prime minister has defied predictions that her time in office would be short-lived.
Instead, the straight-talking conservative has rewritten the rulebook on Japanese leadership, led her troubled Liberal Democratic party (LDP) to a resounding election victory, and won support among voters for refusing to back down during a prolonged row with China over Taiwan.
“Takaichi’s direct style has been an asset … particularly in her diplomatic strategy,” says Sheila A Smith, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Recent opinion poll put Takaichi’s approval rating at around 50% – the lowest level since she took office, but still a robust number for a Japanese leader 12 months into their term, and comfortably clear of the 30% “danger zone” that has signalled the end of previous administrations.
She has won plaudits for her refusal to back down in a diplomatic row with China, while her strong social media presence has helped her connect with younger voters disillusioned with the more analogue political style of her predecessors.
But the 65-year-old protege of the assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe marks her anniversary in October at the most precarious point of her premiership. Takaichi is battling the fallout from her first major cabinet scandal, mounting economic pressures and doubts about how she will fund a proposed cut in the consumption tax. She also faces persistent questioning about her work style, including her relationship with party colleagues and the media, and claims that she gets by on minimal sleep.
As the leader of a country with a long security relationship with the US, Takaichi has gone out of her way to endear herself to Donald Trump during their four meetings since she became prime minister. She chose not to respond to his quip about Pearl Harbor when they met in the Oval Office in March, although her body language suggested she was far from impressed.
Awkward moments notwithstanding, she has managed to keep Japan’s relationship with its most important ally on an even keel – even declaring the dawn of a “golden age” between Tokyo and Washington soon after she became prime minister.
At home, however, she faces the strongest political headwinds of her premiership to date.
This month, she initially defended her agricultural minister, Kazuo Yana, who provoked anger for remarks about cutting road funding in municipalities that didn’t support him. Takaichi’s response to pressure for his removal was typically idiosyncratic, describing Yana’s reported comments as “quite honestly, lame,” if true. Pressure built, and on 14 October Yana became the first cabinet minister in her government to resign.
“Takaichi may pay some price for the scandal in forthcoming opinion polls,” says Tobias Harris, founder of the political risk advisory firm Japan Foresight, adding that she had stood by him for almost two weeks while the scandal brewed.
Her current troubles don’t end with Yana. She has been accused of pushing through revisions that practically rule out a change in Japan’s male-only succession law, despite the public’s enthusiasm for a reigning empress, and offered muted backing for Tomoko Akane, the Japanese head of the international criminal court, which has been targeted with sanctions by Trump. She also faces mounting anger in Okinawa following the arrest this month of a US marine suspected of murdering and robbing a local woman.
“She will need to handle slip-ups by cabinet members, hurdles in keeping her coalition partner satisfied and, most importantly, continuing consumer concerns about cost-of-living pressures,” says Smith.
Doubts persist over Takaichi’s plans to ease financial pressures across Japan – a two-year reduction in the consumption tax on food and drink from 8% to 1%, and cash payments to struggling households.
Takaichi insists the measure won’t require more borrowing, but has failed to explain how they will be funded, adding to concerns about Japan’s public debt, already the highest among G7 economies.
Supporters revel in her direct style of communicating, but it has triggered accusations that she is avoiding media scrutiny.
Takaichi rarely grants individual interviews, preferring to explain policies, often in great detail, in posts on X. In her first five months in office, she gave 34 press briefings, fewer than her immediate predecessors Shigeru Ishiba, with 57, and Fumio Kishida, with 90, held over a comparable period. In that time she wrote 370 posts on X, according to the Kyodo news agency.
The tradition of holding background briefings with newspaper and TV executives has fallen by the wayside, says a senior editor at a Japanese weekly magazine who asked not to be named. “She has been aggressive towards the legacy media since day one, something I think she learned from Donald Trump.”
Takaichi’s gamble on the consumption tax, and her belated condemnation of Yana’s alleged comments, point to possible turbulence ahead, according to some observers, leaving her vulnerable to plotting by the same party colleagues who helped put her in the prime minister’s office.
While her predecessors built alliances over dinner at exclusive ryotei restaurants, Takaichi prefers to spend her evenings at home with her husband, Taku Yamamoto, a former lower house lawmaker who suffered a stroke last year. However, she does enjoy a cigarette, perhaps accompanied by a blast of Smoke On the Water by one of her favourite bands, Deep Purple.
She met colleagues over meals only five times in her first six months in office, according to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, significantly fewer than her predecessors. Abe, by contrast, hosted 50 gatherings over a similar period, and Fumio Kishida 35, including several during the Covid-19 pandemic. “It’s usual for Japanese prime ministers to hang out with other politicians in the evening and decide on policy,” says the magazine editor.
Takaichi, who vowed to “work, work, work” on behalf of voters, claims she gets only two to four hours of sleep a night, and sometimes summons aides in the early hours of the morning. Security protocols reportedly mean she is forbidden from going shopping, although her husband told a Japanese monthly magazine that he is occasionally permitted to order a pizza, adding that the couple stockpile microwaved ready meals and instant noodles. “In the morning, I have a bath, make breakfast and then wash the dishes, not to mention putting on my makeup,” she told MPs this week. “I feel like I’m spending three or four more hours than male prime ministers doing these things.”
Harris, Abe’s English-language biographer, says there were “notable differences” in style between Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and his protege.
“Takaichi is clearly more isolated, refusing in-person briefings from bureaucrats, having fewer meals with political allies and business representatives, and generally relying on her own judgment and perhaps not hearing as wide a range of views as her predecessors,” he says.
Testy relations with the media will not cause her to lose sleep as long as her message resonates with voters.
Smith says Takaichi’s “willingness to provide clear, no-nonsense responses to difficult policy challenges”, including the need for Japan to raise defence spending and improve its ability to respond to threats from China and North Korea, is likely to keep many voters on side: “I expect her successors will need to adapt and follow her lead,” she adds.
As long as that approach continues to work, even sceptical members of the LDP hierarchy who may wince at her personal style – sharing a laugh with Donald Trump at Joe Biden’s expense or serenading Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni – will continue to back her. What that means for her political longevity is less clear.
“She has a reputation for trusting her own advice and not building up a strong cadre of loyalists … and not playing the LDP’s social game,” says Harris. “That may endear her to voters, but it risks leaving her with few friends if her circumstances take a negative turn.”
