Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s out-of-the-blue announcement that he intends to resign has upended the shtick of a Japanese comic and thrown his act into turmoil.

Tenshin Yamamoto, known for his comic impressions of Suga, froze in shock when he saw the newsflash pop up on the TV screen on Sept. 3.

Yamamoto, 58, was eating lunch. Absorbed in the news that Suga would not seek re-election to head the Liberal Democratic Party, he forgot to put down his chopsticks.

For the past nine years, Yamamoto has watched Suga like a hawk, through good times and bad, first as chief Cabinet secretary then as prime minister.

Like Suga, Yamamoto grappled with diminishing public support for the administration, and he was constantly struggling to find a recipe for political stability or a way to boost his approval ratings--but always in the form of a comedy skit.

The night before Suga’s shocking announcement, Yamamoto had come up with a grand idea for a new skit.

Yamamoto’s Suga is busy racking his brain to map out a strategy to raise the administration’s approval rating by 20 points.

Like agonizing over a complicated chess game, he makes a move, but with politicians as the pieces, and reshuffles the key Cabinet posts.

Finally, after thinking it through for two hours, he arrives at a brilliant conclusion: “I should resign!”

It was the skit’s final punch line.

But Yamamoto never imagined that the joke was prescient, or that the next day’s news would spoil the skit.

“I didn’t expect Suga himself to take the punch line out of my mouth,” Yamamoto said.

For all his efforts, the skit failed to see the light of day.

COMEDY IMITATES POLITICS

But for Yamamoto, who is a member of The Newspaper, a group of comedians who do political satire, constantly rewriting punch lines and scripts to reflect what is going on in Nagatacho is par for the course.

For instance, during the group’s performance in Tokyo on Aug. 28, Suga’s character received support from his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, and LDP kingmaker Toshihiro Nikai.

But after Abe and Nikai began to distance themselves from Suga in real life, the group changed the skit.

Suga’s resignation adds some complexity to the joke-writing process.

But for Yamamoto, it is pure joy.

“I’m in the juiciest situation,” he said.

Having played Suga for nine years, Yamamoto does not deny developing an affinity toward him. Nor does he deny feeling loss over Suga’s plan to soon step out of the limelight.

“But as far as the resignation goes, it is our mission to laugh it off as hard as possible,” Yamamoto said. 

WAS ONLY KNOWN AS ‘UNCLE REIWA'

To many, Suga is emblazoned in their minds as Abe’s chief Cabinet secretary--a character largely devoid of personality.

Yamamoto anticipated that would change when Suga succeeded Abe as prime minister a year ago. He was wrong.

That became evident when Yamamoto was in character alongside Hide Fukumoto, 50, a member of The Newspaper, who does impressions of Abe.

Some would spot Fukumoto’s Abe from 50 meters away and wave at him. But they had a hard time identifying who Yamamoto’s character was until he would hold up a frame showing the name of the new era, Reiwa.

“Suga is a low-key old man, a ‘fixer’ type who runs the government behind the scenes,” Yamamoto said. “He shouldn’t have stepped onto center stage.”

Yamamoto said he has always had firsthand knowledge of how the public feels about Suga.

Suga initially enjoyed a favorable rating of more than 70 percent.

In those days, Yamamoto received thunderous ovation just by raising his hand when he was performing Suga on stage.

Nowadays, not a single person gives him a big hand.

‘FAILED TO HAVE A CONVERSATION’

However, Suga being a low-key leader has never been a problem, Yamamoto said.

The administration has always supplied great material for the comic: blocking nominees for the Science Council of Japan, a lobbying scandal involving Suga’s eldest son and telecommunications ministry officials, the central government’s handling of the pandemic, and hosting the Tokyo Olympics despite public opposition.

But there is a common thread running through all those incidents, Yamamoto said.

“He failed to have a conversation at all.”

For instance, in Diet sessions and at news conferences, Suga would just repeat his talking point, “I want to hold a safe and secure Olympic Games.”

Whether Suga was interacting with opposition lawmakers or reporters, they would often continue talking past each other. The non sequiturs became a lurid illustration of the credibility gap in politics.

On Sept. 4, a day after Suga announced his intention to step aside, Yamamoto took the stage in Kyoto and performed a skit he rewrote overnight.

He studied a scene in which Suga explained to reporters the reason behind his decision: “Handling the coronavirus and handling the election campaign both requires enormous energy, and I cannot do both at the same time.”

It was a 2-minute-long remark.

In the skit, Yamamoto’s Suga character recalled the scene.

“After that speech, people told me, ‘It was great. You really expressed your decision and decisiveness.’ I explained such an important decision without notes. Speaking off-script is the best way to convey a message to people. I learned that at the last second.”

FINAL PUNCHLINE

After following Suga’s life in minute detail and playing him for nine years, Yamamoto feels almost like he knows what Suga is thinking.

In Yamamoto’s eyes, Suga committed to play the role of a seawall for the scandal-laden Abe administration for seven years and eight months. And he shifted blame over issues such as the “Morikake” (Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Educational Institution) scandals. 

But this time, nobody played that same role to bail Suga out.

On the stage in Kyoto, Yamamoto’s Suga decided to drop the pretense and pour his heart out.

“Next time, I will tell all the details of the Morikake scandals!”