Monday, December 3, 2012

Japanese Politics: December 16 Election Posters


[My brief impression in square bracket.]

Democratic Party of Japan, Yoshihiko Noda: "What matters is decision [in the very large font]. Responsibility for today and for the future." [or "What matters is the ability to decide." Noda's left eye and right eye look as if they belong to two different persons. Scary.]


Liberal Democratic Party, Shinzo Abe: "Take back Japan" [Take back from whom? Gazing into distance, not looking at you, with eyebrows that reminded me of Gromit. To my amusement, LDP now call themselves "Lib Dems", like the Lib Dems in the UK. As we all know by now, LDP is not liberal, it's not democratic either.]


Boy-wonder's Japan Restoration Party: "Rebirth of Japan, responsibility for the future." [If anyone get inspired by looking at this poster, he/she will fully deserve whatever comes after this party is elected.]


Japan's Future Party: "Future where everyone can have hope." [Mr. Tetsunari Iida and Ms. Yukiko Kada, both of whom changed part of their names from kanji to hiragana for the election so that voters can easily write, without mistake. Sorry to say but I find very little personal charm in these two. Mr. Iida had better get a decent haircut.]


Japan Communist Party: Kazuo Shii, "We propose, we act." [Mr. Shii, you are not an enka singer. Sorry. The look is the 70's look...]


New Party Nippon, Yasuo Tanaka: "I know who to protect" [his word. "I don't make mistakes in choosing who to protect" - criticizing DPJ and LDP for putting big businesses first.]


My personal favorite is Mr. Tanaka's poster. He looks calm and not prone to over-promising. Despite the silly gesture, I also do like Mr. Shii, smiling at us, looking like a good sport.

As far as the color scheme goes, DPJ's Noda and New Party Nippon's Tanaka are the winners to me. The colors (red or dark red background, very dark suits) portray substance, whether the substance is actually there or not. Mr. Tanaka could have chosen a better tie.

Someone couldn't help faking a poster for Goshi Hosono:


14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Scum , fucking scum the lot of them , sadly Japanese lack critical thinking skills and will buy the rhetoric that comes their way not realising they are mere serfs... and what about Ishihara? well looks like Japan will be fascist before long ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20589143

....

Anonymous said...

After seeing those election posters, I was reminded of a friend's fake poster for Ishihara's Tokyo Olympics bid, and was inspired to make a fake Japan Election 2012 poster. Enjoy!
http://i45.tinypic.com/qq7o91.jpg

P.S. Wonderboy's image doesn't load for non-Japanese IPs.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

wonderboyelection12.jpg replacing the URL link...

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Personally, I would have liked to see the close-up of smouldering Reactor 3 on March 16, 2011 with the sentence like "We will correct our mistakes this time."

lecadidupe said...

Heh. Between Noda's and Tanaka Yasuo's eyes you've got at least four people. When did it become de rigueur for J-folks of a certain age to dye their hair shoe-polish black? Koizumi's glorious gray is but a distant memory. Hats off to Ishihara ("He quit, he wasn't pushed!") Shintaro for going with the might-be-blue-might-be-beige tonal scheme. And for keeping it real by refusing to _ever_ button his top shirt button.

And the eternal Shii, bureaucratic mediocrity personified. At least he updated his glasses to at least late 20th-century. I still wonder whether he's a actually brain-damaged-looking android created in some Keidanren lab to ensure Kyosanto never takes power.

Darth3/11 said...

I love these election posters. Everyone seems to go to the same photographer, who gets really clear shots of the grains of their skin. Same tacky colors. Fist shaking at me (why?), but some are actually touching. Just saw a new one, a black and white photo of a rock-star looking long-haired NOT OLD man. Have to get out my camera for this round. Thanks for the great commentary, Laprimavera-san!!

Anonymous said...

I'd like to think this is what those posters say.

Yoshihiko Noda: Voter for me "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best and what's best is for Japan to listen to me!"

Shinzo Abe: "Vote for me I dream of a day when everyone can poop without help"!

Boy Wonder: Vote for me, look how green I am my poster is green. I'm so green I eat green meat"!

Ms. Yukiko Kada: "Vote for me I'm so weak I need help holding up a sheet of notebook paper"!

Mr. Tetsunari Iida: "Look, I'm helping"!

Kazuo Shii: "Vote for me or I'll punch ya!"

Yasuo Tanaka: "My wandering right eye says vote for me"!

Goshi Hosono: "Bend over and vote for me I love to kiss ass!"


Anonymous said...

Great for Shuriken practice.

Anonymous said...

@6:57 Agreed on Noda. 動かすのは決断 literally means "decision/determination is what gets it moving". Is he talking about Oi npp?

Atomfritz said...

anon 9:39, that was a good one!

Here is what I thought when looking at the posters:

Noda: Mugshot photo of a boozed white collar criminal
Abe: "Hey, guy in the crowd, please stop throwing shurikens!"
Boy wonder: "Mum, am I dressed well?"
Iida and Kada: Comedian pair
Shii: Why cannot he do an orderly Communist greeting?
Tanaka: Prozac advertisement

I like the Shii poster most, because the man looks more honest than all the others.

Atomfritz said...

OT: By the way, regarding the colors:
Now even the arch-conservative Bavarian CSU (which is currently part of the German government) uses the green color in their ads and decorations for the first time since war.
I guess this is because they recently lost their majority because more and more of their voters change to the Green party.
Maybe they fear to lose power to the Greens, who toppled the Baden-Wuerttemberg CDU government.
This happened just short after the latter bought back the Baden-Wuerttemberg nuclear power plants for four billion euros which were sold to EDF a few years ago. A few weeks later the Fukushima accident happened, and then the German nuclear exit followed. The French still laugh about the stupidity of German politicians.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

CDU elected Angela Merkl again. Stick with the known quantity, I suppose.

Let's see if the incumbent wins in the Japanese election.

Aimmie Nammy said...

Awesome post!! Keep it up!! :D

Atomfritz said...

@ LaPrimavera

Yes, the Germans say "da weiss man wenigstens, woran man ist" (meaning about: we know Merkel, so we know what will happen when we re-elect her").

By the way, luckily Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd is back in the seas, on the way to Antarctica with his fleet. Now I ask myself, does there exist any political party in Japan which is opposed to the whale mass slaughter done by the Japanese?

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/sea-shepherd-chef-paul-watson-wieder-auf-walfang-jagd-a-871132.html

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