When a Comedian Stands on the Floor of the House: The Stage of Politics by Danshi Tachikawa (ca. 1980)

When a Comedian Stands on the Floor of the House: The Stage of Politics by Danshi Tachikawa (ca. 1980)

Danshi Tachikawa used to be in politics. A man who knew how to make people laugh from the podium to the floor, he stepped onto another stage, that of national politics. He says that he entered the arena "on the spur of the moment," but behind the story is an episode in which former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato made an overture to him. He said, "You, get out. He couldn't refuse and decided to run for the Tokyo 8th Constituency. In his words, he says that he chose the district because "the land is expensive, the sake is good, and the women are beautiful," and in his aloof words, one can see the wryness and sharp paradoxes that are typical of Danshi.

However, even during his tenure, he continued to be a "rakugo (comic storyteller). His absence from the Diet to perform at a rakugo theater was called into question, and he was eventually forced to resign. Even so, Danshi was adamant that he had no intention of abandoning his art to live a life of politics. When asked to choose between art or politics, he chose rakugo without hesitation and left the LDP. He chose rakugo without hesitation and left the Liberal Democratic Party. What you feel is wisdom is wisdom." His attitude was that of a "comedian" who believed in the aesthetics of intuition and improvisation rather than political logic.

His political views, however, are not mere jokes. He also said of the Liberal Democratic Party, "It is a strange party. I am amazed that they have the nerve to appoint a comedian like me as vice minister for political affairs," he said sarcastically. When he himself served as vice minister for Okinawa affairs, he told an anecdote about how he was met with skepticism by local journalists when he said, "Let's make Okinawa win the high school baseball championship. Danshi's reply, "That makes more sense than building a bridge," was not an attempt to build infrastructure, but to offer hope as a "policy" in his own way.

A professional can disappoint his clients," said Danshi, who always confronts his clients, not panders to them. In politics, he never changed his stance, and he never worried about his audience's reaction to his speeches, but rather used his own "art" to deliver his words. Perhaps that is why he was "not so much a politician as a comedian who played a joke in the genre of politics.

When Danshi entered the world of politics, he saw a landscape that oscillated between institutions and passion. Even in the midst of this landscape, he chose to be a comedian, and returned to the stage of the yose. For him, the political arena was also a "stage". There, silence, laughter, and laughter, not votes, were the most honest evaluations.