Japan’s 2025 Upper House elections ended this weekend, but not without a good deal of controversy leading up to voting day. One of the more bizarre cases was that of Reiwa Shinsengumi, a progressive left-wing populist party that got lambasted online due to a promotional video posted by its leader. The controversy even prompted an official statement from Bandai Namco and Sunrise Studios.
On July 18, Reiwa Shinsengumi leader and former actor Taro Yamamoto published a video calling on people to vote for his party while cosplaying as Quattro Bajeena (Char Aznable), an iconic character from the Mobile Suit Gundam series. Yamamoto shot the video in front of the life-size Unicorn Gundam statue in Tokyo. He donned a blond wig, sunglasses and flamboyant red outfit reminiscent of Quattro’s appearance in 1985’s Zeta Gundam.
In the video, Yamamoto introduces Maya Okamoto, a famous anime voice actress (with big roles in the Gundam series) and candidate on Reiwa Shinsengumi’s national party list. The two perform what’s assumed to be a humorous skit, in which Okamoto notices the party leader’s get-up and asks him what’s going on, only to receive a “Nothing at all. Business as usual” in response. The video showcases Yamamoto’s whole costume, but it is not addressed at all.
As reported by J-CAST, this piece of pre-election PR earned a good deal of backlash from Japanese people online, who criticized Reiwa Shinsengumi for “using someone else’s intellectual property for political gain.” Assemblyman Minoru Ogino, who is known for speaking up for freedom of expression in manga and anime, referred to the act as “buffoonery.” Naturally, Gundam fans chimed in too, pointing out that Yamamoto either does not know or has gravely misunderstood the political moves of Char Aznable in the Gundam series (which include attempting to cause a nuclear winter on Earth by dropping an asteroid in order to force humanity to fully immigrate to space).
Yamamoto’s cosplay scandal escalated to the point that Bandai Namco issued an official response. On July 22, they stated, “In the 2025 House of Councillors election, certain candidates were campaigning using cosplay and videos/social media posts in situations that strongly evoked the image of characters from the Gundam series. However, Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. (SUNRISE studios), did not give permission for this, and we do not support any particular candidate.
