Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Japan Now Has a Strong-Style Minister of Education

What a sweet moustache
Photo via ObsessedWithWrestling.com
Hiroshi Hase is known for many different accomplishments during his career. He innovated the Northern lights suplex. The Muta Scale was established thanks to a match he was involved in. He transitioned from professional wrestling into the Japanese parliament, and he did all of it with the sweetest moustache in pro wrestling history. He's had quite the interesting life to say the least, and now, he has a new notch on his belt as he has received a new job in the Japanese government:

That's right, Hase has been named the Minister of Education, Culture, and Sports. Having been a part of both major Japanese wrestling companies in the '90s, Hase knows a bit about history, and hopefully, now that he's in charge, Japanese students will learn the classics, like Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada, the New Japan Three Musketeers, and the time Vader's eye popped out of its socket.

In all seriousness, the fact that a wrestler was able to be appointed to that position rather than win it in election speaks to how much more "legitimate" an art it is in Japan than it is in America. I'm not one of the people who thinks everything in Japanese wrestling is better than it is in America, but the way it seems to be treated across the Pacific in popular culture is as close to a platonic ideal as possible. Of course, it helps that even at his carniest that Antonio Inoki never treated his narrative product as glibly and blithely as Vince McMahon has at times, but hey, you have to cope with the hand you're dealt, unfortunately.
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