A candidate for the upcoming Tokyo governor election is using a naked female model on his campaign posters.
Yusuke Kawai’s schtick is cosplaying as the Joker and doing provocative stuff, though this might be the most extreme of all his stunts to date.
The model is Miu Sakurai, a gyaru model and idol who has appeared in beauty contests and who appears to have Filipino roots. She has also been helping Kawai put up the posters of her naked body on boards around Tokyo.
His posters not only use pornographic images but also announce his opposition to the recent adult video legislation as well as “mosaic” (pixellation used in adult video censorship). He also says in one poster that he wants to legalize prostitution (it’s actually not illegal per se in Japan).
We’re not sure how legal these posters are. Only a tiny image of Kawai as the Joker protects Sakurai’s modesty. The posters are on display on boards featuring all candidates for the upcoming gubernatorial election on July 7, and their locations are typically near neighborhood parks.
The 43-year-old Kawai, who also cosplays as the Mask, is running on an extreme freedom-of-expression platform. Other posters include ones that suggest building a nuclear power plant in front of the National Diet.
He has run in various other elections before, and claims to be a graduate of Kyoto University. In 2022, he finally won an election — for the municipal assembly of the city of Soka in Saitama. Kawai’s other policies include support for the revision of Article 9 of the constitution (which renounces the right to war) and opposition to foreigners receiving social welfare.
There are 56 candidates for the election, including incumbent Yuriko Koike (seeking a third term) and opposition parties candidate Renho, who is now a political veteran known for her pantsuits but had a former career as a gravure idol. She is probably the most prominent ex-gradol to carve out a second vocation in politics, though Ayaka Shiomura is also a famous example, and a prominent gravure model from the 2000s, Chisato Morishita, continues to campaign for election to the Diet.
This election really feels like a circus, even more so than usual, with some fringe candidates hijacking the boards to put up multiple posters instead of just one in their assigned spot. Nonetheless, fringe candidates with weird policies and provocative posters is nothing new.
Do you remember Kana Shindo and her use of a government-issued face mask as a bra?
Or Teruki Goto and his nude self-portrait?
Yusuke Kawai is apparently opposed to censorship and the new porn laws. The founder of porn site FC2 also ran for election on an anti-censorship platform.
