Politics

Interesting Japanese election poster: Matsumoto Kiyoshi’s grandson

The other day, I came across the following poster, promoting Kazumi Matsumoto, who is seeking election as a representative for Tokyo’s 2nd district:

The poster stands out because Matsumoto has chosen an interesting font for his name. The font makes it look exactly like the logo of the Matsumoto Kiyoshi drugstore chain!

He is actually a grandson of the Kiyoshi Matsumoto who founded that company (and later became a politician). Matsumoto’s poster said he held an position of importance at Matsumoto Kiyoshi, so he probably won’t get in trouble for making his name resemble the company’s logo.

Matsumoto served one term as an LDP lawmaker in the House of Representatives in 2005-2006, after getting elected as one of Prime Minister Koizumi’s “children.” It now looks like he’s trying to make a comeback by aligning himself with Ishihara’s Japan Restoration Party.

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How Shintaro Ishihara cleaned up Tokyo

Tokyo’s air quality gradually improved under former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara. Japan was behind the west in regulating atmospheric concentrations of known carcinogens such as PM_2.5 – particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (µm). The primary source of these fine-sized particulates in Tokyo was diesel engines, which in 1999 Ishihara began a campaign to reduce.

A law banning “dirty diesels” in Tokyo was passed in late 2000 and subsidies to help local businesses replace or retrofit noncompliant vehicles began in 2001. Enforcement through heavy fines as well as naming and shaming began from late 2003 in Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, and (from 2004) Kanagawa. Upper limits on diesel exhaust were further lowered in 2006 [J].

It wasn’t until 2009 that the central government introduced regulations comparable to those set by the US EPA: 35 and 15 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³) for daily- and yearly-averaged concentrations, respectively.

The graph above shows the PM_2.5 levels from fiscal year* 2000 to 2011, the limit of the raw data currently available from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. There are only four long-term PM_2.5 measuring stations in Tokyo (two “general” and two “roadside” stations). The bar graph indicates that the roadside station along the Nikko Kaido in Adachi Ward recorded daily-averaged values that exceeded 35 µg/m³ on approximately 160 days during FY 2000. This decreased to only about 10 days during both FY 2009 and 2010.

However, much of Tokyo appears to be struggling to drop under the yearly limit of 15 µg/m³, and the data presented here are insufficient to definitively link the improvements directly to the actions of Ishihara and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. A recent study has noted that mortality from cancer has decreased in Tokyo over the same period, but the methods available and the nature of the data prevent statistical attribution of any observed changes.

Now, concentrations have begun to increase since the 3/11 disaster, but with only 10 years of data in total, and only 1 following the quake, it is impossible to attribute the changes to any particular cause. The magnitude of the change is also within the inter-annual variability (for example the increase from 2004 to 2005).

Could this reflect the increased usage of traditional fuels for electrical generation with a number of nuclear plants offline?

*Fiscal years in Japan begin in April, so FY2011 was from 4/1/2011 until 3/31/2012.

An example of the raw data available from the Metropolitan Government with daily, monthly, and yearly averages.

Ninja entertainment for American troops in Japan

Amid the coverage of crimes by American troops in Japan, the Japanese media is also reporting some positive U.S. military news. Here’s a short report that aired on FNN yesterday:

It shows a group of Americans who were in Shiga prefecture to participate in Orient Shield, a joint field exercise at the Aibano training area. After the training, some of the Americans were shown one of Shiga’s famous tourist attractions: its ninjas.

The Americans got to watch some ninja battles. They were also given some shuriken training. Everyone seems to have a good time.

[Note: Some readers have noted that the Shiga ninja show in the above video contains ninjas from another part of Japan. Shiga does not have a monopoly on ninja, but it does market itself as Japan's ninja prefecture.]

Further to the south, the American and Japanese forces are holding another exercise. This one seems aimed at preparing the Allies for the defense of Japan’s southernmost islands.

About 47,000 personnel, including 10,000 from the US military, are participating and a US aircraft carrier is also taking part, it said.

The drill was originally meant to practice landing on an island in Okinawa prefecture, but it was changed to training at sea because of concerns that landing practice might escalate tensions between Japan and China, the report said.

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Video: Anti-Chinese demonstration in Tokyo

Victor (Gimmeaflakeman) uploaded this video to his YouTube channel a couple days ago. It gives us a look at an anti-Chinese demonstration that took place in response to China’s recent aggression against the Senkaku islands. As Victor notes, the peaceful and orderly conduct of the Japanese demonstrators is a very different from the behavior of protesters in China:

Such protests rarely draw more than a thousand participants and are almost always ignored by the Japanese mainstream media. However, they have received some coverage in the Western media.

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