Photo/Illutration The Prime Minister’s Official Residence, lower right, stands beside the prime minister’s office, upper left. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

“At the Prime Minister’s Official Residence, military officers are said to be seen standing in the garden in the middle of the night,” Yasuko Hata, widow of former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata, once noted.

According to her book “Shusho Kotei” (Prime Minister’s Official Residence), the interior of the building felt creepy and she “sensed some ‘eerie’ presence.”

A Shinto priest was brought in to perform an exorcism, and the Hata family sprinkled salt every morning, she wrote.

The Hatas lived in the old residence, completed in 1929.

Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai was shot to death there in a coup attempt on May 15, 1932. The building was also occupied by young military officers in a failed coup on Feb. 26, 1936.

Memories of bloody acts of terror lingered on. Rumors have persisted of ghostly goings-on even after the current residence was completed in 2005.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida moved in there on Dec. 11. As his two predecessors did not, Kishida is the new residence’s first occupant in nine years.

Earlier this week, reporters couldn’t wait to ask him if he’s seen an apparition.

“Not yet,” Kishida quipped.

He is the eighth prime minister to take up residence there. Many of the previous tenants, either of the Liberal Democratic Party or the Democratic Party of Japan, ended up resigning after around one year into their term.

For this reason, the superstition within the political community is that the career of any prime minister who moves into the official residence will be short-lived.

I strolled around Tokyo’s Nagatacho neighborhood yesterday afternoon to eyeball the official residence from some distance.

What caught my eye was not a ghost, but four stone figurines of “mimizuku” horned owls adorning the rooftop.

According to the official website of the prime minister’s office, the birds, which are messengers of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and valor, are said to keep vigil atop the official residence and protect the prime minister.

As far as I can see from how the current Diet session is proceeding, I feel somewhat uneasy about Kishida’s ability to carry his policies through.

Will he be capable of living up to his signature “ability to listen” and draw political wisdom from the resident horned owls? Or will his courteous but unsteady manners backfire and cause him to lose public support?

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 17

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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