Taro Aso, your new Japanese prime minister

aka a Roman Catholic nationalist Olympian manga fiend, apparently.

The greatest country leader name ever?

Perhaps "Aso Fever" by Tomoe Shinohara will now come back to life?

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-9x-49-en-70-y6j.html

It was all part of the plan.

This guy is a real piece of work. He's very hawkish with regards to foreign policy and is opposed in principle to most structural economic reforms. Japan's political system is certainly among the most dysfunctional of all the rich, capitalist democracies. The LDP are deeply corrupt, and bereft of anything even resembling a new idea after more than 50 years of near continuous rule. On the other hand, the opposition are wholly unfit to govern, and most Japanese people when faced with such a lack of options simply disengage. Aso will get his 18-24 months, and then it's on to the next 60-something year-old scion of another political dynasty.

Yeah, he certainly seemed like little more than typical product underneath the trappings.

Japan's political system is certainly among the most dysfunctional of all the rich, capitalist democracies. The LDP are deeply corrupt, and bereft of anything even resembling a new idea after more than 50 years of near continuous rule. On the other hand, the opposition are wholly unfit to govern, and most Japanese people when faced with such a lack of options simply disengage. Aso will get his 18-24 months, and then it's on to the next 60-something year-old scion of another political dynasty.

I don't know that I agree with this. The pre-Koizumi '90s certainly had its share of hacks (Hashimoto, Obuchi, Mori), but Japanese politics is far more dynamic than many assume. That period of instability was partially a result of the Ozawa coup and the fall of the LDP (short-lived as it was). Now we have the post-Koizumi period, and again there is a great deal of uncertainty. But it's the not the same old story. Fukuda is hardly a typical LDP man. He's not from a political family and spent a great deal of his career in the private sector. He very probably payed the price for being Koizumi's right-hand man all those years (and spearheading reform at the expense of his own party), and he didn't have the popular support that allowed Koizumi to stand up to the LDP establishment. The opposition now controls the upper house of the Diet and is making inroads in the lower house.

Anyways, my point is that Japanese politics has more nuisance and dynamism than a lot of people assume.

Start writing the political obits now:

Prime Minister Taro Aso said on Monday that he would call a general election late next month, after a bruising defeat in a widely watched local vote sank his Liberal Democratic Party deeper into its worst crisis in a half-century of power.

In a meeting with top party officials, Mr. Aso said he would dissolve Parliament next week and hold the elections for its lower house, which selects the prime minister, on Aug. 30. The sudden decision follows months in which Mr. Aso had been trying to put off the national elections, in part because opinion polls have shown that his Liberal Democrats are almost certain to lose.

Mr. Aso’s hand appeared to be forced, though, by a defeat on Sunday in a municipal election in Tokyo. The loss raised the specter of a revolt within his party, with a number of members fearing that the government’s support ratings, now in the high teens, will only continue to decline. Lawmakers and analysts have warned that the party may break apart if it finds itself in the unaccustomed position of losing power.

I see that I overestimated his staying power upthread. The 18-24 months I initially gave him turned out to be less than 12. I was so right that I turned out to be wrong.