This is probably not a word many people in Japan would like to hear when preparing bonenkai Office party season and the New Year is here for some well-earned holidays.
But a promise by Japan’s new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, that she will “work, work, work, work and work” on behalf of her country has clearly made an impact.
His pledge, made just before he took office in October, has been chosen as Japan’s motto of the year, beating out more than two dozen other candidates.
Takachi drew criticism after urging his fellow Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers to follow his lead. “I’ll make everyone work like a horse,” she said. She said that she would abandon the concept of work-life balance in her life.
His comments did not go down well in a country notorious for working long hours, while lawyers were representing people who have died Karoshi – Death from overwork – rendered them useless.
Some have expressed concern about Takachi’s health, after she told parliament she slept between two and four hours at night, following reports that she had called officials to a 3 a.m. meeting at her residence.
Accepting his award this week, Takachi said his comments had been misinterpreted. He said, “I had no intention of encouraging people to work more or suggesting that working long hours is a virtue.” She said she was simply trying to express her determination to become an effective leader.
Organizers of the annual awards said the shortlist included other phrases that best captured Japan’s zeitgeist in 2025: “first female prime minister” was the second most popular; Others include “Trump’s tariffs”, “bear the loss” and “old, old, old rice” – a reference to the release of stored grain from the 2021 crop in an effort to rein in rising prices.
A committee chooses the winning phrase from the shortlisted top 10, which comes from a provisional list from the publisher of the Yearbook of Contemporary Society of Japan.
Takachi is the fourth politician to receive this award. The last time Yukio Hatoyama won a “change of government” was in 2009, when his party ousted the LDP from office for only the second time since the mid-1950s.
On Monday, Takaichi’s choice of language made headlines when he told people to “keep your mouth shut” at a Saudi-hosted economic forum — not because of rudeness, but by reciting a line from a famous manga comic.
“I understand that Japanese manga and anime are extremely popular in Saudi Arabia. Titles like Captain Tsubasa, One Piece and Demon Slayer come to mind,” she said at the event. “But today, I’d like to borrow a famous line from Attack on Titan to end my speech. ‘Just shut your mouth. And invest everything in me!!’,” she said.
Takachi was speaking at the FII Priority Asia 2025 conference, a spin-off of the annual future investment initiative in Saudi Arabia that has been dubbed “Davos in the Desert.”
Takaichi is under pressure to attract investment to boost the world’s fourth-largest economy, which shrank in the third quarter.
With Agence France-Presse
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