Tarō Yamamoto

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Tarō Yamamoto at a campaign event for the 2016 upper house election in front of Tokyo Station

Tarō Yamamoto ( Japanese 山 本 太郎 , Yamamoto Tarō ; born November 24, 1974 in Takarazuka , Hyōgo Prefecture ) is a Japanese actor , politician ( Shintō Hitorihitori → Liberal Party → Reiwa Shinsengumi ), anti-nuclear activist and was a member of parliament from 2013 to 2019 in Sangiin , the upper house of the national parliament , for Tokyo Prefecture . From January 2015 to April 2019 he was co-chairman of the Liberal Party with Ichirō Ozawa .

Life

Acting career

In 1990 Yamamoto got into show business and a year later made his acting debut in the film Daida Kyōshi Akiba, shinken desu! ("Substitute teacher Akiba, seriously!"). In addition to various roles in films and television dramas, he was also a reporter on a talk and quiz show, which was thematically designed as a documentary about world travel. His internationally famous films include Battle Royale by Takeshi Kitano , Go by Isao Yukisada and Moon Child by Takahisa Zeze . After the nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011, he worked on two films that deal with life in the post-Fukushima era. The film Asahi no ataru ie ( The House of Rising Sun ) by Takafumi Ota , which deals controversially with the topic of nuclear energy , could not find a traditional source of funding due to the critical tone of the story and was thus realized with the help of crowdfunding . In this context, Yamamoto also confirmed a decline in the number of roles offered in his profession after the start of his protest activities. The documentary film friends after 3.11 by Shunji Iwai is composed of interviews with friends and acquaintances of the director from northern Japan after the tsunami disaster . As one of the interviewees in this documentary, Yamamoto speaks out against nuclear energy. The film friends after 3.11 was shown at the Berlinale 2012 , among others . Yamamoto's commitment against nuclear power was also illustrated by his appearance in commercials for energy-saving curtains.

activist

Yamamoto has been publicly involved in the anti-nuclear movement since April 2011 . He appears as an activist at demonstrations, TV shows and at universities and is particularly active in his cause via social media channels such as YouTube , Facebook and Twitter . In addition to taking part in internal Japanese protests, he found out about international anti-nuclear power initiatives on a European trip to Germany (including Gorleben ) in November and December 2011 and gathered impressions in the countries of Ukraine and Belarus affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster . His book Hitori butai is from this trip . Datsu genpatsu tatakau yakusha no shinjitsu (2012, solo performance Atomausstieg - The Truth of a Fighting Actor ), in which he captures the experiences in text and photographs and compares the conditions in the countries visited with his home country Japan. His activities influenced his artistic and political work. In October 2013, he caused a stir when he presented a letter to Emperor Akihito at the annual autumn celebration in the garden of the Imperial Palace ( 秋 の 園 遊 会Aki no En'yūkai ) containing information on living and working conditions at the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima . The gesture, which was seen as a violation of protocol and etiquette, led the House of Lords to exclude Yamamoto from events with the imperial family; In addition, Yamamoto was also often accused of being unconstitutional , as Article 1 of the Japanese constitution stipulates that the emperor  is bound by political neutrality. A threatening letter of unknown origin was also sent to Yamamoto's office.

Politician

Yamamoto at a campaign speech for the 2013 upper house election

In December 2012, Yamamoto ran for election to the Japanese House of Commons in the 8th constituency of Tokyo Prefecture and was clearly defeated by LDP incumbent Nobuteru Ishihara (Yamamoto 25%, Ishihara 47%). In the July 2013 election for the House of Lords of Japan , Yamamoto ran as a non-party candidate in Tokyo Prefecture (five-mandate constituency). He announced that he would win the election through “civil support” alone and ran the election campaign primarily using new media such as Twitter and thousands of volunteers. It received 666,684 votes (11.8%) and thus the fourth highest percentage of votes. After his success, he founded the one-man party Shintō: Ima wa hitori ( 新 党 今 は ひ と り , for example "New Party: Now I'm Alone"; later 新 党 ひ と り ひ と りShintō Hitorihitori , for example "New Party for Each Individual"). He told his supporters after the victory: "I am no longer alone". He cites three main points as the foundation of his political program:

Yamamoto also criticized the planning and implementation of the "Special Secret Protection Law (Tokutei Himitsu Hogo Ho)", which came into force on December 6, 2013 in Japan. He sees the law as a massive restriction on freedom of speech and the freedom of the press in Japan and warns not only against possible concealment of the events in the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant , but also a general fascist orientation of the country. Among other things, he expressed this in a discussion with other politicians at the press conference of the "Foreign Correspondents Club Japan (FCCJ)". In December 2014 Yamamoto joined the party Seikatsu no Tō ( 生活 の 党 , "party of life"), after which this was named Seikatsu no Tō to Yamamoto Tarō to nakamatachi ( 生活 の 党 と 山 本 太郎 と な か ま た ち , about "party of life and Tarō Yamamoto and friends ”). Yamamoto has shared the party chairmanship with Ichirō Ozawa since January 2015. As part of a reorganization of the party in October 2016, it changed its name to Liberal Party (自由 党, Jiyū-tō), based on Ozawa's previous party of the same name . It was hoped that a general election in 2017 would win votes from both conservative voters from the former Liberal Party and from those interested in Yamamoto's political work. The Liberal Party ultimately did not nominate any of its own candidates for the 2017 election and withdrew from the election campaign (apart from Ozawa and Denny Tamaki , who were both re-elected as independents).

In April 2019, Yamamoto announced that it would leave the Liberal Party and found a new party called Reiwa Shinsengumi ( れ い わ 新 撰 組 ; made up of the government motto Reiwa and the Samurai protection force Shinsengumi ). It had previously become apparent that the Liberal Party would merge into the more conservative People's Democratic Party , which finally took place on April 26th.

Yamamoto moved to the proportional representation constituency for the 2019 upper house election . There the Reiwa Shinsengumi decided that under the new, optionally partially closed list system (tokutei-waku), Yasuhiko Funago , who has ALS, and Eiko Kimura , who suffers from cerebral palsy, were at the top of the list. The party achieved over 4.5% of the vote in the proportional representation from the stand and thus won two seats for the two candidates. Yamamoto personally received nearly 1 million votes, more than any other proportional representation candidate for any party in 2019, making him the first potential replacement.

In 2020, Yamamoto ran in the gubernatorial election in Tokyo , finishing third behind Governor Yuriko Koike and the candidate of the established left parties, Kenji Utsunomiya , with 10.7% of the vote .

plant

Movies

Awards

In 2001 received the Japan Movie Critic Award in the category "Supporting Male Actor" in the film GO . In 2003 he received the Blue Ribbon Award in the category "Male Supporting Actor" in the films Moon Child , Geroppa! ( ゲ ロ ッ パ! ) And Shōryōnagashi ( 精 霊 流 し ).

Publications

  • (1998) Kaachan gomen, futsū ni ikirarenakute ( 母 ち ゃ ん ご め ん 、 普通 に 生 き ら れ な く て , Eng .: "Sorry mom, I can't live normally")
  • (2012) Hitori butai datsu gempatsu - tatakau yakusha no shinjitsu ( ひ と り 舞台 脱 原 発 - 闘 う 役 者 の 真 実 , dt. "Solo performance nuclear exit - The truth of a fighting actor")

literature

  • Andreas Singler: The truth of a solo artist - the anti-nuclear activist Yamamoto Tarō. A short portrait . In: Lisette Gebhardt , Steffi Richter (Ed.): Reading book Fukushima. Translations, commentaries, essays . EB Verlag, Berlin 2013, p. 326-331 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tarō Yamamoto's official website ( Memento of May 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (Japanese)
  2. ↑ Crowdfunding tapped for antinuclear movie in: Japan Times , November 29, 2013 (English)
  3. ↑ Official website of the film Asahi no ataru ie , last downloaded 16 October 2014 (English)
  4. ↑ a b c Andreas Singler: The truth of a solo artist - the anti-nuclear activist Yamamoto Taro. A short portrait . In: Lisette Gebhardt, Steffi Richter (Ed.): Reading book Fukushima. Translations, commentaries, essays . EB Verlag, Berlin 2013, p. 326-331 .
  5. ↑ friends after 3.11 on the official homepage of the Berlinale 2012
  6. ↑ Japan: Fukushima and the nuclear lobby. Smear, lie, trick in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 26, 2011
  7. ↑ From Japan to Wendland: Taro Yamamoto , official Greenpeace homepage March 1, 2012
  8. ↑ From Japan to Wendland , official Greenpeace homepage November 26, 2011
  9. ↑ Envelope containing knife, threat sent to lawmaker Yamamoto ( Memento from December 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 30, 2018
  10. ↑ Asahi Shimbun, General Election Results 2012, direct election: constituency Tokyo 8
  11. ^ A b Actor-turned-anti-nuclear activist wins Upper House seat. In: Asahi Shinbun. July 22, 2013, archived from the original on October 19, 2014 ; accessed on October 20, 2014 (English).
  12. ^ Yomiuri Shimbun Upper House election results 2013, direct election: Tokyo
  13. ↑ The Japanese actor and activist Yamamoto Taro speaks up , in: Textinitiative Fukushima July 23, 2013
  14. ↑ Policy , Tarō Yamamoto's Official Website (Japanese)
  15. ↑ Japanese Freedom of the Press after Fukushima: Penalties for Whistleblowers in: Textinitiative Fukushima, December 8, 2013
  16. ↑ Mizuho Fukushima, Ryo Shuhama, Sohei Nihi, Taro Yamamoto "Lawmakers in Opposition to Secrecy Bill" Youtube, November 14, 2013, (Japanese)
  17. ^ Liberal Party is reborn in Seikatsu no To rebranding ahead of possible election. In: The Japan Times. October 13, 2016, accessed January 5, 2017 .
  18. ↑ LP: 第 48 回 衆議院 議員 総 選 挙 (Japanese), accessed March 30, 2018
  19. ↑ 山 本 太郎 氏 、 自由 党 離 党 を 表明 政治 団 体 「れ い わ 新 新 選 組」 設立 . In: Sankei Shimbun . April 10, 2019. Retrieved April 28, 2019 (Japanese).
personal data
SURNAME Yamamoto, Taro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 山 本 太郎 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese actor, anti-nuclear activist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Takarazuka , Japan