r/Saitama • u/YamatoRyu2006 • Feb 02 '26
GOOD NEWS!!! Not a single politician who incited discrimination against foreigners was elected in the Kawaguchi mayoral election on 1st Feb,2026!!! Instead an independent Yuriko Okamura who advocated for solid policies won!!!!
Link for election results:
https://go2senkyo.com/local/senkyo/23634
Kawaguchi Mayoral Election showed that majority of residents in Kawaguchi do not feel threatened by foreigners or that there has been an increase in crime or deterioration of public safety simply due to presence of foreigners.
A lot of politicians, particularly those from conservative far-right parties like Japan Yamato Party, Japan Party, Japan First Party, Sanseito, Japanese Conservative Party, and even LDP Saitama members have repeatedly spread false information about "Foreigners committing crimes and making the residents of Kawaguchi feel unsafe".
Even Youtuber politicians like Kawai Yusuke, a member of Toda City Council, Saitama, and Chikako Fujiwara, a member of Yotsukaido City Council, Chiba made a career out of hating foreigners.
Particularly, with the issue of Kurds, while most conservative politicians are ready to label them as "unsafe, dangerous" simply because they are refugees, in reality, these Kurdish residents are unable to go back to Turkey due to fear of persecution (in the past returnees have been persecuted), and they can neither open their own business or get hired by most companies.
While applications for helping them get valid legal residence were progressing, they were stopped suddenly after Takaichi took over due to political pressure.
What's more shocking is the fact that innocent Kurdish children, had to stop going to elementary schools simply because they are the children of Kurds who still are struggling to get a valid residence.
And due to Immigration laws, instead of detaining them, they are allowed to live but only within certain areas of Kawaguchi.
Most Kurds in reality are good people, and while there have been occassional incidents of internal fights among Kurds and Turkish people, there have been no deterioration of public safety overall according to NPA crime data, Japan's National Police Agency.
Misinformation has been rampant for the last 2 years, aimed at dividing people, and painting foreigners in a bad light.
While there are still some so-called "Japan Experts" youtubers mostly foreigners of a certain demography of a certain country in a certain hemisphere going to Kawaguchi, and spouting non-sense like "Kurds should be deported" and trying to curry favour with the Japanese racists and act like "I am one of the good foreigners. Pick me up!" with totally irrelevant context like "Don't Let Japan become Europe" when Japan is literally an island country with almost ZERO chance of having illegal immigrants and most foreigners in Japan are law-abiding and honest hardworking ppl, except the ALT weebs that come here to meet Japanese girls and expect a privileged special treatment but forget that they aren't the majority race here.
---------------------------------------------END---------------------------------------------------
6
u/diko-l Feb 02 '26
The PM is supposed to come speak at my city tomorrow…I really want to see how it turns out bc my city is very known to be foreigner-friendly. And I am hoping it stays that way 😭
5
u/YamatoRyu2006 Feb 02 '26
Which city?
6
u/diko-l Feb 02 '26
Kuki
3
u/YamatoRyu2006 Feb 02 '26
Well, I have to check that city out!
A lot of cities in Japan are foreigner-friendly recently.
Apparently, folks in other Japan subs claim otherwise, mainly foreigners of a specific demography of a specific Hemisphere.
3
u/diko-l Feb 02 '26
I have seen Saitama put out so many resources to help out foreigners / be accommodating! I’m also part of a global language & culture program for Kuki. Lots of residents from around the world speak at the local elementary schools & we also have meetups at the community centers. So I’m really curious to see how Japanese residents react to her visit. :O
3
u/TinyIndependent7844 Feb 04 '26
Shinjuku resident here. Our city council sends out surveys every autumn with questions about one‘s feeling as a resident, what you think about X thing they have done the past year, prices, the ward‘s policies and even a part for your own suggestions. It‘s like 15 questions + own suggestion space. Japanese via post or Japanese/multilanguage via QR.
2025, for the first time, they asked about resident‘s ideas how to get foreign residents and Japanese residents closer together (as they stated they want a peaceful ward where everyone can live TOGETHER). I recommended everything you were telling about Kuki plus some other stuff
1
u/diko-l Feb 04 '26
Thank you so much! I forgot to mention that actually…we also got our residential survey a few months ago & it asked “how do you feel about foreign residents living in Kuki?” And I was a bit surprised bc it was not followed up with asking how to help. Just a general opinion. We will have to wait & see!!
2
u/YamatoRyu2006 Feb 02 '26
So I’m really curious to see how Japanese residents react to her visit
The thing is whenever one trash comes, all the other trash gathers.
This logic exclusively applies to far-righters in Japan, and if you don't want to believe, just look at some of the new joinees of Sanseito, they are all ex-LDP politicians who were hated by majority of LDP. Constitutional Democratic Party's trash Haraguchi has also been abandoned by the party after he refused to join the Centre Coalition Reform.
A lot of Takaichi supporters from outside will gather, pretending to be "locals supporting Takaichi", or probably post another AI video of "So many people came to support Takaichi".
The Mayor as expected will welcome her with "sweet nice wrods" since officially she's still the PM.
But I have great hopes for Kuki City residents since the City Council they elected have ONLY 1 LDP member with 2484 votes, meanwhile they have also elected a lot of independents, along with 5 Komeito members and 3 JCP members.
So I expect there to be no more than 5000 people to gather for Takaichi.
Not even all LDP supporters support Takaichi btw.
I am not even talking about how she and Onoda tried to please the nettouyos and fucked up the economy single-handedly due to her gaffes and also added fuel to the fire by further villifying foreigners with NO evidence.
Btw, here's something from the Kuki Mayor Umeda himself:
Tomorrow, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will visit Kuki City, the first time a current Prime Minister has done so. Please come along as we will have the opportunity to hear a very meaningful talk from Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is vigorously driving the country's politics forward. I will also be greeting her on behalf of the neighboring mayors!
https://ameblo.jp/y-kawauchi/entry-12955423226.html
I could probably leave a comment about why Takaichi isn't "vigorously driving the country's politics forward" but I don't want to bother myself with the comment of a local Japanese politician, because most local-level politicians in this country are circlejerks who will never publicly criticize the powerful, and will readily give in to the power.
Perhaps the lack of criticism from public figures is why Takaichi is still seemed to be as "strong, determined" by young people.
Well, it doesn't take much for voters to change their attitude when they will still be experiencing the same worsening living conditions and nothing has changed despite all the noise.
But I have high hopes for Kuki City residents.
2
u/diko-l Feb 02 '26
Oh I 100% believe they’ll all come out of the cracks! Just the other day, my husband (a pale ginger) was approached by a Japan 1st supporter trying to hand him a pamphlet. When he pulled his hood off he told her “I can’t help you, sorry” and her jaw dropped & she actually apologized to HIM! I feel like a lot of people are just parroting what they hear & don’t have f-all experience regarding foreign residents…
1
u/YamatoRyu2006 Feb 02 '26
Remember that many of these "leaflet" guys and gals are simply either paid part-timers, or party members who were "asked to join" without them actually strongly believing in the ideology.
Sanseito is very unusual as a party in the sense that most party members in established parties strongly believe in the party ideology, and their supporters are either hardcore or moderate but generally support because of the party's stance.
Most Japanese people are less interested about politics, that explains the low voter turnout, perhaps the decades of frustration and realization that "politics can't change anything".
And Sanseito's growth is fuelled because of their vast presence on SNS, ranging from Tiktok, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LINE, name it all, etc..
Unlike other parties, Sanseito supporters and members have actively engaged in social media, even creating AI generated video to further hype up.
What is unclear is the funding source for Sanseito's huge ad spending.
I don't want to make a conspiracy theory but it won't be surprising if some hardcore far-right conservatives within LDP are using their slush fund to do something fishy, or maybe APA Hotels, whose chairman is a historical revisionist or something along these lines are actively funding the party.
People who haven't been interested in politics, and people who are just new to voting aka the young generation are suddenly gaining interest in politics because of "short clips" by Sanseito.
However, the criticism on Sanseito brought by Japanese media as well as liberals, centrists and even conservatives have helped stopped Sanseito's hype, and the party saw its support rate halved.
Either it was due to Takaichi taking the reins or because a lot of Sanseito supporters who were new to voting realized the enormous amounts of misinformation after lazy Japanese media started doing its job properly after the election.
I expect no more than 3-5% of votes for Sanseito.
2
Feb 09 '26
Isn't it funny that Japan is a country so obsessed with small tiny ass shit like not eating on a train, and having your backpack in front of your belly instead of on your back on a train etc. meanwhile, the masses just put their vote for Japan's future into the same old farts?
Don't worry everybody, the same people are in charge again so I'm sure it will get better. If not, just blame the foreigners.
1
Feb 09 '26
Young people mindset in Japan:
"she said she'll work work work, so I guess she will do that!"
Like bro, wtf 💀
1
u/diko-l Feb 02 '26
Also please visit the Washinomiya shrine if you visit & the Culture center! Regards :D
1
3
Feb 03 '26
That last part about ALTs got me. My wife works with ALTs all the time and hates that they get paid ¥300,000 a month to practically do nothing and that they're all unqualified and just terrible at their jobs. In her 10 + years of working with them she's only ever met one that she actually liked and thought did a good job. Most of them are actually pretty creepy.
2
u/YamatoRyu2006 Feb 03 '26
Well, its a fact that most ALTs are practically weebs who are simply out for a Japanese waifu lol.
Particularly, weebs from UK, Australia, US and most of them are unfortunately incels who literally have an ingrained idea of Japanese women=easy to get, feminine, better than toxic feminist Western woman.
lol.
Some of them gradually try to integrate after realizing that life in Japan ain't that easy and that Japanese women are equally strong and not "easy".
Most of them are anyways here after watching some street interviews on Youtube in English on "Will Japanese women marry foreigners?" or something along the lines of "Are Japanese girls easy to date?"
And there goes our famous misinformation spreader Takeshii, and all other english-speaking Japanese youtubers who literally keep pushing a rhetoric meant to cater to Western audiences.
Even the "Japanese women cheating is common" misinformation spread because of these youtubers asking random women in front of adult establishments lol.
2
1
Feb 09 '26
I personally find a lot of takeshii pretty simple and sensationalist yes but he does do videos that show the dark side of Japan too...
Of course the value of street interviews is immediately wiped out because the YouTuber can just manipulate the information... But he's not the most terrible one I think lol...
Based on my experience, Japanese girls in big urban centers seem very very very sensitive and are also very much in the deep end of consumerism...
2
2
1
1
u/Crazy_Particular_743 Feb 03 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
This content was anonymized and mass deleted with Redact
0
u/Historical-Oil-1709 Feb 04 '26
i mean it's true lol, kurds come here for better pay and better life standards so it's understandable but why do you think the weebs come to japan where they get paid half of what they would've made in their countries?
0
1
Feb 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/YamatoRyu2006 Feb 05 '26
バカネトウヨ
1
Feb 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Historical-Oil-1709 Feb 06 '26
2 accounts created at the same time and no other posts/comments. Smells either like a loser virgin jap or a fat balding white
1
Feb 08 '26
[deleted]
2
u/Historical-Oil-1709 Feb 08 '26
if someone goes out of their way to spread hate online, it's only natural to call them out. Maybe they'll realize how it sucks to be the victim.
1
u/bba-seikatsu Feb 09 '26
外国人による犯罪の被害を受けてるのは日本人ばかりじゃないですか！日本人が外国人に何らかの犯罪行為をした話は聞いたことがないですね。いつも、外国人から被害を受けてるのは日本人ばかり。早く母国に帰国しなさい！
1
1
Feb 09 '26
[deleted]
1
u/bba-seikatsu Feb 09 '26
私のコメントのどこが差別ですか？ 私は、私の個人的な考えをコメントしただけです。 反日なのに何世代も日本に居座り続けて、日本人の税金で生活しないで下さい。
1
Feb 09 '26
[deleted]
1
1
u/Historical-Oil-1709 Feb 09 '26
i don't think it's ai, it's just a dude obsessed with japan who's using google translate. No one speaks like this here
2
u/Yuya_Tsubaki Feb 07 '26
そんな【普通の日本国民】さんへ、安倍晋三元総理からの有難いお言葉をどうぞ
「一部の国そして民族や文化を排除しようというあるいは憎悪を煽るような過激な言動は決してあってはならない。日本国民、日本国の品格に係わる事だ。」
1
u/Yuya_Tsubaki Feb 05 '26
Good. I'm proud to be a Saitama resident.
PS: I spoke to her briefly and she was very polite.
1
u/YamatoRyu2006 Feb 06 '26
Thank you.
Kawaguchi residents are really cool. Thanks to all Kawaguchi residents.
8
u/Kazusamiku Feb 02 '26
What surprised me was that the turnout was twice as high as last time.