Saturday 29 August 2009
Readers of the daily Sankei Shimbun were treated to a novel development in political campaigning this week – a front page homage to the conservative incumbents, apparently endorsed by the members of Smap, Japan's biggest pop band.
The supplement, wrapped around copies of the right-wing paper, was accompanied by an ad for the band's latest CD, Sotto, Kyutto (Softly, Tightly).
Penned in a cloying style reminiscent of an adult attempting to explain matters of state to an eight-year-old, the message asks if we aren't all being a little unfair on Taro Aso and his Liberal Democratic party (LDP) colleagues.
"When the economy is good, prime ministers are popular, but in bad times, the popularity fades," it said. "Still, these are people whom we've elected, so let's make some allowances and support them."
Victor Entertainment, which paid for the ad, insisted that it wasn't meant to support any particular candidate, while the LDP described it as "appropriate and neutral". The notoriously taciturn folk at Smap's agency, Johnny & Associates, refused to comment.
For Smap member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, the ad marks the completion of his return to the establishment fold, months after his career was put on hold by his booze-fuelled caper in la Tokyo park.
Given that this typically saccharine effort from 2005 became an unofficial anthem among Japanese opposed to the Iraq war, the band's apparent involvement with the LDP is a little puzzling.
Then again, perhaps Smap – an acronym for sports, music, assemble, people – and the LDP aren't such strange bedfellows after all: both, unkind observers might suggest, have been part of Japanese public life for far too long.
