Probably surprising Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi himself, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) gained a sweeping victory in the House of Representatives election on Sept. 11. Many pointed out that the television coverage of election campaigns had more impact than ever on the long-time ruling party’s historic triumph.

The LDP won a single-party majority, gaining 296 seats of a total of 480 that were up for grabs, while the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the main opposition party, only gained 113 seats and lost 64. The defeat prompted Katsuya Okada to resign as DPJ party leader immediately.

As an ever-increasing number of Japanese people obtain information about political parties and candidates from television, broadcast news programs and talk shows seemed to have a profound impact on the election results.

“The TV election coverage inundated in our daily lives had enormous influence on the public,” said Toshio Ueki, a director of the public relations office at the Central Committee of Japanese Communist Party. “Many people call us to give us their opinion and request based on what they have seen on TV.”

As more people depend on television for information, one of the keys to the election victory is undoubtedly media management and whether a party wins air time. The LDP as well as Koizumi excelled in these areas, while the DPJ did not, analysts said.

In fact, most of the voters interviewed attributed the DPJ’s loss to inconsistencies among its leaders they saw on news programs and talk shows. They cited some comments made by Ichiro Ozawa, a DPJ deputy leader, which were different from what Okada had said.

Koizumi, however, from the start of the election campaign, was trying to monopolize election debates by focusing solely on postal reform, though opposition parties and experts harshly criticized the prime minister and his party, saying a variety of issues should be discussed. On the campaign trail throughout Japan, the premier, tossing his hair before large audiences, repeatedly threw around such slogans as “Don’t stop reform” and “This election is for postal reform.”

Furthermore, in order to defeat members of his own party who voted against his bills on postal reform in early July, Koizumi dispatched so-called “assassins” to their constituency. The LDP-backed “assassins,” some of whom have no experience in politics, included several telegenic women, whipping the media into a frenzy.

As Koizumi was attempting to turn the election into a national referendum on issues of postal businesses, “the media followed his line, calling the occasion the election of assassins,” the Communist Party’s Ueki said. “In that regard, the election coverage was not fair. In fact, on many occasions, we reported to some news programs about their unfair coverage.

“I’m not saying the media should more often broadcast our point of view, but I’m saying fair coverage is the basic principle. This is not for the sake of one party but for the sake of our democracy.”

Ellis Krauss, a professor of Japanese politics and policymaking at the University of California at San Diego, who was in Tokyo to observe the election, agreed that much of the TV and newspaper coverage was about a few celebrity races.

One of the races that Krauss pointed out was in the Hiroshima No. 6 constituency where Takafumi Horie, Internet mogul and president of Livedoor Co., was running as an “assassin” against former LDP legislator Shizuka Kamei. Kamei voted against Koizumi’s postal privatization bills. Horie, who boasts in his book, “Money can buy people’s hearts. Women can be lured by money,” chose to run as an independent, still backed by the LDP.

“Some of the more important issues got ignored. Even after the election, major stories seem to have been about these few celebrities,” Krauss said. “I think, to some extent, the media missed the real significance of this election — how Japanese politics has changed since the electoral reform.

“Here’s the election in which for the first time Mr. Koizumi is moving Japanese politics toward British-model, top-down cabinet government.”

Focusing on celebrity candidates as well as party leaders, the media made the Japanese public “invisible,” some critics pointed out. There was no such thing as a town meeting in this election.

In Japan, “only party leaders and candidates come out in the media, but the media hardly listen to the voice of the people,” said Yoko Yamaguchi, a member of Kanagawa Net, a local women’s party, who also serves as a city councilwoman in Atsugi near Tokyo. “We don’t see what kind of people are supporting this party, who are supporting that party, or why they are supporting the party. Neither did we see the media reporting undecided voters, asking them why they have not made a decision.”

Ken Takeuchi, CEO of the Japan Internet News, was also critical of the media coverage of the election, saying, “The media failed to look at the situations objectively and in a level-headed manner.”

Takeuchi, whose company launched Japan’s first serious alternative online newspaper, Jan Jan (Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures) two years ago, described the election as “aberrational.”

“Mr. Koizumi set up so-called ‘Koizumi Theater’ and constantly captured media attention, and the media themselves got on the stage. And also voters as a whole seemed to get caught up in that theater,” said Takeuchi, a former Asahi Newspaper editorial board member who also served as mayor of Kamakura, near Tokyo.

In a written statement, the public relations office at Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV) said the network tried not to be preoccupied with such celebrity races, but tried to practice objective reporting.

While major networks hosted more than a dozen TV debates among party leaders before the election, virtually all of them devoted more time to issues of postal reform and downplayed other issues, especially Koizumi’s controversial decision to deploy the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to Iraq to support the U.S.-led rebuilding efforts, the first dispatch of the SDF to a war zone.

For instance, during “The Sunday Project” of TV Asahi on Aug. 28, one of the most popular talk shows in Japan, about 20 minutes were spent on postal reform and nine minutes on pension issues. The program’s host, Soichiro Tawara, however, spared little time for other issues. Many other TV commentators followed suit.

“The strongest theme [of this election] is the privatization of postal businesses,” declared Kenichi Takemura, a regular commentator on “Hodo 2001,” a major talk show program of Fuji Television Network Inc (FNN). Network representatives characterized FNN’s coverage of the election as “sober and fair.”

Most opinion polls, however, suggested most voters were not interested in postal reform. According to polls conducted by major daily Mainichi Shimbun a week before the election, 41 percent of those surveyed saw issues of pension, medical care and nursing care as a top policy concern, while 19 percent pointed out the privatization of postal businesses and 14 percent economy-boosting measures.

Analysts agreed that the media failed to raise various issues and let party leaders discuss them.

“The media hosted a number of TV debates, however, they did not ask party leaders a variety of questions such as issues of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. Even Tetsuya Chikushi (TBS News 23 anchor) did not,” said Akikazu Hashimoto, a political science professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

NHK claims the network “had each party discuss wide-ranging topics such as pension issues, diplomacy, defense and constitutional revision, and we believed
we were able to provide voters with information for making a decision.” In addition, we reported
policy issues other than postal business privatization in our election-related news. Therefore,
They added,” We disagree with the criticism that ‘there was not enough discussion on issues other than postal reform.’”

TBS News 23, a nightly news program of Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc., whose anchor, Chikushi, used to cover Okinawa as a young Asahi newspaper reporter, is known for its reports concerning the U.S. military presence on the southern island and discussion on the issues more than other major news programs.

“The mainstream media also did not examine whether Mr. Koizumi had made good on his campaign promises or how such promises had been delivered,” added Hashimoto.

Moreover, critics said that TV news programs and talk shows did not report the contents of the postal businesses privatization bills submitted by the ruling coalition of the LDP andNew Komeito. The media appeared to focus too much on who supported Koizumi’s postal reform and who did not, but seldom reported why they opposed his reform. Oddly, most supporters of Koizumi said they did not know of the bills, but supported him because of his strong leadership and energy.

“The media did not talk about the substance of the postal privatization bills,” said Yamaguchi of Kanagawa Net, who worked in television production for seven years. “Neither did Mr. Koizumi. He just reiterated, ‘We make no headway on reforms without privatizing postal businesses.’”

Eisuke Sakakibara, an influential former vice minister who was nicknamed “Mr. Yen,” emphasized in an interview, “Mr. Koizumi cannot privatize the postal businesses with the bills … initially the government owns 100 percent of this postal company’s shares and at the end it will own one-third. That means the government will be the biggest shareholder and control the company. So this will result in the creation of a bloated state-run business, and we will see money flow from the private sector to the government.”

An expert’s comment like this was hardly reported in major newspapers and networks. Furthermore, on many occasions, Seiko Noda, an LDP member who voted against the bills, asserted on television, “The bills are riddled with flaws.” The media, however, did not report what she meant or what those flaws were.

The public relations office at NTV responded to some criticism, saying the network “made a strong effort to report the contents of ‘postal reform,’ the substance of the [postal privatization] bills and policies that each party put up for the election.”

What seems to be very strange is the restriction on the use of the Internet for political end in one of the most technology-obsessed countries. Japanese election law prohibits parties and candidates from creating or updating homepages or blogs during the 12 days of official campaigning.

The 55-year-old public office election law does not actually mention use of the Internet. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Electoral Management Committee, a Web site is illegal because the information on the homepage could be printed out and disseminated as a fliers.

Critics said the LDP is reluctant to revise the law because their long-time supporters and members are not technology-savvy people.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” asked Takeuchi of Japan Internet News. “The law is helplessly backward.”

The first the publisher of Kami no Bakudan (“Paper Bomb”) knew about his impending arrest was at 6 a.m. when he opened his morning edition of The Asahi Shimbun “Kobe prosecutors issue arrest warrant for Rokusaisha publishing house president on suspicion of defamation,” it read. He hurriedly picked up the phone to his editor: “It looks like there is a warrant out for my arrest.”

Soon reporters and TV crews had gathered outside his home and office. At 8 a.m. Kobe prosecutors arrived and escorted Toshiyasu Matsuoka to the publisher’s main office to be arrested. He barely had time to make a comment to the media before being taken away to Kobe detention center. “This is a violation of the 21st (free speech) clause of the constitution. We will fight this,” he said.

Prosecutors cited quarterly magazines and books published by Rokusaisha, as well as material on their Web site. They accuse the publisher of defaming executives of Aruze Corp. pachinko maker with allegations of tax evasion and unethical business practices. The publisher is also accused of defaming ex-employees of the Hashin Tigers baseball team with allegations that a former scout for the team was murdered.

The publisher is already being sued by Aruze for libel, but Kami no Bakudan editor Motohiro Nakagawa says they were still shocked when Matsuoka was criminally charged. As one freelance writer and contributor to weekly magazines in Japan, Benjamin Fulford put it: “libel is something you sue people for, not arrest them.”

There is concern that the arrest may intimidate other magazines, and non-establishment media say they are wondering who will be next.

While the facts of the arrest were covered by most of Japan’s national newspapers, the media in general has shown little solidarity with Rokusaisha. Even Japan’s leading liberal daily, The Asahi Shimbun, has effectively looked the other way since Matsuoka’s arrest – although an Asahi reporter interviewed Matsuoka the day before he was taken into custody, and the paper reported the arrest several hours before it happened. Editor Nakagawa suspects the newspaper used its contacts in the Kobe prosecutor’s office. “The Asahi Shimbun reporters in the police press club knew more about what was happening we did,” he said.

Of the weeklies, only the Shukan Asahi weekly magazine offered robust support. In a two-page interview, Yasunori Okadome, the editor of recently defunct scandal magazine Uwasa no Shinso (“The Truth Behind the Rumors”), was unequivocal about the implications of the arrest: “If we casually permit a member of the media to be arrested on suspicion of defamation, it is the same as if freedom of speech had died.” (For more information on Uwasa no Shinso see here.)

As a small circulation publication, Kami no Bakudan may have been a relatively easy target for the authorities. Despite the magazine’s pledge to continue the work of infamous Uwasa no Shinso, it has failed to attract anything like that scandal magazine’s readership. At its peak, Uwasa no Shinso’s circulation rivaled other weekly magazines, but Kami no Bakudan’s four editions so far have sold around 25,000 copies each.

Kami no Bakudan’s murky image (even for a muckraking weekly magazine) won’t have helped its cause, says Shunsuke Yamaoka, a freelance contributor to the magazine. “Even if it is attacked, Rokusaisha is the kind of company that other media won’t support,” he says. “It is considered a scandal magazine . . . not a serious magazine.” He adds that the publisher hasn’t established the friendly links with other media that Uwasa no Shinso enjoyed. Many of that magazine’s scoops came via journalists in the mainstream media.

“[Uwasa no Shinso] may have been a black sheep, but it was still part of the herd,” agrees Mark Schreiber, co-author of Tabloid Tokyo, a book of translated articles from Japan’s scandal weeklies. Rokusaisha, on the other hand, is on the fringes of the media in more ways than one, he notes. “This is a Kansai (Western Japan) based publication with national circulation; that’s very rare.”

The headline of Kami no Bakudan’s September “Emergency Special Edition” reads “Unlawful arrest. This is how far suppression of speech has come.” Editor Motohiro Nakagawa claims the government has clamped down of freedom of speech with a series of new laws introduced on the pretext of protecting privacy and human rights. Matsuoka’s arrest was the latest unusually direct example of suppression, he says. “There was no likelihood of flight or of concealing evidence, but he was still arrested. That’s why we think this is suppression of freedom of speech,” Nakagawa said.

Yasunori Okadome, ex-editor and publisher of Uwasa no Shinso, agreed that authorities are making life more and more difficult for non-establishment media with ever steeper libel payouts. Over 25 years of publishing Uwasa no Shinso, Okadome was involved in around 40 libel cases, but payouts are 10 times higher now than when his magazine began. The most famous plaintiffs, notably TV personalities and politicians, get the most money, he said. “Effectively, they are saying ‘don’t write about politicians.’”

Okadome worries that the authorities are preparing the way for a further crackdown by starting with an easy target. He is concerned that the authorities may use the precedent of Matsuoka’s arrest to move on to larger and more influential publications. “You could say that it has become easier to arrest publishers for defamation. [Other magazines] will be afraid. They don’t know when they will be targeted.”

The weeklies have an undeserved image of unreliability, which makes them vulnerable to legal action, according to weekly magazine contributor Fulford. The typical public attitude is that “you can trust it if it is in the Asahi or Yomiuri, but not if it’s in the weeklies,” he said, “[although] there’s a clued-in group, especially among the intelligentsia, who don’t believe the main media.” He stressed that editorial checks on his weekly magazine articles were as least as thorough as for his correspondent job for a major Western business magazine. “Actually, [the weeklies] have been so sued and persecuted that they are very cautious.”

Yet some commentators are skeptical about any wider crackdown. “I think this is par for the course,” said Schreiber. “In one form or another, these publications are constantly in trouble.” He pointed out that the magazines rely on scandal-seeking reports, often outrageous invasions of privacy, for the bread and butter of their business. To that extent, legal action comes with territory.

And he doesn’t believe that magazines like Uwasa no Shinso and Kami no Bakudan are quite the fearless taboo-breakers they make themselves out to be. “Some of [their journalists] take the position that they are crusaders,” said Schreiber. “They make a show of being fearless, but they don’t have the time or the money to go out there and really dig. They are dependent on people dropping stuff in their laps. It is a forum for people who want to spill the beans.”

As for Kami no Bakudan, even the magazine admits they went looking for trouble. The self-titled “terrorists of the pen” said they set out to push the boundaries of free speech “to their very limit.” “It turned out that the risks from being an extremist group were all too large,” noted the magazine in its latest edition.

Several freelance journalists interviewed for this article also alleged Rokusaisha had become involved (perhaps willingly) in a factional struggle within the Pachinko industry. In contrast to predecessor Uwasa no Shinso’s wide-ranging assault on a spectrum of media “taboos,” Rokusaisha has concentrated on their pursuit of Aruze, publishing no less than four books on the topic. That may have dissuaded other media from backing the publisher in its fight for free speech.

Kami no Bakudan is one of a variety of publications within the weekly magazine market, with a wide range of journalistic standards. At one end are scandal magazines like Uwasa no Shinso or Kami no Bakudan, and at the other are semi-respectable magazines like the Shukan Bunshun or Shukan Shincho. And there are freelancers working for titles at both extremes. Many strive to cover issues that their mainstream media colleagues won’t (or can’t) report. Some do more than just write about the twilight world of criminal gangs, police corruption and blackmail that fuels the scandal publishing industry. “There are so-called ‘black journalists’ who earn even more money from the articles they don’t publish, than the ones they do,” said Fulford.

Yet, whatever the innuendo over the background to Matsuoka’s arrest, questions still remain unanswered. Why were criminal charges applied rather than a civil libel case? Did the authorities just take an opportunity to pinch in the boundaries of free expression a little, knowing that few would support a small controversial publisher?

Toshiyasu Matsuoka was charged on Aug. 1 and is will appear in court on Oct. 17. Rokusaisha says that they expect him to remain imprisoned at least until then. Kami no Bakudan editor Nakagawa admits that given the nature of the contents of their magazine, they are resigned to legal action. But the incarceration of their publisher “has completely different implications.” “If we are arrested we can’t express our opinion at all.” he says. “We may be ruined.”

One editorial cartoonist during the American occupation of Japan, Kon Shimizu, noted that his own and fellow cartoonist’s work were not so much “political,” as passively “about the political world.” “With but occasional exceptions, they offered no sustained political vision, no biting critique of the misuses of power and authority, no cosmopolitan world view,” wrote historian John Dower in his account of the period, “Embracing Defeat.”

Over half a century on, has much changed? In one sense, no. Editorial cartoonists might aim to make politics more interesting or more understandable — perhaps even more fun — but rarely express strong political opinions.

Change has come, however, to Japan’s manga industry — now a major cultural force. Million-selling (sometimes tens-of-million-selling) manga artists draw on anything and everything. And as their readership ages, artists are feeding a burgeoning demand for manga on “serious” topics. A few series even focus directly on the political process; many more touch on political issues.

Ofer Feldman, a professor of political psychology at Doshisha University in Kyoto, did a study of 1,533 political cartoons from The Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun dailies in the 1980s and ‘90s. Typically, he said, a Japanese political cartoon illustrated the day’s political coverage and “reflect[ed] the political mood or the social mood in a picture.”

Cartoonists squeeze their interpretation of the day’s politicking into a single frame through a variety of visual shorthand. A politician seen washing their feet in a cartoon would be a reference to someone trying to “wash their hands of something,” or put an unpleasant past behind them. Other symbols are common to both story manga and editorial cartoons; for example, politicians are often shown with beads of sweat on their temples — an anxious “cold sweat.”

There is a danger that those symbols and the intrinsic complexity of Japanese politics can make editorial cartoons abstruse. But cartoonist Yoshito Kawanishi, whose work is featured in the Yomiuri Shimbun, has little time for cartoonists who only draw for the political cognoscenti. “I don’t particularly think that my cartoons are what the world would call ‘satirical’,” he said. “For me, it’s better to put the significance of politics in a light form where it will become enjoyable, [not just] for people who have knowledge of politics.” Each day he receives an early copy of the day’s newspaper and then draws up to three or four draft cartoons on stories that catch his fancy. The newspaper then selects one for printing. Kawanishi deliberately draws in an approachable style, so much so that he’s been told that “all the politicians end up looking like children,” in his cartoons. Asked if that might trivialize politics, he is quick to stress that “just because the faces look cute, doesn’t mean they get lenient treatment in the cartoon.”

Andrew Skinner, a Canadian political cartoonist based in Tokyo, draws on a range of subjects and Japanese public figures. But he notes that other editorial cartoons in Japan tend to feature politicians, most often the prime minister. “In North America, a political cartoon could be on just about anything,” he said. “It could be on Michael Jackson hanging a baby out of the window. But with a Japanese political cartoon they seem to be always on the prime minister.”

Ofer Feldman found that prime ministers were portrayed in 48 percent of the cartoons he studied. They were drawn as “ugly, feeble, unhealthy, made disastrous errors, and [were] always worried and defeated. [They] tried in vain to climb steep mountains, traverse a desert in blazing summer, or cross a street in a typhoon with an umbrella full of holes.” As time went on in each premiership, prime ministers were portrayed as having less power, less confidence and less morality. If ordinary Japanese people appeared in cartoons, they tended to be depicted as “disinterested in the political process.”

The parameters of editorial cartoons in Japan appear firmly fixed — what Feldman calls “a priori self-censorship.” Controversial new religion “Soka Gakkai” never gets a mention, despite the prominence of its political wing Komeito. The relationship between politicians and the Yakuza is left alone. “If they write a cartoon about rightists, the following morning there will be a bomb in the editorial office,” joked Feldman.

Some subjects just aren’t suitable for “gag” cartoons, said cartoonist Kawanishi. He never draws victims of crime and misfortune, feeling that it would be disrespectful. He once drew a cartoon of the emperor for a cartoon magazine, but was asked to alter his copy. “I don’t particularly avoid drawing the emperor,” said Kawanishi of his work for the Yomiuri. “It’s just that the emperor is outside the political world. I don’t need to draw him.”

In contrast, the huge Japanese manga world has few constraints other than the whims of a fickle readership. Since modern manga first appeared in the early post-war years, the average age of the readership has crept upwards and the medium has matured. Some multi-million-selling manga artists now boast the kind of influence that many political commentators and well-known journalists could only dream of.

Kaiji Kawaguchi is one of Japan’s best-known manga artists. His adventure stories often touch on controversial issues affecting Japanese politics and foreign policy. Fifty million installments of his submarine adventure “Chinmoku no Kantai” (Silent Service) have been sold. One of his two on-going series, “Zipang,” features a modern self-defense force ship inexplicably transported back to the middle of the Pacific war. There the crew comes face to face with the reality of Japanese military history. His other series, “Taiyo no Mokujiroku” (A Spirit of the Sun), portrays a Japan devastated by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and forced to reluctantly seek help from neighbors and allies.

Despite its sometimes contentious subject matter, Kawaguchi denies his manga is “political.” “At the end of the day it is made up,” he said. All he can do is provide a “stimulus” for readers who might go on to explore issues for themselves. “I want them to think that history is interesting,” he said. In any case, he argues that the manga business is unforgiving to artists who force their opinions on readers. “Above all, you can’t go and put anything in the manga that the readers don’t want,” he said. “They won’t buy the manga.”

Manga artist Kenshi Hirokane, however, is open about his political intent. He said that he even knows Diet members who decided to enter politics after reading one of his manga series. “Kaji Ryusuke no Gi” (Ryusuke Kaji’s Duty) follows the career of an idealistic young politician, and Hirokane set out his manifesto on the manga’s flyleaf: “In this work I want to portray not just the negative side of politicians, but also show their honest side in a fair way with exaggeration or omission.” This is perhaps no mean task considering the speckled reputation of politicians in Japan. Another manga series on Japanese politics, “Hyoden no Torakuta” (Constituency Tractor) by Kenny Nabeshima and Tsukasa Maekawa, focuses squarely on Japan’s pork-barrel politics. The satirical manga’s hero is a young political secretary with exceptional money-gathering skills.

Hirokane also still draws an extremely successful salary-man drama, begun 20 years ago as “Kacho Shima Kosaku” (Section Chief Kosaku Shima). Since then Shima has been promoted to Executive Managing Director and sent to China, which recently allowed Hirokane to deal with the highly controversial anti-Japan protests in Chinese cities. A popular authority on Japanese business culture, Hirokane also sat on a committee this summer to decide the name for the government’s energy-saving new business dress code, “Cool Biz.”

But isn’t there a risk that the ubiquity of manga in Japanese culture can lead to a kind of “dumbing down”? “Manga are a great way to soak up information,” said Frederik L. Schodt author of “Manga! Manga!” and “Dreamland Japan,” “[but] readers need to balance what they get from manga with information from more traditional media too.” He pointed out that even the most realistic and serious manga lack established journalistic standards. “Unlike film and text articles or books, manga that deal with serious subjects are still manga, i.e. they have at their core the concepts of deformation and exaggeration.”

Editorial cartoonists like Yoshito Kawanishi attempt to catch the interest of Japan’s disenchanted electorate. “I hope that more people will become interested in politics through my cartoons. If that leads to public discussion or voting in elections… I can generate some social meaning for cartoons.” But how can single frame political cartoons, or even political editorials for that matter, compete with tens-of-million-selling, thousands-of-page-long manga blockbusters?

And while there is a clear demand for manga to address serious topics, as yet very few artists openly aspire to the role of opinion-former. As Koji Tabuchi, a senior editor at manga publisher Kodansha Ltd. put it: “It’s better to think of manga as show business rather than journalism.”