Former race queen and gravure idol Chisato Morishita wins seat in election

Former gravure model Chisato Morishita has won her seat in the snap election called by Sanae Takaichi, which saw the ruling Liberal Democratic Party secured a big majority and wipe out much of the opposition.

After some years of campaigning and failing to win a seat, Morishita finally became a member of the lower house in the 2024 election (and thus, Japan’s hottest lawmaker) through the LDP’s proportional representation allocation. She was then given a minor Cabinet position in 2025, like other prominent women in the Takaichi government.

This time, she won her seat outright, comfortably beating the 64-year-old veteran Jun Azumi, a former finance minister and joint secretary general of the Centrist Reform Alliance. It was seen as one of the most significant scalps of the night for the LDP.

A former race queen (grid girl), Morishita was a big star in gravure and a regular face on TV during the 2000s. She continued to work as a gravure model and tarento until her attempted comeback in 2019, after which she shifted to politics and work like teaching at a local university in Miyagi, northeast Japan.

However, she has come until fire from netizens, who suspect she was chosen more for her looks than her political acumen. There is a now-infamous interview with internet personality hiroyuki in which she is unable to properly define what food self-sufficiency means, despite claiming raising Japan’s rate is the reason she wanted to go into politics.

But now that she is has won her seat outright, perhaps fewer people will question her mandate or legitimacy as a lawmaker.

Many are also surely using the victory as an excuse to take a very close look at 44-year-old, unmarried Chisato Morishita’s past photo shoots to see what makes a politico in this day and age.

Though she remains an attractive woman, it is strange to see her in somewhat dour-looking pants suit in her guise as a lawmaker, after so many years of following her gravure career since the 2000s. We particularly like this pic of her in a provocative slingshot leotard or swimsuit.

Chisato Morishita is probably Japan’s hottest politician right now, though we are also partial to Mayu Ushida, a 40-year-old former news anchor and member of the House of Councillors for the Democratic Party for the People.