Japan’s first female PM has a taste for heavy-metal music that may define her politics

In what has been a rock-and-roller-coaster two weeks, she unexpectedly emerged as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), swiftly followed by her coalition partner abandoning their longtime alliance. What came next was a flurry of speculation that she might join the very short list of party leaders who never became prime minister. But on Tuesday, she made history after a frantic realignment of governing parties.

One of the few things the world knows about Takaichi is her fondness for heavy-metal music. A former drummer in a group, she’s said the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest relieve her stress. She had plenty to deal with over the past 10 days, starting with the rupture with coalition ally Komeito and the brief emergence of pretenders ready to snatch a premiership that looked like hers.

But she pulled off a turn-it-up-to-11 coup by securing the support of the Japan Innovation Party, known as Ishin, an Osaka-based upstart that commands politics in the city.

That support means Takaichi now assumes the mantle of her mentor, the late Shinzo Abe. Replacing Komeito with Ishin’s superior numbers in both houses of parliament means the LDP is now closer to ending an era of minority government. It will need just a handful of lawmakers to pass legislation.

Ideologically, Ishin is a lot closer to her LDP. Allowing a loyal partner to leave might have doomed her premiership. But Takaichi, it seems, isn’t playing for a draw or quietly. Jürgen Klopp, the former Liverpool FC manager, christened his style of intense, high-energy play as “heavy-metal football.” Perhaps, then, this is “heavy-metal politics”: embracing risk, willing to throw out prior notions, and playing at intense pressure.

It’s what the country needs in an era when its traditional ally in Washington is enforcing tariffs and eschewing traditional norms around regional security.

But is heavy-metal politics what we should expect of the prime minister? Markets at least are rocking. Once stocks got the signal that the stimulus-friendly Takaichi was going to make it into office, the Nikkei 225 had its seventh-biggest gain in history on Monday.

At the very least, this isn’t another ashen-faced, grey-suited man in the role, even discounting the novelty of her gender (as Takaichi encourages us to). Her predecessor, the hapless Shigeru Ishiba, seemingly had no goals beyond simply becoming prime minister. I don’t expect the same of Takaichi, who has ambitious beliefs about Japan’s place in the world.

Yet she has recently displayed a level of political flexibility that many, myself included, feared she might not possess. The key to her longevity will be to display that pragmatism, reining in her more extreme tendencies and allies while pursuing bold policies.

Her first press conference as premier was a good start. She eschewed controversial subjects, acknowledged her top priority would be tackling voters’ chief concern of inflation, and declared her cabinet would be one of “decisiveness and progress.”

Ishin might prove a good short-term partner for the LDP. But the collapse of the quarter-century Komeito alliance threatens to further destabilize Japanese politics after a series of events, from the assassination of Abe in 2022 to the collapse of the LDP’s faction system, that have already made even midterm forecasting near impossible. The junior partner was a vote-winning machine for the LDP, but Ishin doesn’t have that level of national reach.

Despite not formally joining the cabinet, Ishin is understandably making demands: reducing the number of members of parliament, social security reform and pitching for Osaka to be a backup capital which is at its core an attempt to wrest control of tax revenue out of Tokyo’s hands.

The split-up with Komeito has been likened to two retirees deciding to go separate ways. The Ishin partnership instead could undergo a ‘Narita Divorce’ an early-90s joke about newlyweds who go on honeymoon only to find each other so disagreeable they file for separation on arrival back at the airport.

To avoid that, the premier must make the LDP palatable again. The next lower house vote isn’t scheduled until 2028, but she will likely advance that somewhat. In the interim, she will need to implement policies that show voters she’s taking their concerns around inflation, immigration and party corruption seriously.

In Iron Maiden terms, the cards that Takaichi holds are ‘Aces High.’ But if she doesn’t turn the LDP around quickly, her term will come to be seen as yet more ‘Wasted Years’. ©Bloomberg

The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas.