Japan’s political world is once again under a stark, unforgiving light as sexual-harassment scandals involving governors and mayors continue to erupt, testing the country’s patience and its promise of accountability. As the Fukui governor Tatsuji Sugimoto announced his resignation after a government employee accused him of sending inappropriate, sexually tinged messages, the case injected fresh urgency into a national debate often smothered by hierarchy and shame. The story, already rich with keywords of public interest — sexual harassment, Japanese politics, governors, mayors, workplace abuse — burst across national headlines because it reinforced what many women in Japan have long felt but rarely voiced: power protects itself, until it no longer can.
Sugimoto’s downfall came after the prefectural government opened an investigation that eventually involved the digital communications of thousands of employees. The governor admitted to messages “equivalent to sexual harassment,” bowed deeply before cameras, and declared he would step down. His resignation, though significant, is only the latest in a pattern stretching across Japan’s political geography, from snowy Hokuriku to subtropical Okinawa. And it’s forcing a reckoning in a society where wa (harmony) and haji (shame) often suppress disclosures, and where subordinates remain constrained by anmoku no ryōkai — the unspoken agreement not to challenge authority.
Just weeks earlier, another scandal unfolded in Gunma Prefecture, involving Maebashi Mayor Akira Ogawa, a woman, whose alleged “love hotel” outings with a male subordinate raised not only eyebrows but serious questions about coercive dynamics and abuse of office. While drastically different from Sugimoto’s messaging scandal, the case similarly glued together two of Japan’s most sensitive issues: political authority and workplace vulnerability. Ogawa denied wrongdoing, yet the accusations revealed the fragility of boundaries in environments where elected figures wield disproportionate power over staff.
Even more disturbing is the case of Hideo Kojima, former mayor of a small town in Gifu Prefecture, who resigned in 2024 after an independent inquiry documented as many as ninety-nine instances of harassment against female employees. The allegations ranged from groping breasts and buttocks to forcing subordinates into humiliating physical contact. And yet, in a twist that speaks volumes about both local political culture and electoral inertia, Kojima ran for office again in 2025 — and won a seat as a town councillor. His return underscored how thin the barrier can be between public shame and political redemption. For victims, it felt like a gut-level reminder that resignation is not the same as accountability.
Farther south, in Okinawa, Nanjo City Mayor Keishun Koja faced two no-confidence motions after a municipal committee concluded he had engaged in sexual harassment. Though he refused to resign voluntarily, the city assembly ultimately voted him out. His removal marked one of the rare instances in which a legislative body directly toppled a sitting mayor over harassment allegations — a political shockwave in a system normally cautious about confrontation. Still, for many citizens and activists, it felt less like justice and more like a fragile exception.
These newer scandals echo the older but emblematic case of Knock Yokoyama, the flamboyant former governor of Osaka Prefecture. In 2000, he was found liable in court for groping a 21-year-old campaign volunteer inside a campaign van, leading to his resignation. That case once seemed a watershed moment — a sign that courts could hold powerful men accountable. Two decades on, it reads more like an early warning flare that Japan was slow to heed.
Together, these cases sketch an uncomfortable truth: harassment by local political elites is not anomalous, but systemic. It thrives in environments where subordinates fear retaliation, where cultural norms discourage confrontation, and where political dynasties can weather even the most corrosive scandals. Yet there is movement. Public outrage is louder. Media coverage is sharper. More employees are refusing to accept shikata ga nai — the fatalistic “nothing can be done.”
Japan’s political establishment, long insulated by rank and ritual, now faces a new calculus. Governors and mayors can still bow, apologize, and hope for a quiet exit, but society is less willing to let them slip back into the shadows. The scandals emerging across prefectures and city halls suggest that the old culture of silence is breaking. Whether this rupture leads to deep reform or more cyclical disgrace will depend on whether institutions — not just individuals — decide to change.
Sometimes I look at these Japanese workplace scandals — governors texting subordinates at midnight, mayors “accidentally” touching staff in meetings, whole offices whispering behind sliding doors — and I feel a familiar chill. Not because it surprises me, but because it is so wearyingly universal. Power and gender have been entangled for millennia, like two vines twisting around the same pillar, one always choking the other. And when men hold the keys, the budgets, the promotions, the shadows they cast become very long indeed.
Sexual harassment is not about desire; Auntie has said this over and over until my chili-red lips go dry. It’s about entitlement. The quiet belief that a woman’s body — or any subordinate’s body — is simply part of the workplace furniture. Something to lean on. Something to test. Something to conquer. And the higher the office, the easier it becomes to believe your own myth. In Japan they talk about honne and tatemae — true feelings versus public façade — but let me tell you: when powerful men start believing their own façade, their honne rots like forgotten tofu.
I watch these governors and mayors bow deeply, cluttering the press conferences with their apologies, as if the geometry of their spine is a sign of repentance. Please… Auntie has seen enough bows to last ten lifetimes. What matters is not the angle of the neck but the angle of the system. And the system is still tilted sharply in favor of men who mistake leadership for ownership.
What wounds me most is the silence that surrounds the victims. The calculation they make every day — “If I report him, will I lose my job? My reputation? My safety?” — is the same bitter arithmetic performed by women from Hokkaido to Jakarta. This silence is cultivated, like a bonsai tree trimmed and disciplined until it grows small enough to fit on a desk. Except this is no decorative plant; it’s trauma, pruned into submission.
Power, when monopolized by one gender, becomes a hall of mirrors. The men see only their own reflections, applauding, nodding, excusing. They think they are necessary. They think they are irreplaceable. They think they are desired. But what they really are is unchallenged — and unchallenged power always curdles.
Auntie does not want more apologies. I want a redistribution of courage. I want workplaces where women do not have to armor themselves just to walk through the door. I want more women — and more people of every identity — in decision-making roles so that gender is not a disadvantage but simply a fact of life. And I want men to finally understand that power is not their birthright.
Because the truth is simple: when power stops flowing downward like a hammer, and starts circulating like shared air, harassment loses its oxygen. And the workplace — any workplace — can finally breathe.