Yamamoto Taku is a Japanese politician from a dovish faction of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who has serious policy disputes with the new prime minister, Takaichi Sanae.
Yamamoto promised on Tuesday to set those differences aside and give his full support to Japan’s first female PM, who also happens to be his wife.
Kyodo News on Tuesday chronicled the tempestuous love story between the two politicians, who began dating in 2003, got married in 2004, divorced in 2017, and remarried in late 2021:
Both were members of a faction then led by former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori when they first married. They began a serious relationship after Takaichi lost her seat in the 2003 lower house election and Yamamoto hired her younger brother as his secretary.
While Takaichi is known as a conservative hard-liner, Yamamoto is seen as dovish-leaning. Their political differences came to a head during the 2012 LDP presidential race, when Yamamoto backed former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, while Takaichi supported Shinzo Abe, who won the contest and returned to power.
The rivalry between their camps reportedly became so intense that the couple stopped talking about the leadership race at home. When they announced their divorce in 2017, they issued a joint statement citing “differences in political views.”
After his wife won the vote for prime minister on Tuesday, Yamamoto said he intends to stand behind her as a “stealth husband” because “unlike in the West, it is better for the partner to stay out of the spotlight here.”
“I want to provide solid support as a stealth husband, to ensure that my presence does not become an obstacle,” he told reporters.
“She worries about my health, so I want to make sure she doesn’t push herself too hard either,” he added. Yamamoto at 73 is almost ten years older than his wife and he has suffered some health issues recently, including a stroke and a diagnosis for prostate cancer.
Yamamoto, who is a licensed chef, recalled wooing Takaichi by promising to “make sure you eat delicious food throughout your life.” He said one of the firm rules for their marriage is that the kitchen is his “domain,” and she is forbidden to enter when he is working his culinary sorcery.
Takaichi has remarked in interviews that she initially found Yamamoto “unsociable,” a point he proved by proposing to her over the telephone. According to Takaichi, his phoned-in plight of troth was, verbatim: “If you are seriously looking for a marriage partner, I would like to propose.”
After the couple divorced, he wooed her for the second time in 2021 by promising to support her first bid for LDP leadership. He lost his own seat in parliament during the next election.
Another interesting quirk of the power couple’s relationship is that Takaichi, who is both culturally and politically conservative, wants to keep Japan’s unique, centuries-old law requiring married couples to use the same surname.
As prominent politicians, Takaichi and Yamamoto are generally referred to by their individual surnames, but in fact she took his when they first got married – and he took hers when they remarried in 2021. His legal name is currently Takaichi Taku.
According to the first First Gentleman in Japan’s history, he adopted her surname for their second marriage because she defeated him in a game of rock-paper-scissors.
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