Dear Nicholas,

A few comments (based on my current project on political engagement among Japanese young people): in common with people in many other mature democracies, turnout is a learned experience (tends to be a curvi-linear relationship): as people age, they turn out to vote. In Japan, networks play a roles in this.

On party mobilization: in addition to the old-style tactics (loudspeakers near universities), parties include policy pledges that they think appeal to younger voters, such as funding for college and increased support for child-rearing. Thinking about the last election, the (in)famous party efforts to mobilize the youth vote were clueless as they vied for the newly enfranchised teens. The LDP’s manga became infamous and was panned on the internet for being “demeaning and sexist” (Sieg, 2017; "日本語記事近日公開：The youth of Japan, get prepared to vote!," 2016). *Kuni ni Todoke* (Notify the Country), as the manga was called ( https://www.jimin.jp/18voice/kuninitodoke/), featured Asuka, a female high school student, who is interested in politics because she wants attention from a male classmate. The Democratic Party similarly had a skewed view of gender in their offerings: the party created a VOTE18 website featuring interviews with teenage models in school uniforms, interviews, a “Democratic Party High School” (for junior and senior high school girls) a series of talk-show style videos featuring (female) models and (mostly male) politicians that were unimaginatively shot with low production values (http://minshin18.jp/). The website seems designed to appeal to the *kawaii* (cute) female demographic and YouthCreate, a non-profit that aims to increase youth engagement in politics, apparently criticized it as patronizing ("日本語記事近日公開：The youth of Japan, get prepared to vote!," 2016).

More generally, regardless of the bizarreness of the parties’ approach, commentators are convinced that young people oppose “the massive social security costs and the national debts due to the large population of elderlies in Japan” ("日本語記事近日公開：The youth of Japan, get prepared to vote!," 2016). But it turns out that these are not young people’s values. The Yomiuri Shinbun conducted two concurrent public opinion surveys, one surveyed 18-19-year-olds and the other, citizens 20 and over. The results demonstrate that these assumptions are not accurate. Fewer teenagers than older people cited social security and the economy as electoral concerns, for example.

Best regards

Gill Steel