Shigeru Ishiba, the newly elected leader of the Liberal Democratic Party who is set to become Japan’s new Prime Minister, is often seen with furrowed brows in photographs, but when he talks about one of his true loves – plastic models – his expression instantly softens. Becomes clear.
His office is filled with books on politics and history, but the 67-year-old is often referred to in Japanese media as an “otaku”, or someone obsessed with worldly things. In his case, trains, plastic miniature models, and ramen noodles.
“It’s like bringing a dream to reality,” Ishiba said of the process of creating plastic models in a TV interview during his brief tenure as Defense Minister in 2007–2008.
He insists that the plastic figurines and models he admires and which fill every corner of his office are also helpful in his diplomacy.
According to an interview in 2017, when he met an American ambassador he showed a plastic model of the United States’ P3 patrol aircraft and when the Russian Defense Minister visited Japan he stayed up all night assembling a Russian aircraft carrier .
“Whenever an American ambassador, minister, or fleet commander comes to Japan, I find out what ship he was on and leave it (the plastic model) with him. Then he would say, ‘This is the ship I was on. But I was like, ‘And this will make her really happy,” he said in a separate interview with Abema Times.
Ishiba’s passion also extends to trains – full-size versions – of which he gushes about on his Instagram account.
He claims to have taken the sleeper train more than 1,000 times between Tokyo and Tottori, his constituency in western Japan.
In a separate video on Instagram, he reminisced about boarding the Hikari bullet train for the first time, saying, “Super Express! Her dazzling interior… and unprecedented style….” “The excitement I had will never fade. It was amazing.”
Now tasked with appeasing public anger at the rising cost of living and a scandal-plagued party while dealing with security tensions in East Asia, Ishiba has his second organization – the “Ramon Parliamentary Group” founded by over 50 LDP “Not much time for. Member in 2022.
In a recent video on his YouTube channel, Ishiba thought about the percentage of imported ingredients that make up ramen and detailed how noodles made from imported and home-grown wheat taste different.
He was a big fan of chicken ramen before moving to Daime Icho of Nissin Foods. He remembers eating deme icho when he was studying for the high school entrance examination.
“These instant noodles and cup noodles, they coincide with important moments in my life,” Ishiba said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)