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Prime Minister Hatoyama's Past 'Otaku' Views Summarized
posted on by Egan Loo
Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: The Nikkan Sports newspaper has summarized the cover article from the 2005 premiere issue of Otak Elite (Otaku Eriito) magazine about Yukio Hatoyama — the former Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Secretary-General who just became the Japanese Prime Minister this month. In the extended interview, Hatoyama discussed Japanese manga and anime.
Hatoyama acknowledged that he had studied history by reading manga based on the Chinese historical epic Sangokushi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) and other stories. He added that he once wanted to be the Three Kingdoms warlord Liu Bei. In the same magazine that had the Sangokushi manga, he also got hooked on reprints of Robot Santōhei, Koremitsu Maetani's manga about a World War II army private who happens to be a robot.
During college, Hatoyama went from reading Weekly Shōnen Magazine and Weekly Shonen Sunday to the alternative gekiga magazine Garo. More recently, Hatoyama said he read Masakazu Katsura's I''s romance manga as it came out every week in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine during the late 1990s. As for anime, Hatoyama added that he likes Hayao Miyazaki's films, such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.
With regards to Japanese manga and anime in general, Hatoyama remarked in 2005 that Japan has been developing itself as the proud world leader in animation and added that he thinks this is very essential.
Four years later, with Japan still dealing with a decade-long economic stagnation, Hatoyama's government has decided not to continue planning one of the controversial symbols of his predecessor, fellow manga reader Tarō Asō. The Mainichi Daily News paper reports that Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Tatsuo Kawabata confirmed on Tuesday the new government's intent to cancel the proposed national media arts center — better known by its nickname, the "anime hall of fame." In May, Hatoyama himself called the center a "national manga kissaten (café)" and criticized it as a bureaucracy created for Asō's interests.
Yukio Hatoyama's Best 10 Manga
- Robot Santōhei by Koremitsu Maetani
- Niji-iro no Trotsky by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
- Golgo 13 by Takao Saitō
- Sangokushi by Mitsuteru Yokoyama
- Kaji Ryūsuke no Gi by Kenshi Hirokane
- Omoshiro Manga Bunko Series
- GeGeGe no Kitarō by Shigeru Mizuki
- Doraemon by Fujiko F. Fujio
- Mighty Atom by Osamu Tezuka
- Sazae-san by Machiko Hasegawa
Yukio Hatoyama's Best 5 Anime
- Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki
- Princess Mononoke by Hayao Miyazaki
- Doraemon by Fujiko F. Fujio
- Mighty Atom by Osamu Tezuka
- Sazae-san by Machiko Hasegawa
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history