The good citizens in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan for over 400 years, reelected Shintaro Ishihara as governor in Sunday’s elections. He wants to bring the Olympics to Tokyo in 2016 but has angered some foreign residents (who by and large cannot vote) with remarks about crime rates and the French language. He is also credited with reconstructing the capital’s finances and by taking measures to protect the environment. On the latter point I actually agree; he has banned diesel trucks and the air and water is cleaner than in any other major city in Asia.


His latest official speech can be found here (in English, not in French).

In 1955, Ishihara was awarded a literary prize for his novel Season Of the Sun. Wow, YouTube has this brief anime version from 1986, about upper-class 1950s teenagers in Japan, who spend their time on the beach, or boating – Ishihara used to live in Zushi in Kanagawa prefecture – having no real responsibilities. A movie was made way back then, with Ishihara playing a minor part. This is the movie poster:

For those of us who are not allowed to vote, the real good news is that there will be no more loud-speaker trucks with election messages for a while.