[AI Library] Prologue — October 21, 2025, Tokyo
Beyond the Glass Ceiling
Prologue — October 21, 2025, Tokyo
Kim Kyung-jin
It was not yet ten in the morning when the National Diet Building in Nagatacho (永田町), Tokyo, was wrapped in an atmosphere unlike any ordinary day. Autumn sunlight fell at an angle onto the blue-gray dome, and along the plaza in front of the building, broadcast relay trucks that had staked out their positions since before dawn stood in rows. CNN, BBC, NHK, TBS. Camera lenses were all trained on the main entrance. Security guards had been deployed in twice their usual numbers.
There was no Japanese person who did not know what would happen inside this building that day. Morning news had been repeating the same story since five o'clock. On every terrestrial channel, anchors with grave expressions were heralding "a historic day." News alerts rose without pause on smartphone screens. At cafes in central Tokyo, customers staring at the television screen forgot their words, coffee cups still in hand.
Takaichi Sanae (高市早苗) passed through the main entrance of the Diet Building just before ten in the morning. A black suit. The collar of a white blouse lay neatly over the lapel of the jacket. Her hair was tied back, neat and composed. Aides flanked her left and right, yet she looked like someone walking alone. To the lawmakers she passed in the corridor, she offered a light bow. Her pace was neither fast nor slow. A Diet member's badge was pinned to her chest. That badge had been with her for 32 years, ever since she was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1993.
The House of Representatives plenary chamber was already full. 465 seats. Liberal Democratic Party and Nippon Ishin no Kai lawmakers filled the left side, while the opposition centered on the Constitutional Democratic Party sat on the right. The visitors' gallery had no empty seats — diplomats, journalists, and representatives of civic groups filled every place. Diplomats from foreign embassies sat in rows in the upper gallery. To their eyes too, this was no ordinary day. The last among G7 nations to have a female prime minister. Something was about to happen in that country.
When the ballots were distributed, a microphone test sound rang once from the Speaker's seat. Other than that, there was an uncanny silence. Four hundred and sixty-five lawmakers each picked up a pen. To write a name that had never appeared in this place in 130 years of Japan's constitutional history. 高市早苗. Sanae Takaichi.
Lawmakers came up one by one to deposit their papers in the ballot box. While that procession continued, the visitors' gallery held its breath. Some clasped both hands tightly. Some took notes. An elderly woman in the gallery sat with her eyes closed. What she was thinking, no one could know. But merely having been present that day — that alone would etch the history of that moment into her body.
The vote count was clear. Takaichi Sanae, 237 votes. Noda Yoshihiko (野田佳彦), 149 votes. A number that exceeded by 4 votes the majority of 233 required by Article 67 of the Constitution. The moment the Speaker announced the result, a short gasp escaped from somewhere in the visitors' gallery. In the press section, hands moved to readjust earpieces. Foreign cameras all swung at once toward the podium.
In the afternoon, a second prime ministerial nomination vote was held in the House of Councillors. In the first round, Takaichi received 123 votes, falling one short of the majority of 124. A runoff was inevitable. The tension that single vote's margin created spread beyond the chamber walls. In the runoff, 125 votes to 46. And that was that.
On the afternoon of October 21, 2025, Takaichi Sanae was nominated as the 104th Prime Minister of Japan.
It was the first time in Japan's constitutional history. For a woman to reach this position. In a country that had practiced parliamentary democracy for more than 130 years, the last among G7 nations to keep that door locked — on this day, the lock was finally opened. The voices of evening news anchors wavered slightly. International broadcasters sent out breaking news. On social media, "おめでとう (congratulations)" burst forth alongside the hashtag "#最初の女性総理" (first female prime minister) in an explosive flood. From those who supported and those who criticized, simultaneously. In Japanese politics, Takaichi Sanae had always been that kind of figure. One where passionate support and fierce opposition coexisted.
After the investiture ceremony at the Imperial Palace, the Prime Minister returned to the official residence and held an inaugural press conference. The conference room, bathed in strong overhead lighting. Dozens of microphones rose toward the podium. The sound of camera shutters did not cease.
"I will build a cabinet of determination and progress."
The voice did not waver. Economic reconstruction, strengthening of defense capabilities, stability across the Taiwan Strait, the falling birthrate, energy security. The way she enumerated the challenges was swift and specific. She cited numbers directly. She looked less like someone reading from a prompter and more like someone reciting things she had memorized.
A reporter raised a hand.
"Please share your thoughts on the birth of Japan's first female prime minister."
There was a brief silence. A second, perhaps. Whether it was awkwardness, deliberation, or resolve was something each person had to decide for themselves.
"I was not elected as a female prime minister. I was elected as the Prime Minister of Japan."
That answer became the subject of analysis in Japanese media for weeks afterward. Some read it as an attitude of rejecting her femininity. Some interpreted it as a declaration refusing to be captured by gender politics. Still others said it was simply sincere. She had been that kind of person from the beginning, they said. Someone who resists any attempt to define her by a specific category.
The cabinet approval rating was released one week after taking office. In a Nikkei survey, 74 percent. The fifth highest early-term approval rating among postwar Japanese prime ministers. Among those between 18 and 39, it exceeded 80 percent. In a TBS Television survey as of early November, 82 percent. The highest figure in 20 years.
But more impressive than those numbers was the scene that each person who had been in the visitors' gallery that day etched into their own memory as they went home. The procession of lawmakers filing to the ballot box. The silence of the moment when the vote results were announced. And the voice of one person at the press conference saying "not a female prime minister, but Japan's prime minister."
This book traces back 64 years to how that voice was formed. March 7, 1961, a small city in Nara Prefecture (奈良県). A child was born into an ordinary civil servant family — a father who worked as a salesman for a machinery company and a mother who was a police officer in Nara Prefecture. To understand how that child came to reach this place, one must understand the landscape of Japanese politics, the changes in postwar Japanese society, and, above all, look into the person herself.
That is what this book sets out to do.
This book begins in Nara Prefecture in 1961. It traces how a child born as the daughter of a machinery company salesman and a police officer came to reach the summit of Japanese politics. It is not a simple success story. It is an attempt to think together about what Japanese politics is, how Japanese society has changed, and how neighboring South Korea should read those changes.
Sixty-four years of life. Thirty-two years of political career. Three runs for party leadership. Countless defeats and comebacks. Walking alongside the giant that was Abe Shinzo. And the moment of finally standing alone.
That story begins now.
But more impressive than those numbers was the reaction that swept across Japan that evening. In one Tokyo home, a woman in her seventies sat alone before the television and wiped her eyes. Her mother's generation had no right to vote. At a high school in Osaka, female students checked the news on their smartphones and held the screens up for one another to see. The residents of Kashihara City in Nara Prefecture, watching their city's native fill the news, must have felt something complicated — a mixture of pride, puzzlement, expectation, and unease.
What Takaichi Sanae's appointment as prime minister meant was read in entirely different ways depending on who was reading. Some cheered that the glass ceiling had been shattered. Others said that what was shattered was not the ceiling but the image of a female leader they had hoped for. The progressive camp did not hide its discomfort that a female prime minister would not advance progressive causes. The conservative camp was buoyed by the pride that their leader had made history.
All those voices rising at once. That is how the system called democracy operates. Even without universal agreement, the outcome is one. On October 21, 2025, the Prime Minister of Japan is Takaichi Sanae.
This book aims to do just one thing. To understand what kind of person she is. Not to reach a verdict. To provide material for understanding. The rest belongs to the reader.
October 21, 2025. This date will appear in Japanese history textbooks. Probably as a single line, something like this: "Japan's first female prime minister in constitutional history, Sanae Takaichi, takes office."
But a single line in a textbook cannot hold the tension of that day, the sounds of breath in the visitors' gallery, the stillness of the moment when the vote results were announced. Holding all of that is what this book is for.
When she first set foot in the Diet in 1993, she was 32 years old. When she became prime minister in 2025, she was 64. Thirty-two years. In Japan, the time it takes for a generation to turn. Those years were spent in the Diet. Defeated, she came back. Defeated again, she came back again. That repetition made the Takaichi Sanae of today.
That story begins now.
There is one reason this book was written. To understand present-day Japan through the person of Takaichi Sanae. And to think about what we, who have that Japan as a neighbor, need to know. These are questions without easy answers. But avoiding those questions is the harder path. While reading her story, I hope each reader comes to form their own thoughts about the present and future of Japan, South Korea, and Asia.
References
- 首相官邸 official website: https://www.kantei.go.jp/ - 衆議院 official website — 衆議院規則第18条に基づく首相指名選挙: https://www.shugiin.go.jp/ - 高市早苗 公式ホームページ: https://www.sanae.gr.jp/ - Sanae Takaichi — Wikipedia (English): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanae_Takaichi - NHK特集「初めての女性総理 — 高市早苗の64年」: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/