Do we like Natsuo Yamaguchi?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful in his own words or acts turned up, and he backed an LGBTQ+ understanding law, but the record is thin and he spent 15 years propping up the LDP.
Natsuo Yamaguchi is the bloke who ran Komeito, Japan's Buddhist-rooted centrist party, for eight terms and 15 years, until September 2024. That's the longest run since the party took its current form in 1998. Komeito grew out of the lay Buddhist group Soka Gakkai, which still supplies a big pool of campaign volunteers.
He sold Komeito as a "brake and accelerator" on the LDP, its governing partner since 1999. The party's pitch is postwar pacifism, plus help for small businesses and working families left behind. That's the thin end of the personal story, because he's a party man more than a celebrity and doesn't give much away.
The biggest stoush of his tenure was the 2015 security legislation. Komeito's own account says it pushed to keep Japan's defence-only policy and to tighten the conditions for using force. Reporting at the time said Soka Gakkai members criticised the party for backing the bills. Where you land depends on whether you see Komeito as a handbrake or as a rubber stamp.
The harm check comes up clean on his own words. In a 2017 interview he said he didn't reject changing the constitution, but wanted overwhelming public agreement first. In 2022 he called the LDP's Unification Church ties "spiritual sales" and drew a line between that group and Komeito. On China he went to Beijing in November 2023 to push for lifting the seafood ban. Nothing against women, migrants or the planet turned up in the sources we could open.
On LGBTQ+ issues, in February 2023 he met the US special envoy on sexual minorities and agreed Japan should pass a law promoting understanding before the G7 summit. An earlier draft had been dropped after LDP objections to the phrase "discrimination is unacceptable". The law that eventually passed was criticised by activists as watered down. Japan is still the only G7 country without recognition of same-sex couples. To be fair, he wasn't the one holding that line.
He announced he'd step down as leader in September 2024. In June 2025 Komeito said he would not run again and would retire from politics when his upper house term ended. We found no court cases, allegations or scandals attached to him personally, and no big charity or award record either. That's honestly the whole list.