Sweet, sweet mockery...

Oh joyous day!

Just when I was about to give up hope, the heavenly gift of satire has swept in and saved the day. And how fitting, in a way, that it should have happened in the electronics/manga/anime capital of the world - Akihabara.

Bear in mind that Akihabara, home of the geek and the maid cafe, was supposedly the electoral home territory of Taro Aso - the manga-munching hopeful who appealed brazenly to the nerd vote and narrowly missed out on becoming prime minister this summer.

The image you see below is an elaborate piss-take of Japan's latest blink-and-you'll-miss-him prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda. It is the packaging for a box of sweets, called "Yakkun Manju" - or, roughly translated "Little Yasu's sweetie buns". For some reason, they were on sale in the shop next door to the one where I bought my R4 chip the other day.

You can click on the image to see it at full size, and read the translation in the continuation of this post below...

The chief element of comedy in all of this is that the Chinese character "fuku" in Fukuda's name means "lucky" - the entire gag is based on the idea 1) that Fukuda only became prime minister because he was "lucky" enough that Shinzo Abe was such a clown and 2) he now needs all the luck he can get to keep the show on the road.

Thus the main title reads "Little Yasu drew the short straw, but got lucky!"

"Well done little Yasu!" intones the moon in the sky above him. The chap with the sword lurking in the background is, of course, Taro Aso, who sings "what a guy! You've got to love him!"

On the PM's back is a heavy-looking white sack that reads: "Burdened with regional [economic] disparity and the expectations of the public, this sack is very heavy!"

To the bottom right is another version of Fukuda, this time made to look like Kinjiro Ninomiya, the legendary little lad who studied hard even while carrying firewood on his back - a kind of icon of the Japanese education system, whose speech bubble reads: "Every day my very best!"

On the far, far right of the box is Fukuda sitting on a chair and wearing a sash that declares him the New Prime Minister. "I'll face hardship and recover the people's trust", he vows. "You'd better honour that," warns his Kimono-ed missus. To his left (and sideways) is yet another image of Fukuda, this time dressed in a bamboo hat, and proclaiming "Nagatacho [Japanese politics] has to change too!" 

On the far left is Fukuda again, this time referring to his father, Takeo Fukuda, who was also a prime minister - "Please don't compare me with my father," he begs.

Hilarious stuff, I'm sure you'll agree....