New PM Shigeru Ishiba

[dingo 1,212]

So Japan has elected a new leader of the governing LDP party, Shigeru Ishiba who will succeed Kishida as the next PM soon. Apparently Ishiba has a strong defence policy background. 

Anyone know if he's a sumo fan? 

Edited September 27 by dingo
Spelling, as always...

[I am the Yokozuna 188]

Rugby union player at Keio, I think 

but cannot find any of the articles among the flood of new articles 

[Akinomaki 40,053]

Nothing about him in my sumo news search - any mention of sumo, rikishi or yokozuna in any article causes it to land there, be it that his father likes to watch sumo or whatever, e.g. that he's doing yokozuna-zumo or hitori-zumo as a politician. That doesn't mean he is no fan though.

[Akinomaki 40,053]

On 27/09/2024 at 08:35, dingo said:

Anyone know if he's a sumo fan?

He was apparently, but likely not that much now

Just now, Akinomaki said:

The new prime minister apparently has not much interest in sumo now: nobody from the Ishiba administration was at the ceremony yesterday to present the prime ministers cup: "The NSK had asked us, but we had other things to do" was the comment by the cabinet secretary today (of course in other words), after frustrated comments by the fans in the social media o

For Takanohana, Koizumi himself had handed over the cup

for Kotozakura, Hakkaku had to do it, like in Corona times

But the next day, Ishiba himself sent a message for Kotozakura, he read it for the media (reaction to the fan protests maybe)

Dad got it on his smart phone and gave it to his son. Kotozakura had met Ishiba in early childhood at a senshuraku party - Ishiba's father was the head of the koenkai of Kotozakura I

[dingo 1,212]

Yes, I also noticed that the prime minister's cup was handed over by Hakkaku. Pretty big faux pas by the PM office on my opinion. But I'm not sure how many Japanese pay attention to that. 

[Yamanashi 3,776]

TBF, there's been a lot of real angst and upheaval in Japanese national politics over the last six months, so maybe they can get a pass this time -- but only this time!