In late January, 35-year-old Takato Ishida became Japan’s youngest governor and he quickly went viral online for his striking looks.
His Instagram posts racked up tens of thousands of likes as observers left comments swooning over him and his impressive jawline.
According to Asahi Shimbun, Mr Ishiba narrowly won against a 67-year-old former mayor.
In one of his pinned posts, published on 1 Feb, he spoke about becoming Fukui’s governor and thanked the public for electing him.
Despite some observers not understanding what he was saying, many left comments praising him for his looks.
Source: @ishida.takato on Instagram
In a 4 March post, he quickly racked up 78,000 likes and over 800 comments — many of them reaction GIFs expressing how attractive they found him.
Despite the outpouring of love he received online from international commenters, Mr Ishida has faced some backlash locally. Ironically, it is because of his more conservative views on immigration.
Source: @ishida.takato on Instagram
Although he ran as an independent, he received support from Sanseito, the right-wing populist political party in Japan. The head of Sanseito, Sohei Kamiya, even joined Mr Ishida in giving speeches during the election campaign.
Mr Kamiya has often been dubbed “mini-Trump” for his Japan First rhetoric.
As a result, many Japanese commenters questioned Mr Ishida about his stance on immigrants.
He has since walked back a previous statement that Japan is “ethnically homogeneous”.
In his clarification, Mr Ishida said: “I wanted to say that if Japan accepts immigrants or foreign labourers in a disorderly manner, this will cause problems.”
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Featured image adapted from @ishida.takato on Instagram and Instagram.