A quarterly survey by Japan's central bank shows business sentiment among manufacturers has improved slightly, especially in major heavy industries such as automaking, fossil fuels and machinery BANGKOK -- A quarterly survey by Japan’s central bank shows business sentiment has improved slightly, especially in major heavy industries such as automaking, fossil fuels and machinery, while services industries were less upbeat. The survey released Friday by the Bank of Japan, called the tankan, might influence the central bank's decision on whether to raise its benchmark interest rate next week. It shows the difference between companies saying they are optimistic about business conditions and those that are pessimistic. The latest survey's outcome undermined expectations for a rate hike, and the Japanese yen weakened, with the U.S. dollar trading at 152.90 yen on Friday, near its highest level in two weeks. Meanwhile, the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index fell more than 1%. “Expectations are for the BOJ to maintain its short-term interest rate at 0.25% next week, marking the fourth consecutive meeting with no change,” IG said in a commentary. Japan’s economy grew at a revised 1.2% annual pace in the last quarter, helped by sustained consumer spending. But the outlook ahead is uncertain, IG economists noted, given U.S. President-elect [Donald Trump's](https://apnews.com/article/china-xi-trump-inauguration-d654da01f90bf3bec071bb9890ffbd29) vows to impose higher tariffs on imports from many countries, which could jolt both the regional and the global economy. “The mediocre increase in business conditions across all firm sizes in the latest tankan suggests that activity is unlikely to rebound meaningfully this quarter, following a slowdown in (the last quarter),” Toh Au Yu of Capital Economics said in a commentary. One of the biggest obstacles for Japanese firms is a severe labor shortage as the work force shrinks along with the overall population, Toh said. The tankan showed a negative 36 sentiment for employment, unchanged from the previous quarter. Still, overall business sentiment for both manufacturers and non-manufacturers edged up to 15 from 14 in the previous survey. The sentiment index for large manufacturers rose to 14 in December from 13 in September, partly due to automakers [resuming production](https://apnews.com/article/toyota-earnings-japan-automaker-6e88247feaba1d1ee8e9de06a0f58d56) following certification scandals in the industry. Construction and real estate also improved. But while automakers and other big industries gained ground, sentiment among retailers and other service industries deteriorated, falling to 33 from 34, though it remained in positive territory. The index for retailers dropped sharply, to 13 from 28. The [Bank of Japan](https://apnews.com/article/japan-economy-rates-boj-yen-e00919b053412fabf7a800ed78a9ad7a) began earlier this year to shift away from a negative interest rate policy aimed at keeping credit super cheap to support the economy as the country's population shrinks, sapping demand. The ultra-lax monetary policy was kept in place for years to counter a long spell of deflation, when demand was so slack that prices fell. But global price increases following the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with a weakening of the Japanese yen against other currencies, has pushed prices above the BOJ's target of about 2% inflation, enabling it to begin shifting to a more conventional stance. Japan racked up a trade deficit in October for the fourth month in a row, as the weak yen and rising energy prices kept import costs high. Prime Minister [Shigeru Ishiba](https://apnews.com/ef6894f3dc08948deeb7135c1b316b56) has proposed raising Japan's basic tax-free income allowance, increasing take-home wages and paying subsidies to low-income families to help boost consumer spending. But his minority government is likely to struggle to gain support from the opposition on budgets and other legislation, raising the risk of political deadlocks that could stymie economic initiatives.

The top bidder at a Tokyo fish market has paid $1.3m for a tuna, the second highest price ever paid at an annual prestigious new year auction. Michelin-starred sushi restaurateurs the Onodera Group said they had paid 207 million yen on Sunday for the 276 kilogram (608 pound) bluefin tuna, roughly the size and weight of a motorbike. It is the second highest price paid at the opening auction of the year in Tokyo’s main fish market since comparable data started being collected in 1999. The powerful buyers have now paid the top price for five years straight – winning bragging rights and a lucrative frenzy of media attention in [Japan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/japan). “The first tuna is something meant to bring in good fortune,” Onodera official Shinji Nagao told reporters after the auction. “Our wish is that people will eat this and have a wonderful year.” The Onodera Group paid 114 million yen for the top tuna last year. But the highest ever auction price was 333.6 million yen [for a 278 kilogram bluefin in 2019](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/05/sushi-king-pays-record-31m-for-endangered-bluefin-tuna-in-japan), as the fish market was moved from its traditional Tsukiji area to a modern facility in nearby Toyosu. The record bid was made by self-proclaimed “Tuna King” Kiyoshi Kimura, who operates the Sushi Zanmai national restaurant chain. During the Covid-19 pandemic the new year tunas commanded only a fraction of their usual top prices, as the public were discouraged from dining out and restaurants had limited operations.

A 608-pound bluefin tuna sold for $1.3 million (207 million yen) at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market on Sunday, making it the second-most expensive tuna sold at Japan’s premiere wholesale fish markets since record-keeping began in 1999. The Onodera Group, which owns the Michelin-starred Sushi Ginza Onodera chain, purchased the motorcycle-sized fish – which is thought to carry auspicious omens for the new year. “The year’s first tuna brings good luck. We want to make people smile with food,” Sushi Onodera president Shinji Nagao told the Japanese outlet [Kyodo News](https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2025/01/0c1964dd89ea-tuna-fetching-13-mil-in-new-year-auction-fuels-japan-economy-hopes.html). This is the fifth consecutive year that Onodera purchased the most expensive fish. “Our hope is that by eating this tuna everyone will have a good year.” Sushi Ginza Onodera operates 20 restaurants across Japan, the United States, and China, according to their [website](https://www.sushionodera.com/locations). The group’s restaurants have been honored with 15 Michelin stars. The priciest New Year’s catch ever sold at the Tokyo market was a bluefin tuna that went for $3.1 million (333.6 million yen) in 2019, shortly after the market moved from its original location in Tsukiji. In the ensuing years, however, prices dropped off in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year, the Onodera group paid $720,000 (114.2 million yen) for the first fish of the year, according to [CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/travel/japan-bluefin-tuna-auction-intl-hnk/index.html). Fisherman Masahiro Takeuchi also celebrated his whopping catch, which he said was “as fat as a cow.” Takeuchi reeled in the fish off the coast of Oma, a small town in northeastern Japan. “It’s like a dream,” the 73-year old told Japanese reporters. “I’m always worried about how many more years I can do this job, but I’m incredibly happy.”

In the bowels of a commercial building in Tokyo’s Shinbashi neighbourhood there is little to suggest that office workers seeing in the year of the snake have lost their appetite for shared plates of Japanese food and jockeys of draught beer. They tuck into plates of charcoal-grilled chicken, bowls of edamame and flasks of hot sake. Calls of _“__irasshaimase!”_ welcome each new group of diners. It was not that long ago that [curfews and alcohol bans](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/19/tokyo-alcohol-ban-covid-lockdown-izakayas-shimbashi) introduced to limit the spread of Covid-19 forced _izakaya_ – informal, boozy salons that range in size from cosy joints serving _yakitori_ (chicken skewers) to cavernous spaces with seemingly endless menus – to call last orders at what would have normally been the busiest time of the evening. The pandemic has passed, but Japan’s thousands of _[izakaya](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/27/going-crazy-for-izakayas-yakatori-japanese-food-megan-carnegie-brown)_ are battling new threats on two fronts: [soaring costs](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/20/cost-of-living-crisis-fuels-global-appetite-for-instant-ramen) and declining demand. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/18/japan-legendary-izakaya-closing-costs-declining-demand#img-2) Changing customer behaviour is challenging Japan’s traditional bars. Photograph: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Alamy Often described – a little misleadingly given the quantity of food they offer – as Japanese-style pubs, _izakaya_ are going out of business at a faster rate than in 2020, the year the coronavirus became a global pandemic. Between January and November last year, 203 _izakaya_ operators declared bankruptcy, exceeding the 189 recorded in the whole of 2020, according to Teikoku Databank, which offers financial and research support services. While many people celebrated the end of pandemic restrictions by resuming regular nights out with colleagues and friends, a significant proportion continue to socially distance preferring cheaper nights at home. Economic factors have also dealt a blow to the _izakaya_ sector. Cash-strapped consumers are ordering fewer items, while restaurateurs wrestle with higher costs for materials, energy and labour. After decades of stagnation, Japan’s inflation rate has risen in recent years, reaching its highest for a decade in 2023. Currently hovering about 2%, it is lower than in many comparable economies, but across-the-board price rises are forcing households hit by a decline in real wages to tighten their belts. About 40% of _izakaya_ were losing money in the 12 months to April last year, according to Teikoku, with more attempting to stay afloat by reinventing themselves as cafes and fast-food outlets. But there is little they can do about consumer behaviour. Put simply, young Japanese – like their peers in other parts of the world – no longer equate a good night out with copious quantities of beer, [sake](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/woman-japan-male-world-sake-brewing-miho-imada) and _[shochu](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jul/01/foodanddrink.features1)_. Japan’s [demographics](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/japan-population-how-many-people-drops-first-time-births-deaths) are the greatest challenge facing _izakaya_, said Robbie Swinnerton, a veteran [restaurant critic](http://www.tokyofoodfile.com/) for the Japan Times. “The _izakaya_ is a holdover from earlier times, when the postwar baby boomer generation ruled the roost,” he said. “These days, there are fewer younger people, and they don’t drink as much. And they don’t want to drink in the same places as their parents and grandparents. It’s the same with food. Unless they’re really good, old-school Japanese dishes aren’t necessarily what young people want to eat.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/18/japan-legendary-izakaya-closing-costs-declining-demand#img-3) Ramen is considered Japan’s comfort food. Photograph: Robert Gilhooly/Alamy The rot has spread to other parts of Japan’s culinary landscape that were once thought impregnable. Shops serving [ramen](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/oct/31/17-ways-with-instant-noodles-ramen) – the country’s undisputed comfort food – went out of business in record numbers last year, as soaring costs challenged the dish’s reputation for value for money. According to Teikoku, almost 34% of 350 ramen businesses it surveyed said they had been operating at a loss throughout 2023. While a bowl of ramen still costs, on average, less than 700 yen (£3.70 or $4.50), price rises are noticeable enough to make some diners choke on their _[tonkotsu](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/22/the-rise-and-rise-of-ramen-noodle-soup)_ broth. The main ingredients – flour noodles, pork and vegetables – cost an average of 10% more than in 2020. Takatoyo Sato, the manager of a noodle shop in Shinbashi, was forced to put up his prices last year and saw a drop in custom. His most popular menu item, ramen in a soy-based soup, has risen in price from 780 yen in 2021 to 950 yen, perilously close to the 1,000 yen not even ramen addicts are willing to pay for what began life as hidden-market sustenance during the postwar years of austerity. “I couldn’t avoid raising prices,” Sato told the Kyodo news agency. “We’d have been in the red otherwise.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/18/japan-legendary-izakaya-closing-costs-declining-demand#img-4) Customers enjoy soup noodles prepared at a ramen bar in Fukuoka. Photograph: Robert Gilhooly/Alamy Sato’s dilemma is familiar to Shingo Shimomura, who runs a budget _izakaya_ in the Fukushima district of Osaka – a food-obsessed city that encourages visitors to “[eat yourself bankrupt](https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/sep/30/osaka-japan-foodie-tour-local-cafes-bars-street-food)”. “Everything we use a lot of – rice, octopus, tuna, eggs, cooking oil – has gone up in price,” said Shimomura, who is reluctant to pass on rising costs to his customers and still offers set lunches for just [500](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/16/japan-salarymen-ultra-cheap-lunches-food-prices-rise) yen. “If I raise prices, my customers will stop coming,” he added. “We’re busy, but I’m not making any money.” The 52-year-old, who has been in the _izakaya_ business for almost three decades, has noticed a declining appetite for alcohol. “Even salarymen spend less than they used to, and young people barely drink.” Japan’s drinking culture is traditionally centred on work, with _izakaya_ the venue of choice for junior staff to mix with senior colleagues during after-hours nomunication – a portmanteau of the Japanese verb to drink \[nomu\] and communication. The pandemic, though, reminded younger people that their social lives need not revolve around work. “I think that the traditional _izakaya’s_ days are coming to an end,” said Shimomura. “Young people [don’t want to drink with their bosses](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/01/utter-torment-japans-party-season-loses-lustre-as-workers-dread-drinking-with-the-boss) any more.” The decline began before Covid, as _izakaya_ fell victim to population decline, the rise of a “[sober curious](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/28/i-know-my-limit-how-gen-z-became-britains-sober-curious-generation)” gen Z, and competition from an array of more “sophisticated” places to eat and drink. “Times have changed and so has Japan,” said Swinnerton, an _izakaya_ fan since he arrived in Japan in the 1980s. “An _izakaya_ used to be the place to go to relax, eat and drink, and chat. They were places to decompress from the pressures of work, family and society in general. They still have that role, especially at a time when there is a lot more fragmentation and compartmentalisation in life, but these days there are so many alternative places to eat, drink, and relax with friends and colleagues.” But Sachiko Inamura, the secretary general of the [Japan Izakaya Association](http://nihonizakaya.org/), said the charms of a traditional Japanese-style pub would endure, despite a tough labour market and rising costs. “The idea of serving delicious dishes from different regions along with local alcohol might be unique to Japan,” Inamura said. “And with smaller _izakaya_, the menu changes from one place to the next, so diners never get bored. “Going to an _izakaya_ is not just about eating and drinking … people go for the unique atmosphere. They are a wonderful part of Japanese culture, and the good ones really know how to connect with their customers.”

For decades in Japan, it was accepted as gospel: A weak currency makes companies more competitive and bolsters the economy. Part of that promise came true last year: As the yen tumbled to a 37-year low against the dollar, big brands like Toyota Motor [reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/business/toyota-ceo-succession.html) the highest profits in Japanese history. Stocks [soared](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/business/japan-stocks-record.html) to record highs. Yet for the majority of Japanese households, the weakened yen has done little more than drive up the [costs of basic living expenses](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/business/japan-inflation-rates.html), such as food and electricity. Figures released Monday showed that while Japan’s economy picked up pace in the second half of 2024, its inflation-adjusted growth rate for the full year slowed to 0.1 percent. That was down from 1.5 percent the prior year. Attempting to stimulate exports by weakening a currency has long been a policy tool for countries seeking economic growth: President Trump [has said he wants](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/us/politics/trump-vance-us-dollar.html) a weaker dollar to help American manufacturing. Japan provides an example of what can happen when a depreciated currency, even if it helps exports, crushes consumer purchasing power by worsening inflation. “In economics, they teach us that everything has a benefit and a cost, and it’s about asking which is greater,” said Richard Katz, an economist who focuses on Japan. Of the yen trading at around 153 to the dollar, “this is clearly not the way to run a railroad,” Mr. Katz said. “It would be good to take a lesson from this.” The figures released on Monday show that household spending shrank slightly in 2024, after expanding in the previous three years. Unlike in the United States, where strong consumption helped the economy [surge back](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/business/economy/economy-gdp-report.html) after the Covid-19 pandemic, prolonged weak spending in Japan has left its real gross domestic product barely above prepandemic levels. Source: Cabinet Office of Japan By The New York Times Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F02%2F16%2Fbusiness%2Fjapan-2024-gdp-yen.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F02%2F16%2Fbusiness%2Fjapan-2024-gdp-yen.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F02%2F16%2Fbusiness%2Fjapan-2024-gdp-yen.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F02%2F16%2Fbusiness%2Fjapan-2024-gdp-yen.html).

A grim prediction made in a manga first published a quarter of a century ago is being blamed for a dramatic fall in holiday bookings to [Japan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/japan) from several Asian countries. Flight reservations to [Japan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/japan) from some of its key tourism markets have reportedly plummeted, with some linking the fall to The Future I Saw, a Japanese graphic novel based on the “prophetic” dreams of its author, Ryo Tatsuki. The cover of the original, published in 1999, refers to a “great disaster” occurring in March 2011 – the date Japan experienced a deadly [earthquake and tsunami](https://www.theguardian.com/world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami). In a new edition containing additional material that was published in 2021, Tatsuki said the next major disaster would occur on 5 July 2025. Her claim has fuelled sensationalist social media posts warning people to stay away from Japan. While there is no scientific basis to the claims that are fuelling online speculation, Tatsuki’s dreams have been given credence by her previous reference to March 2011, when an [earthquake and tsunami killed more than 18,000 people](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/japan-remembers-the-18000-victims-of-2011s-triple-disaster-fukushima#:~:text=More%20than%2018%2C000%20people%20died,Fukushima%20Daiichi%20nuclear%20power%20plant.) in north-east Japan and triggered the triple meltdown at [Fukushima](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/fukushima) Daiichi nuclear power plant. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/japanese-manga-earthquake-prediction-travel-bookings-japan#img-2) Japanese manga comic The Future I Saw. Photograph: The Future I Saw The impact of her latest prediction is being felt most in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, which used ForwardKeys data to gauge the impact on airline bookings. Average bookings from Hong Kong were down 50% year-on-year, it said, adding that those between late June and early July had plummeted by as much as 83%. A travel agency in Hong Kong said the manga had already affected people’s holiday plans, with bookings to Japan during the April-May spring break down by half from last year. Greater Bay Airlines said it was initially puzzled that reservations for spring were lower than in previous years, given that demand is usually high during the cherry blossom-viewing season in Japan and the Easter holidays in Hong Kong. “We expected around 80% of the seats to be taken, but actual reservations came to only 40%,” said Hiroki Ito, the general manager of the airline’s Japan office, told the Asahi Shimbun recently. The airline – along with Hong Kong Airlines – has reduced services to Japan, even as officials pleaded with travellers to ignore the rumours. Yoshihiro Murai, the governor of Miyagi – one of three prefectures hardest hit by the 2011 disaster – said the unfounded story had started to affect tourism to the region and implored people to ignore them. The trend is out of sync with a [tourism boom](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/03/a-free-for-all-japan-divided-as-return-of-tourists-brings-instagrammers-and-litter) that has seen record numbers of people visit Japan since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. A record 3.9 million people visited in April, encouraged by a weaker yen, while the government is hoping the annual number will grow to 60 million by the end of the decade. The public broadcaster NHK said the manga had spawned more than 1,400 videos on YouTube – which have together been viewed more than 100m times – some of which added to the sense of alarm with predictions of a volcanic eruption and a meteor strike. The re-published version has sold almost 1m copies, it added. Japan is one of the most [earthquake-prone](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/01/tokyo-braces-for-another-big-one-on-100th-anniversary-of-deadly-quake) countries in the world due to its location on the Pacific’s seismically hyperactive “ring of fire”. But experts point out it is impossible to predict the timing and location of earthquakes with any accuracy. Concern that the country could soon be struck by a major earthquake intensified last August, when the then prime minister, Fumio Kishida, [cancelled an overseas trip](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/09/japan-pm-fumio-kishida-asia-visit-cancelled-earthquake) after seismologists warned that the risk of a “megaquake” occurring off the country’s Pacific coast had increased after an earlier quake. In April, a government taskforce said a quake of up to magnitude-9 in the Nankai Trough, located off Japan’s Pacific coast, would kill as many 298,000 people and destroy more than 2 million buildings, adding that there was a roughly 80% chance of such a quake happening in the next 30 years. Tatsuki, meanwhile, has warned people not to take her predictions literally. In a recent interview with the Mainichi Shimbun, the artist said she was pleased that her work had raised awareness of the need to prepare for natural disasters, but added: “It’s important not to be unnecessarily influenced … and to listen to the opinions of experts.”

 TOKYO — A man convicted of murder for killing and dismembering nine people in his apartment near Tokyo was executed Friday, Japan's Justice Ministry said. Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the "Twitter killer," was sentenced to death in 2020 for the killings in 2017 of the nine victims, most of whom had posted suicidal thoughts on social media. He was also convicted of sexually abusing female victims. The execution was carried out as calls grow to abolish capital punishment in Japan since the acquittal of the world's longest-serving death-row inmate Iwao Hakamada last year. Shiraishi was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House in high secrecy with nothing disclosed until the execution was done. Police arrested him in 2017 after finding the bodies of eight females and one male in cold-storage cases in his apartment. Investigators said Shiraishi approached the victims via Twitter, offering to assist them with their suicidal wishes. He killed the eight women, including teenagers, after raping them, and also killed a boyfriend of one of the women to silence him. Japan's suicide rate ranks among the world's highest. Following a recent decline, the number has climbed back this year as people were hit by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Japan's crime rate is relatively low, but it has seen some high-profile mass killings in recent years.

Gavin Butler & Michael Sheils McNamee BBC News Reporting fromSingapore and London Shaimaa Khalil Tokyo correspondent Reporting fromTokyo EPA Shigeru Ishiba took questions from journalists at his party's Tokyo headquarters in the hours after the polls closed Japan's ruling coalition has lost its majority in the country's upper house, but Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has said he has no plans to quit. Voters went to the polls on Sunday for the tightly-contested election, being held at a time of frustration at the coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner Komeito over rising prices and the threat of US tariffs. Speaking after polls closed on Sunday, the prime minister said he "solemnly" accepts the "harsh result" but that his focus was on trade negotiations. Having already lost its majority in Japan's more powerful lower house last year, the defeat will undermine the coalition's influence. The ruling coalition needed 50 seats to retain control of the 248-seat upper chamber. But with just one seat left to be announced, the coalition was on 47, public broadcaster NHK reported. Half of the seats in the upper chamber were being voted on in Sunday's election, with members elected for six-year terms. Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer in Japanese Studies at Kanda University of International Studies, told BBC News support for more right wing parties had cut into the LDP's conservative support base. "Prime Minister Ishiba is considered not conservative enough by many supporters of the former Prime Minister \[Shinzo\] Abe," he said. "They think that he just doesn't have the nationalistic views on history, he doesn't have the strong views against China that Abe had." Shinzo Abe was formerly the leader of the LDP and was Japan's longest-serving prime minister, in office twice between 2006 and 2007, and 2012 and 2020. Mr Hall said some of the party's support had gone towards the Sanseito party - who would now be saying things which "haven't been said in public before by members of the upper house," - noting the party's pull towards "conspiracy theories, anti-foreign statements, \[and\] very strong revisionist views about history". Ishiba's centre-right party has governed Japan almost continuously since 1955, albeit with frequent changes of leader. The result underscores voters' frustration with Ishiba, who has struggled to inspire confidence as Japan struggles against economic headwinds, a cost-of-living crisis and trade negotiations with the United States. Many are also unhappy about inflation - particularly the price of rice - and a string of political scandals that have beleaguered the LDP in recent years. The last three LDP premiers who lost a majority in the upper house stepped down within two months, and analysts had predicted that a significant loss in this election would yield a similar outcome. This would open the field for a potential run at the leadership by other notable LDP members, including Sanae Takaichi, who finished second to Ishiba in last year's leadership election; Takayuki Kobayashi, a former economic security minister; and Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. In any case, a change of leadership within the ruling party would almost certainly unleash political drama and destabilise Japan's government at a pivotal moment in US-Japan trade negotiations. Support for the ruling coalition appears to have been eroded by candidates from the small, right-leaning Sanseito party, which drew conservative votes with its "Japanese First", anti-immigration rhetoric. Sanseito first gained prominence on YouTube during the Covid-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites. The fringe party's nativist rhetoric widened its appeal ahead of Sunday's vote, as policies regarding foreign residents and immigration became a focal point of many parties' campaigns. Famous for its isolationist culture and strict immigration policies, the island nation has experienced a record surge in both tourists and foreign residents in recent years. The influx has further driven up prices for Japanese people and fuelled a sentiment among some that foreigners are taking advantage of the country, aggravating discontent. Against that same backdrop, Ishiba last week launched a task force aimed at tackling "crimes or nuisance behaviours committed by some foreign nationals", including those relating to immigration, land acquisitions and unpaid social insurance.