South China Morninig Post – June , 2016 – In a country awash with everything manga, it only makes sense that Japanese political parties will try and make use of cartoon characters in the first national election granting 18-year-olds the right to vote this summer.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior coalition partner Komeito as well as many opposition parties have created pamphlets and brochures using manga or mascots to promote their policies, improve their images and expand their bases of support in the July 10 upper house election.
A meeting of mostly younger LDP Diet members selected manga as the medium of choice to reach out to teen voters considering the high number of high school students and college students who read them.
The party created a brochure titled Kuni ni Todoke (Notify the Country) reminiscent of a popular girls’ comic along with a poster based on the same manga.
Although the manga has been criticised on the internet for lacking depth, the person in charge said the point was “to get people interested in politics”. The party is also focusing on gaining support among independents, who include a large segment of the younger generation. Komeito has devised a mascot called komesuke which can be downloaded in a game app. Users can learn about the party’s policies while taking part in role-playing adventure games.
People dressed as the mascot also feature at stump speeches. “It’s meaningful in that it has the effect of familiarising people with politics,” said one party official.
The Japanese Communist Party set up a website to coincide with the 2013 House of Councillors election, when a ban was lifted on online election campaigning, called kakusanbu (the proliferation committee), depicting a multitude of cartoon characters who promote party policies.
The upper house election this summer will be the third national election since kakusanbu was established.
“The image of the party has improved, and this is leading to an expansion of our support base,” said a party public relations officer.
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Minor opposition parties, too, such as the New Renaissance Party and the Assembly to Energise Japan, are using cartoon characters as a weapon to gain seats in the coming election. “They have been well-received as being easily understood among the middle-aged and older generations,” an official of the latter party said. Both explain policy positions using manga in their brochures.
“It has an appeal for the generation used to reading manga,” said one member of the upper house who faces re-election.
Opposition parties such as the Democratic Party, Initiatives from Osaka and the Social Democratic Party currently have no plans to use manga or cartoon characters in the election campaign.