Japan's first-ever female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, is an ultraconservative with a traditional view of gender roles and a penchant for heavy metal music.
Japan's parliament elected Takaichi on Tuesday, several weeks after she was chosen to lead the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has spent much of the last seven decades in power. The LDP is seen as shifting further to the right: It was only able to elect Takaichi by forming an alliance with a right-wing populist party, after losing its longtime coalition partner earlier this month.
Takaichi, 64, is "one of the most conservative people in Japan's conservative LDP," explains Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies in Japan.
She has advocated for tougher immigration restrictions and embraced hawkish policies on China. She has drawn comparisons to the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, for whom she has frequently expressed her admiration and often wears blue suits in tribute.
But she also played drums in a band in college, cites Deep Purple and Iron Maiden as some of her favorite bands, once belted a rock anthem on national TV and appears to maintain a strong affinity for motorcycles and cars.
"Those are part of the character that is promoted by her, that [she is] more than just the strong Iron Lady, but also somebody who can have some fun," Hall says.
Here's what else to know about Japan's new leader.
1. She isn't from a political family
Takaichi was born and raised in the central Japanese prefecture of Nara. Her dad worked for an automotive firm, while her mom worked for the local police department.
"Unlike most or many of the politicians in her party who became prime ministers, she came from rather modest means," Hall says. "But she did study very hard when she was young, and she passed the entrance exams for some very elite private universities in Japan."
But he said Takaichi's parents refused to pay for her tuition to an elite university, preferring that she attend a two-year college to save money and live closer to home. She ended up attending Kobe University, a prestigious national university, paying her own way through part-time jobs and making the six-hour round-trip commute from her parents' house.
In 1987, Takaichi moved to the U.S. to work as a congressional fellow in the office of Rep. Pat Schroeder, a Democrat from Colorado — despite her own conservative leanings, Hall notes. After returning to Japan, she was able to market herself as an expert in international politics and secure a job as a television presenter.
"And from there, she segued away from being a TV personality into a politician, which is a common path in Japan," Hall says. "If you're famous on TV, you have a pretty good chance of winning elections."
2. She's spent decades in politics
Takaichi was first elected to parliament in 1993, representing her hometown of Nara as an independent.
She joined the LDP three years later and went on to serve in a number of key government positions, including minister of economic security.
Notably, she served as the minister of international communications — which is responsible for telecommunications policy and broadcast media regulations — under the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, from 2014 to 2017 and again from 2019 to 2020.
"She served in that, I think, longer than any other politician has ever served, because the Abe administration was a very long administration and he valued her competency," Hall says.
Abe was Japan's longest-serving prime minister, holding office from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020, before his assassination in 2022. He was known for his efforts to revitalize Japan's economy — nicknamed "Abenomics" — and rebuild its role on the global stage.
Takaichi "definitely depicts herself as the successor to Abe's conservative legacy," Hall says, noting that she did get his endorsement in the party's 2021 leadership election.
"I'm not sure how close friends they were, but they definitely were on the same page ideologically when it came to issues like China and the revisionist view of World War II that many of the ultra-conservatives in Japan have," he said.
3. Her views have caused controversy
Takaichi subscribes to modern monetary theory, "which says that you can engage in deficit spending on important things like defense and other parts of the budget," Hall says.
While she is not as traditionally fiscally conservative as others in her party, he says, she is extremely conservative on social issues. For instance, she wants to create programs to promote having children and doesn't think women should be allowed to keep their maiden names after marriage (even though she has used hers in professional and public life).
She also has what Hall describes as hardline views on Japan's WWII history. In remarks over the years, she has downplayed Japan's aggression during the war and criticized the war crimes trials that the Allies held afterward to convict Japan's wartime leaders.
Takaichi is also known to regularly visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, where the convicted war criminals are buried and glorified. But she noticeably abstained from visiting during last week's autumn festival, sending a ritual offering instead.
Takaichi has also courted controversy with her disdain for immigrants and even tourists, a rapidly growing industry in Japan. While campaigning, she cited unconfirmed reports of tourists kicking sacred deer in Nara Park, part of a larger criticism of tourism that many saw as xenophobic.
"It also ties into a general dislike of foreign people and also immigrants who live in the country," Hall says.
She has advocated for an anti-espionage law, suggesting that Chinese residents of Japan could be potential spies for China's government. During her campaign, she called for restrictions on non-Japanese people buying property in Japan and a crackdown on illegal immigration.
"People who are very anti-immigration are sort of smiling on her becoming prime minister, expecting that she will do something about it," Hall says, adding he thinks that is unlikely because of pressure from Japanese businesses who rely on immigration in the face of significant labor shortages.
4. She's not necessarily a feminist
Takaichi holds a notable place in the history books as the first female prime minister of a country where women only held about 10% of seats in parliament as of 2024.
Japan, the world's fourth largest economy, ranked 118th out of 148 countries in terms of gender equality — the lowest of any Group of Seven nation — according to the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report.
However, Takaichi appears unlikely to prioritize issues of gender equality. She has long advocated for traditional gender roles, opposes same-sex marriage and supports male-only succession to the Japanese throne.
"This is not going to be a period when women's equality or other gender issues are aggressively advanced," Hall says. "But there is, I guess, some benefit to having a woman as the leader of your country, to show … young women that in the future they could become prime minister, too."
Takaichi has spoken about women's rights, specifically advocating for the expansion of hospital services for women's health and opening up about her own struggles with menopause symptoms.
Takaichi has also spoken about her struggles to conceive; She has no biological children, but is a stepmother to three kids — and grandmother to four — from her husband's previous marriage. (She is married to former member of parliament and fellow LDP member Taku Yamamoto, who legally took her last name, a relative rarity in Japan.)
Takaichi had promised on the campaign trail to increase the number of women in her cabinet to "Nordic levels," or closer to 50%. But in the hours after taking office, she appointed only two.
Hall says Takaichi has had to be more conservative than her male colleagues in order to take the helm of the party. While she and her role model Margaret Thatcher differ in their approaches to fiscal policy, he says both are conservative, hawkish and "do not want to be seen as weak."
"She maybe, in a way, has modeled her rise on Margaret Thatcher by being this very strong figure, despite coming [up] in a party of very conservative men who generally do not promote women to the highest positions," he adds.
5. She appears friendly toward Trump
Takaichi has indicated a friendliness toward President Trump, who called her "a highly respected person of great wisdom and strength" in a social media post earlier this month congratulating her on her rise to party leadership and her expected ascension to prime minister.
She responded with a post of her own, writing in both English and Japanese that she is "truly hoping to work together with President Trump to make our alliance even stronger & more prosperous, and to advance a Free and Open Indo-Pacific."
Hall says Trump likely has a good first impression of Takaichi already, because of her reputation as an "anti-immigration, hard-line conservative who is a respecter of his late friend Shinzo Abe."
Abe was one of the first foreign leaders to cultivate a relationship with Trump during his first term. The two became friends as they bonded over wagyu beef burgers, sumo wrestling and golf.
Trump is expected to meet Takaichi on a visit to Japan later this month. Hall predicts she will follow the same playbook as her predecessors:
"You be as nice as possible to the president, you show him the maximum respect, you do not have public disagreements with him," he says. "And when you do disagree over policy, you do it in a very subtle way that doesn't seem like you're telling the president he's wrong."
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