An article asked whether the criticism was prejudice against a former pop idol. I read all 359 comments. The answer was no — and 40.9% of the vote went to a trip report the article never mentions once

At 9:49pm on 29 September 2026, TV Asahi published on Yahoo! News.

In the cabinet reshuffle of 17 September, Imai Eriko — a former member of the pop group SPEED — became a State Minister at the Cabinet Office, and two other former television personalities became Parliamentary Vice-Ministers. Social media filled with complaints: too many ex-celebrities, chosen for name recognition, can they really be trusted with these posts.

The article built itself around one lawmaker's reply. Daimon Mikishi of the Japanese Communist Party — an opposition party, defending a minister in the ruling government — said that Imai has worked seriously on support for disabled children, that people attack her without knowing this, and that it is prejudice against her former profession plus gender bias.

The article closes by noting that a well-known face is genuinely an advantage at election time, and yet "name recognition alone" is also a criticism.

So the article's question is: is this prejudice about her old job?

Three hundred and fifty-nine people wrote in the Yahoo! News comment section underneath.

What I thought

When I saw this article, here is what I thought.

Imai Eriko was a national star singer in Japan, and that background is part of why foolish voters put her in office.

But since being elected she has done nothing, and there is no political activity of hers worth evaluating.

She behaves as though getting elected was the finish line and is utterly reckless with it, which is why she gets attacked — but the voters who elected her are useless too.

So the public is useless as well.

I have been against people like this entering politics from the very beginning.

This happens because there is no yardstick for a politician's record.

It must be frustrated office workers who think the same way who are writing these comments.

That was my reading.

There is a great deal in it that can be counted. Are the voters blamed? Does the thread say she has no record? Does the word yardstick appear? Is it office workers writing?

And there was one more instruction: go and look properly at who Imai Eriko is — before politics, and after. So I counted first, and then went and looked.

89 to 11 — 359 comments, about nine hours old

I read all 359 parent comments. The article carries 413 comments in total, 55 of them replies.

The buttons: 7,101 agree, 138 insightful, 854 disagree. Supportive presses against pushback comes to 89 to 11.

The vote sits high up. The single top comment holds 1,218 agree presses — 17.2% of everything pressed — with 40.1% on the top three, 53.0% on the top five, 64.5% on the top ten and 83.2% on the top thirty.

Lower down, 58 of the 359 comments (16.2%) drew no agree press at all, and 44 (12.3%) drew no button of any kind.

The average comment runs 84.1 characters; the longest is 396. The 30 comments over 200 characters — 8.4% of the thread — hold 41.5% of the vote. The 117 under 40 characters, a third of the thread, hold 4.8%.

The most-pressed comment is about a promise made three years ago

Here is the comment this thread read most.

I am not saying her appointment as State Minister is the problem in itself. But about the 2023 study trip to France, she herself called it rewarding and stated plainly that she would report on her activities in due course. That was over three years ago. The party says it compiled a report as an internal document, but there is still nothing the public can inspect - no account from her of what she learned on that trip and how it fed into policy. And in that state, she now takes public office as a State Minister in the government. Then start by properly showing us the report you promised. Not just saying it was worthwhile, but explaining what was worthwhile and how, in a form the public can check. Is that not the minimum accountability for someone holding public office?

今井絵理子氏の副大臣起用そのものを問題にしているのではありません。 ただ、2023年のフランス研修について、本人は「実りあるものだった」としたうえで「また追って活動報告します」と明言していました。 それから3年以上経っています。 党側は報告書を内部資料として取りまとめたと説明していますが、国民が確認できる形で、その研修で何を学び、何を政策に生かしたのかという本人の活動報告はいまだに見当たりません。 その状態で、今度は政府の副大臣として公職に就く。 だったらまず、以前自分で約束した報告をきちんと示してほしい。 「有意義だった」と言うだけではなく、何がどう有意義だったのかを国民が検証できるように説明する。それが公職に就く者としての最低限の説明責任ではないでしょうか。

95% agreed (of agree plus disagree votes)

1,218 agree presses — 17.2% of everything this thread pressed. It drew 18 replies.

Look at what it does. The words former idol never appear. It does not object to the appointment.

What it puts on the table is one sentence she wrote herself: I will report on this in due course.

40.9% of the vote went to something the article never mentions

This was the surprise in the count.

Comments mentioning the France trip, Paris, the Eiffel Tower or the report: 84, or 23.4% of the thread. Between them they hold 2,905 agree presses — 40.9% of the vote.

The 37 comments (10.3%) that use the word report alone still hold 2,533 agree presses — 35.7%.

It is the largest block in the thread. And the word does not appear in the article even once.

The article is arguing about prejudice. Two-fifths of the thread is looking at a promise made three years ago.

"This is not prejudice" — 81 comments, 23.7% of the vote

The thread answers the article's question directly.

Comments stating outright that this is not prejudice about her former profession: 81, or 22.6%, holding 1,682 agree presses — 23.7% of the vote.

It is not prejudice about her profession, you know? Treating what many people say - out of a worry that she may not have the qualities the job needs - as an attack is itself proof that the worry was well founded.

職業への偏見ではありませんよ？ 国民の多くからの「資質が伴っていないのでは？」という不安からの意見を批判と捉えてるのは、既にその不安の念は正しかったと明らかにしてしまった証しと思います。

92% agreed (of agree plus disagree votes)

A further 35 comments (9.7%) criticise the article or the media for how they framed it, worth 5.6% of the vote.

Comments mentioning the Communist Party lawmaker who defended her: 16 (4.5%), holding 184 agree presses — 2.6% of the vote, but 120 disagree presses, 14.1% of every disagree press in the thread.

The comment shared on X stands 2nd

From an article headlined: criticism of former idol Imai Eriko's entry into government - why the prejudice against her profession? This is certainly not prejudice about her profession. It is the view of citizens and voters who have watched, day in and day out, how she speaks and what judgement she shows as a politician, and who ask whether a place in government is warranted.

「元アイドル」今井絵理子氏の政権入りに批判…職業への偏見なぜ との見出し記事より 決して職業への偏見では無いと思います。 政治家として政治職を行う上での言動・見識を日頃より観ていて政権入りが妥当なのか国民・有権者の見解だと思います。

97% agreed (of agree plus disagree votes)

948 agree presses, 2nd in this thread, 13.4% of the vote, with eight replies.

Note the phrase day in and day out. The claim is not about one incident; it is about an accumulation.

Who Imai Eriko is — before politics

Readers outside Japan will not know this name, so here is what the public record holds.

She was born on 22 September 1983 in Naha, Okinawa.

In January 1996 she debuted as one of four teenage girls in SPEED, one of the best-selling Japanese pop groups of the late 1990s and a fixture of the New Year's Eve national broadcast. The group split in 2000 and reformed in 2008.

She married in 2004, had a son the same year, and divorced in 2007.

In August 2008 she disclosed publicly that her son is deaf. That became the centre of everything afterwards. From April 2010 she spent a year presenting NHK's sign-language programme, and she has worked in the field of sign language and hearing loss ever since.

So she arrived in politics with two faces: the former member of a national pop group, and the parent of a deaf child.

Entering politics — 319,000 votes, then 148,000

July 2016, elected for the first time on the Liberal Democratic Party's proportional list in the House of Councillors.

• 319,359 votes, ranking 5th within her party's list

July 2022, re-elected.

• 148,800 votes, 13th within her party (15th counting the reserved-slot candidates)

Her personal vote fell by 53.4% in six years. Why, I have not looked into — the party's overall list vote and changes to the system both feed into it, so two numbers side by side do not explain themselves.

What she has done since

This is the part I said was empty. Here is what the public record holds, set down plainly.

Offices

• September 2019 — Parliamentary Vice-Minister, Cabinet Office
• November 2024 — Parliamentary Vice-Minister, Cabinet Office and Reconstruction; left the post in October 2025
• September 2026 — State Minister, Cabinet Office (the official list dates the appointment 18 September)
• Director of the House of Councillors education and science committee; deputy chair of her party's upper-house Diet affairs committee
• Secretary-general of the cross-party parliamentary league on information and communication for disabled people

Those titles need translating in more than one sense. A Japanese ministry is headed by a Minister, under whom sit one or two fuku-daijin and one or two seimukan. The first is usually rendered State Minister, the second Parliamentary Vice-Minister; both are political appointees drawn from the Diet, and both rank above the career officials who actually run the department. They are not cabinet posts and they carry no vote in cabinet, but they are the rung from which ministers are normally drawn, and they are handed out as rewards and as tests. That is why a promotion at this level draws the attention it does: it is the party saying, in public, that it considers someone ready for the next thing.

Legislation

In May 2022 the Act on the Promotion of Information Accessibility and Communication for Persons with Disabilities was enacted — a law to ensure disabled people can obtain information and communicate on the same terms as anyone else. It was drafted by that cross-party league and introduced as committee-sponsored member legislation in the House of Councillors, and she is reported to have played a central role in putting it together.

In the Diet

On 18 March 2024 she questioned the Prime Minister in the Budget Committee partly in sign language, on the shortage of sign-language interpreters in the areas hit by the Noto earthquake and on remote interpreting for disasters.

Her recorded Diet statements total 337 (Seiji Database, as of 18 February 2026).

And the zeros

Bills introduced with her name as a sponsor: zero. Written questions submitted: zero (Kokkai Giin Hakusho).

That zero needs a footnote. Committee-sponsored bills — like the 2022 law above — record no individual sponsor at all. So the zero does not mean she was uninvolved.

And what has been held against her

The same treatment for the other side of the ledger.

• October 2016 — posted about a candidate on polling day in a governor's race, was told it risked breaching election law, and deleted it
• July 2017 — a weekly magazine reported a relationship with a married city assembly member. She apologised at a press conference for betraying her supporters' trust, and denied that the relationship was sexual
• July 2023 — a party women's division study trip to France. A photograph in front of the Eiffel Tower drew accusations that it was a holiday. She posted that she would report on her activities in due course. The party says it compiled an internal report; I could not find a public account of the trip
• March 2025 — a ¥12.5m donation to a party branch she herself heads was reported as a possible tax advantage. She said everything was done in accordance with the law

Read those four in order and you can see where 40.9% of the thread is looking. The third one.

"She has done nothing" — what the thread actually wrote

Comments saying she has no record, has done nothing, has produced no results or shows no visible policy: 16, or 4.5%, holding 1,060 agree presses — 14.9% of the vote.

In words, the thread says what I said. But it writes it differently.

It is a harsh way to put it, but prejudice has nothing to do with it. On the overseas trip to France, she said with her own mouth that she would publish the study report, and to this day she has not even tried to. If you are a national lawmaker, surely you have to do what you said you would do? Questioning in sign language and so on gives off an air of getting things done in her own way, but no policy that actually serves the public comes into view. That is not only her - the same goes for the other former celebrity in this reshuffle. Watching the broadcasts, they are too busy reading out answers written by the bureaucrats for any conviction of their own to come through. It is time we stopped electing people this easily on name recognition alone; the bill comes back to the voters, and the voters in these districts would do well to think about that. I will say it once more: you draw a substantial salary, so publish the study report, promptly.

言い方は悪いけど、偏見も何も今井議員はフランスへの海外視察の際、研修報告書について、自らの口で「出します！」と言っておきながら未だに公表しようともしない。国政を担う国会議員ならば、有言実行、一度口にした事は守らないといけないのでは？ 手話での国会質疑など、自身なりに”やってます感”を醸し出してはいるものの、国民の利益に資する政策が全く見えて来ない。これは何も今井議員だけではなくて生稲議員も同じ。官僚が書いた答弁書を読むのに必死で自らの政策に対する思いが国会中継を観ていても伝わって来ない。もう良い加減、知名度だけで安易に当選をさせるのは止めないと、その”ツケ”は国民有権者に返って来る事をこれらタレント議員の選挙区の有権者は良く考えたほうが良いと思う。今一度言う、今井議員、貴女は高額な歳費を貰っているんだから速やかに”研修報告書”を公表すべきである。

98% agreed (of agree plus disagree votes)

661 agree presses, 4th in the thread.

Note that this comment knows about the sign-language questioning. It knows, dismisses it as a show of effort, and goes straight back to the report.

17 comments mention the disability work — 10.7% of the vote

The lawmaker defending her said people attack her without knowing about that work. So I counted that too.

Comments touching on support for disabled children, sign language, deafness or hearing loss: 17, or 4.7%, holding 761 agree presses — 10.7% of the vote.

Not many comments. But it is not that they do not know.

As a result of her work on support for disabled children, has any law actually been changed for the better? Is it not because she has never explained to the public what the overseas trip produced, and what it was good for, that people fall back on calling her a former idol? She is in the ruling party and in a position to change all sorts of things, and the only verdict on her is that she has done none of it. At the very least, it does not feel like work worth the salary.

障がい児支援に力を入れた結果、何か改善されるような法改正等ができたのかな？ 海外視察の成果はどのような活動に役立ったのか国民への説明ができていないから「元アイドル」と言われるのではないのかな？ 与党として色んな改正ができる立場なのに何もしていないとしか評価はされていないと思う。 少なくとも給与に見合う仕事はしていないと感じる。

100% agreed (of agree plus disagree votes)

26 agree presses, 0.4% of the vote. A small voice.

But it runs a straight line between the defence and the 40.9%. What changed as a result of the disability work, and what was the trip good for — and its answer is that because those are never explained, people fall back on former idol.

And a note worth recording: the 2022 law set out above appears in none of the 359 comments.

The two most pushed-back comments both defended her

Of the 854 disagree presses in this thread, 280 — 32.8% — landed on two comments.

Both were defending her.

The criticism of State Minister Imai just will not stop. She has delivered results as a politician while enduring prejudice and abuse online. Many people have been moved by the way she has used every method available to her, including skilful work in the chamber, to bring politics closer to people. She is no member of the elite; she has built up experience and skills abroad, the France trip above all. How she will think, draft and help lead the country as State Minister - a great many of us are watching.

今井副大臣への批判が止まりませんね。偏見やネット空間による誹謗中傷に耐えながらも政治家として結果を出してきた。手腕を駆使した議会での発言等、出来る限りの手法で多くの人に政治を知ってもらうと言う活動に心を打たれた人も多い。決してエリートではない彼女はフランス研修を中心に海外で経験を重ねスキルアップを重ねてきました。副大臣としてどう考え立案し、国を導くのか。多くの国民が注目しています。

15% agreed (of agree plus disagree votes)

31 agree presses against 178 disagree.

The other is one short line — she is working hard, the Communist lawmaker sees her up close, I support her — with 3 agree against 102 disagree.

All 16 comments defending her hold 106 agree presses, 1.5% of the vote, and 283 disagree presses, 33.1%.

In this thread, the pushback did not land on the criticism. It landed on the defence.

Two comments blame the voters

I said the voters and the public who elected her were useless.

Eleven comments (3.1%) use the word voters, and they hold 1,672 agree presses, 23.5% of the vote. On that number alone, the theme is there.

But only two say outright that the voters or the public are to blame.

One is the fourth-placed comment above — stop electing people on name recognition, the bill comes back to you. The other is six characters long, the voters are to blame, and it has zero agree presses.

Comments calling the public incompetent: none.

What the thread reached for instead was the machinery. A high place on the proportional list guarantees election; make her face a district; cut the list seats. Five comments (1.4%), holding 866 agree presses — 12.2% of the vote. That is the third-placed comment.

Instead of calling people useless, it says change how people get elected.

The word "yardstick" appears zero times

I said this happens because there is no yardstick for judging a politician's record.

Comments using the words evaluation criteria, standard, metric or scorecard: zero out of 359.

And yet the thread gets at the same thing from a different angle. Only 6 comments (1.7%) use the word accountability — but they hold 1,324 agree presses, 18.6% of the vote.

It does not argue about the measure. It measures one promise, kept or not. Which is exactly what the top comment says: explain it in a form the public can check.

There is no way to tell who is writing

I said this would be frustrated office workers.

No comment states its writer's occupation. Not one of 359. Comments mentioning salarymen, companies, the private sector or working life: 4 (1.1%), holding 6 agree presses — 0.1% of the vote.

This thread gives almost nothing away about who is in it. So this note cannot say who wrote it.

Replies

There are 55 replies, and 18 of them — 32.7% — sit under the top comment.

340 of the 359 comments (94.7%) drew no reply at all.

Context for readers outside Japan

Japanese parties have long put well-known names on their proportional lists. Recognition brings votes, and votes bring seats, so celebrity candidates are a tool of party strategy rather than an accident.

What makes this article unusual is who did the defending: a lawmaker from the Japanese Communist Party, in opposition, standing up for a minister in the ruling government and calling the criticism prejudice about her former job.

The 359 answers are not ambiguous. Not prejudice, say 81 of them outright, worth 23.7% of the vote.

There is one more thing a reader abroad may want, which is why a single unpublished document can outweigh everything else in a thread about a cabinet appointment. Japanese has a compressed phrase for it, yuugen-jikkou: you said it, so do it. It appears in the fourth-placed comment word for word. The offence being described is not the trip, and not the cost of the trip, and not even the photograph in front of the Eiffel Tower that started it. It is that she announced a report, in her own words, on her own account, and then the thing simply never arrived. In a political culture where a great deal is forgiven to those who go through the motions of accounting for themselves, failing to go through the motions at all is the part that sticks. That is the shape of the 40.9%.

And 40.9% of the vote went to a study trip in 2023, and to one sentence she wrote about it: I will report on my activities in due course.

This thread is not objecting to a career. It is asking whether she did the thing she said she would do. That is the whole of it.

Things I have not checked

I said there was no political activity of hers worth evaluating. As set out above, the public record does hold things. So this note does not claim she has no record. Whether it counts as one is for the reader to decide.

That the voters and the public are useless is my phrasing, not a statement of fact.

I have not looked into why her personal vote fell from 319,359 to 148,800.

On the France report: the party says it compiled an internal document, and I could not find a public account of the trip. That is as far as I checked — it is not a claim that she published nothing.

One note on the numbers: Yahoo! News listed 359 parent comments and I read 359, so every percentage here is out of that 359.

Voices I counted but did not quote

Comments containing abuse of a person: 19, or 5.3%, with 181 agree presses, 2.5% of the vote.

Comments touching on her appearance: 2, or 0.6%, with 347 agree presses, 4.9% — counted, not quoted.

Comments giving ethnicity, descent or race as a reason: none.

The scorecard

• The voters are to blame — 2 comments, one of them with zero agree presses
• The public is useless — none
• She has done nothing — 16 comments, 14.9% of the vote, though the public record holds things
• There is no yardstick — none; instead, accountability, in 6 comments, holds 18.6%
• Frustrated office workers are writing this — no comment gives its writer's occupation, so there is no way to check

What took 40.9% of the vote was a sentence written three years ago.

What this thread was actually saying

The article asked whether this was prejudice about an old job. I said it was because the voters are useless.

All 359 of them declined both.

What this thread pressed was whether she produced the thing she said she would produce. Not what she used to be, and not who voted for her.

The words from the most-pressed comment are worth setting down again: explain what was worthwhile and how, in a form the public can check.

Before the title of State Minister, what this thread wanted to see was that one document.