Japan's prime minister skipped a G7 leaders' video call, and opposition leaders lined up to complain.
81.9%
of agree votes went to comments blaming the absence
2,341 comments read to the bottom · every number is below
The most-agreed comment
Approval ratings of around 60% at home do not by themselves mean the prime minister's work is being judged well. A G7 leaders' meeting is where countries discuss a shared problem - rising fuel prices. Even if the meeting was set up at short notice and other countries had absentees too, the Japanese prime minister's absence surely needs explaining. I wish the prime minister would think not only about approval ratings at home, but also about how Japan is seen in the world and what this does to the national interest.
Show original Japanese
国内の支持率が6割前後あっても、それだけで首相の仕事が評価されるわけではありません。G7首脳会議は、燃油価格の高騰という各国共通の課題を話し合う場です。急きょ設定された会議で、他国にも欠席者がいたとしても、日本の首相が出席しなかったことへの説明は必要でしょう。国内の支持率を気にするだけでなく、国際社会で日本がどう見られるか、国益にどのような影響があるかも考えてほしいものです。My lady's reading
This is what I thought when I saw the article.
They chose this themselves, know nothing about politics - the usual comment section, full of clingy posts that judge like one office worker.
No thought at all for the background, for what goes on behind the scenes, or for what might have happened had the prime minister taken part - just personal attacks, and lots of comments like "it would have been better to attend. Why? Because it would have been better to attend." As a Japanese person, I am ashamed.
It shows me clearly that the worst enemy is not outside, but the posts that strike from within. For spiteful posts that love mob justice, the prime minister is the favourite bait.
That is my reading.
Some of it can be counted. When this thread blamed the absence, did it say why attending mattered? How many comments attacked the person rather than the decision? And the comments on the background, or on what might have happened - how were they voted?
The news
At 2:40pm on 10 October 2026, Kyodo News published an article on Yahoo! News.
On 2 October, from 9:30pm Japan time, the leaders of the G7 - the group of seven major industrialised democracies - held a video call of about 30 minutes on how to deal with soaring fuel prices. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi did not take part. A senior Foreign Ministry official attended in the prime minister's place.
That evening, from about 6:30pm, the prime minister had dinner at the official residence with Taro Aso, vice-president of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, and other party executives; the guests had left by about 8pm. According to the article, no official duties were announced for the time of the meeting.
On 5 October, the prime minister posted on X that France, which chairs the G7 this year, had called the meeting at short notice, that a stand-in was allowed, and that the British prime minister had been absent too. Opposition leaders were not satisfied. Okamoto, leader of Komeito, now in opposition, said it was "not a question of 'the British prime minister didn't attend either, so that's fine'", and Tamaki of the Democratic Party for the People argued that only the prime minister can carry Japan in dealings with other countries. The article adds that some worry Japan's presence on the world stage is fading.
80 to 20 - 2,341 comments, about 15 hours in
I read all 2,341 parent comments. At about 5:53am, the site put the total number of comments at 2,974.
The buttons came to 82,069 agree, 2,605 insightful and 20,872 disagree presses. Positive presses against push-back stand at 80 to 20.
The vote leans to the top. The first comment alone drew 11,623 agree presses - 14.2% of the total - and the top 3 hold 34.3%. Even so, 706 comments drew more disagree than agree presses, and 40.7% of all the disagree presses in this thread landed on them.
At the top: "the absence needs explaining"
(This is the most-agreed comment, shown at the top of this page.)
This is the top comment by vote: 11,623 agree, 426 insightful and 2,353 disagree presses, with 143 replies. It is also the most-disagreed comment in the thread.
930 comments blamed the prime minister for the absence, holding 81.9% of the agree presses. Almost all of this thread's votes went to blaming the absence.
The top comment asks for an explanation, and asks the prime minister to think about the national interest. But it does not say what attending would have gained.
"Why attending mattered" - 18.2%
I split those 930 comments further.
60 said concretely what attending would have gained or what staying away loses: putting Japan's case in talks that bear directly on the lives of a country that imports its fuel, building trust with other leaders, losing the right to complain when others stay away from Japan's problems. They hold 18.2% of the agree presses. The top one is the 4th comment (5,598 agree), which says that if an agenda not concerning Japan is reason enough to stay away, Japan cannot complain when European leaders skip talks on East Asia.
149 attacked the circumstances of the day - the dinner, the "the British prime minister missed it too" explanation, the gap with France's announcement - holding 39.0%. The 2nd comment (9,145 agree) points out that the prime minister was at the official residence and could have attended, and raises the dinner with Aso and the others.
721 gave neither, and simply faulted the absence itself - should have attended, a prime minister of all people, treating it lightly, explain yourself. They hold 24.7%.
My lady's "it would have been better to attend, because it would have been better to attend" turns out to be the largest group by number of comments. But the largest share of the votes went to comments attacking the circumstances of that evening - the dinner and the British comparison.
Attacks on the person - 24.4%
652 comments attacked the prime minister's character, temperament, fitness or ability - not up to the job, runs away, all pride, brave only at home, unfit to lead. They hold 24.4% of the agree presses. The top one is the 6th comment (3,437 agree).
322 of them did so alongside criticism of the absence, holding 16.8%. Another 330 attacked the person without mentioning the absence at all, holding 7.6%.
172 called for resignation or replacement, holding 4.8%. 86 mentioned the prime minister's English or need for interpreters, holding 3.6%. 119 brought up the prime minister's sex, health or rumours about private life, holding 8.4%; I do not quote those here.
266 quoted the prime minister's own past words - "work, work, work", Japanese diplomacy "blooming at the centre of the world" - to say that words and deeds do not match, holding 19.5%.
The background and "what if" were pushed towards disagree
160 comments wrote about the background or what lay behind the meeting - the Trump administration pressing Europe to release diesel or reserves, an agenda centred on Europe's fuel shortage, Japan having already released reserves - or about what might have happened had the prime minister attended. Together they hold 5.7% of the agree presses.
But they hold 15.3% of the disagree presses - nearly three times their share of the agree presses.
Staying away was the right call. Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that the Trump administration had asked France and Germany to release diesel onto the market. It also reported that France then proposed releasing 50 million barrels of diesel among European countries and 50 million barrels of crude oil among IEA members. Right now Japan has no room to release anything, so running away wins. Nice judgement.
出なくて正解ですね。ロイター通信は関係者の話として、トランプ政権がフランスやドイツに軽油の市場への放出を要求したと報道。これを受けフランスが欧州諸国に軽油5000万バレル、IEA加盟国に原油5000万バレルの放出を提案したとも伝えていた。現状日本には放出出来る余裕などないので逃げるが勝ちですよ。ナイス判断です。This is the comment my lady shared. It drew 1 agree and 3 disagree presses; 386 comments are tied on 1 agree press, so it stands somewhere from 1,635th to 2,020th.
It names a piece of background, describes what attending might have brought, and calls the absence the right call - exactly the "background, behind the scenes, what if" my lady had in mind. (The IEA is the International Energy Agency, whose members hold emergency oil stocks.)
69 comments described what might have happened had the prime minister attended, but 21 of those were really attacks on the person: attending would only have exposed poor English or a lack of ability. Of the 160 comments on the background or "what if", 89 defended the absence; those 89 hold 0.6% of the agree presses and 9.4% of the disagree presses.
381 comments defended the absence in all - 16.3% of the thread. They hold 1.8% of the agree presses and 26.2% of the disagree presses. Another 541 turned on the opposition, the media or the critics, holding 2.3% of the agree presses and 30.0% of the disagree presses.
"People who leave on time are not committed"
66 comments measured the prime minister against everyday settings - a company, a workplace, a school, a neighbourhood committee, a child's excuse - holding 1.9% of the agree presses. 55 of them blamed the absence, with lines like "a schoolchild's excuse" and "are you a new recruit?"
Only 5 used such a comparison to defend it.
This article says nothing about what was discussed at the meeting, and criticises the absence alone. It feels like "people who leave on time are not committed" or "you only get praised if you do overtime" - just do the overtime, whatever the work actually is.
この記事、会議で話し合われた内容はなにも伝えず、欠席したことだけをもって批判していますね。
「定時に帰る人はやる気がない」とか「残業しないと褒められない」みたいに、仕事の内容に関係なく、とりあえず、残業しろみたいに感じます。This is the comment closest to my lady's reading. It drew 4 agree, 1 insightful and 21 disagree presses. 214 comments are tied on 4 agree presses, so it stands somewhere from 777th to 990th.
Judging by whether someone showed up rather than by what the meeting was about - this comment puts my lady's "judging like one office worker" into the language of the office itself. Its disagree presses outnumber its agree presses more than five to one.
Few mentioned the people who chose this government
206 comments mentioned those who chose the prime minister - voters, supporters, approval ratings, the election - holding 17.0% of the agree presses. But almost all of that is the first comment, which mentions approval ratings; without it, the other 205 hold 2.9%.
28 comments blamed, or were ashamed of, the Japanese people as a whole, holding 0.5%.
I also checked my lady's remark that the prime minister is the favourite bait, against the threads this site has read. Of the 68 threads read so far, the one with the most comments at the time of reading was the thread under an article about the prime minister keeping a minister in post despite an outcry, which I read on 9 October (6,058 comments).
This thread, at 2,974, is 13th. Five threads had the prime minister in the headline; they rank 1st, 13th, 18th, 20th and 28th. The biggest thread of all was about the prime minister, but threads about the prime minister are not always the biggest. Each thread was read a different number of hours after publication, so treat this as a rough guide.
What I have not checked
That the British prime minister was away for a father's funeral, that France had announced the meeting days in advance, the report that the Trump administration asked Europe to release diesel, the prime minister's approval rating of around 60%, and that alcohol was served at the dinner all come from the comments. I have not checked them.
My lady's words "clingy", "spiteful" and "mob justice" cannot be counted, because the thread does not show what writers feel. They are not facts I have checked.
Each comment was read and placed one by one, not by keyword. Some were hard to place, so treat the figures as approximate.
In closing
My lady said this thread gave no thought to the background or to "what if" - just personal attacks, or "better to attend, because better to attend".
The 2,341 comments blamed the prime minister for the absence, clearly: 81.9% of the agree presses. Of that, 18.2% went to comments saying what attending would have gained. Attacks on the person hold 24.4%.
Comments on the background, or on what might have happened, hold 5.7% of the agree presses and 15.3% of the disagree presses. The closest comment drew 4 agree and 21 disagree presses.
For readers abroad, one thing may help. In Japanese workplaces, simply being present - at the desk, at the meeting, after hours - is often read as a sign of commitment in itself. This thread judged a prime minister partly by that same measure. The few comments that pointed this out were pushed back with disagree presses.
That is as far as counting goes. What lies between faulting an absence and asking what attending would have changed is for you, the reader, to decide.
The top five comments by vote
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 11623 ∕ 2353 High approval ratings do not mean the prime minister's work is being judged well. A G7 leaders' meeting is where countries discuss a shared problem - rising fuel prices. Even if the meeting was sudden and other leaders were absent too, the absence needs explaining. Think about how Japan looks to the world and what it does to the national interest
- 2nd 9145 ∕ 1591 Sending a stand-in should be for when you cannot attend. The prime minister was at the official residence and could have. Was it that alcohol had been served at the dinner with Aso? The stand-in was not even the foreign minister but a senior Foreign Ministry official. Isn't that treating the G7 far too lightly?
- 3rd 7369 ∕ 1231 Perhaps the prime minister's head was full of the farm minister Yana affair, with no room for the G7. But with no official duties at that hour, attending was the obvious thing for Japan's leader to do, and dinner with Aso could have waited. Other countries' circumstances are beside the point
- 4th 5598 ∕ 649 The British prime minister was away for a memorial service. Japan's own prime minister spent the whole day at the official residence and still missed a call at around 9pm. If an agenda that does not concern Japan is reason enough to stay away, Japan cannot complain when Europe's leaders skip talks on East Asia. Big words about Japanese diplomacy "blooming at the centre of the world", but no visible policy
- 5th 5049 ∕ 650 This should have been attended. There was talk of barely sleeping, but whatever is said about working hard, it is a contradiction to miss the moments that matter. Get proper sleep, and give time to what is important
Every number from this thread
I read all 2,341 parent comments, loaded between 5:51 and 5:54am on 11 October 2026, about 15 hours after publication. The site put the total at 2,974 comments at about 5:53am, showed 2,348 parent comments, and showed 622 replies beneath the parents. The buttons came to 82,069 agree, 2,605 insightful and 20,872 disagree presses - 80 to 20. Agree against disagree alone is also 80 to 20. The vote leans to the top: the first comment alone drew 11,623 agree presses, 14.2% of the total; the top 2 hold 25.3%, the top 3 34.3%, the top 5 47.3%, the top 10 60.9% and the top 20 74.0%. Further down, 321 of the 2,341 (13.7%) drew no agree presses at all, 70 (3.0%) had no button pressed at all, and 706 (30.2%) drew more disagree than agree presses - those 706 hold 40.7% of all the disagree presses. The average comment ran to 73.8 characters and the longest to 400. The 153 comments (6.5%) of 200 characters or more hold 42.1% of the agree presses; the 924 (39.5%) under 40 characters hold 3.9%. Of the 622 replies, 143 (23.0%) sit under the first comment, and 2,248 of the 2,341 (96.0%) have no reply at all. Next, how the thread wrote about the absence. 930 comments (39.7%) blamed the prime minister for it - should have attended, explain yourself, treating it lightly, put a dinner first, a feeble excuse - holding 81.9% of the agree presses, and 51.4% of the disagree presses too. Of those, 60 (2.6%) said concretely what attending would have gained or what staying away loses - talks that bear directly on the lives of a country that imports its fuel, building trust with other leaders, losing the right to complain when others stay away from Japan's problems - holding 18.2%; the top one is the 4th comment. 149 (6.4%) attacked the circumstances - the dinner, the 'the British prime minister missed it too' explanation, the gap with the French announcement - holding 39.0%. 721 (30.8%) gave neither and faulted the absence itself, holding 24.7%. 652 (27.9%) attacked the prime minister's character, temperament, fitness or ability - not up to the job, runs away, all pride, brave only at home, unfit to lead - holding 24.4%; the top one is the 6th comment. Of those, 322 did so alongside criticism of the absence, holding 16.8%, and 330 attacked the person without mentioning the absence, holding 7.6%. 172 (7.3%) called for resignation or replacement, holding 4.8%. 86 (3.7%) mentioned the prime minister's English or need for interpreters, holding 3.6%. 119 (5.1%) brought up the prime minister's sex, health, smoking or rumours about private life, holding 8.4%. 107 (4.6%) mentioned the dinner with vice-president Aso and others, or drinking, holding 26.0%. 266 (11.4%) quoted the prime minister's own past words - 'work, work, work', Japanese diplomacy 'blooming at the centre of the world' - to say that words and deeds do not match, holding 19.5%. 73 (3.1%) attacked the 'the British prime minister missed it too' explanation or mentioned the reason for the British absence, holding 33.6%; without the first comment, the other 72 hold 19.4%. 9 said the 'set up at the last minute' explanation did not match France's announcement, holding 1.3%. 158 (6.7%) mentioned the farm minister Yana affair, holding 15.3%. 56 (2.4%) mentioned the prime minister's explanation on X or use of social media, holding 7.6%. Then the other side. 381 (16.3%) defended the absence - a stand-in was enough, the meeting was sudden, staying away was right, too much fuss - holding 1.8% of the agree presses and 26.2% of the disagree presses; the top one is the 45th comment (155 agree, 503 disagree). 541 (23.1%) turned on the opposition, the media or the critics instead, holding 2.3% of the agree presses and 30.0% of the disagree presses. 687 (29.3%) did one or the other, holding 2.8% of the agree presses and 36.7% of the disagree presses. 175 (7.5%) fitted none of the categories, holding 1.0%. Now my lady's reading, counted. 122 comments (5.2%) wrote about the background to the meeting or what lay behind it - the Trump administration pressing Europe to release diesel or reserves, an agenda centred on Europe's fuel shortage, Japan having already released reserves, each country's calculations - holding 5.5% of the agree presses and 14.7% of the disagree presses. 69 (2.9%) described what might have happened, or what could have been done, had the prime minister attended - being asked to release reserves or share costs, being bound by a joint statement, telling the others directly how Japan is struggling - holding 2.6%. 21 of those were really attacks on the person: attending would only have exposed poor English or a lack of ability. 160 (6.8%) wrote about the background or 'what if', holding 5.7% of the agree presses and 15.3% of the disagree presses; the top one is the 13th comment (1,120). 89 of the 160 defended the absence; those 89 hold 0.6% of the agree presses and 9.4% of the disagree presses. 66 (2.8%) measured the prime minister against everyday settings - a company, a workplace, a school, a neighbourhood committee, a child's excuse - holding 1.9%; 55 of them blamed the absence and 5 defended it. 206 (8.8%) mentioned those who chose the prime minister - voters, supporters, approval ratings, the election - holding 17.0%; but the first comment mentions approval ratings, and without it the other 205 hold 2.9%. 28 (1.2%) blamed or were ashamed of the Japanese people as a whole, holding 0.5%. The comment closest to my lady's reading says the article reports nothing of what was discussed and criticises only the absence, like saying 'people who leave on time are not committed'. It drew 4 agree, 1 insightful and 21 disagree presses and stands somewhere from 777th to 990th (214 comments are tied on 4). The most-disagreed comment in the thread is the first comment itself, with 2,353 disagree presses - 11.3% of the total. Among comments with more disagree than agree, the most-disagreed stands 48th (149 agree, 507 disagree): Japan has its own measures, a joint statement could have been a trap, and outsiders who do not know the reasons should not be attacking. I also checked my lady's remark that the prime minister is the favourite bait against the threads this site has read. Of the 68 threads read so far, the one with the most comments at the time of reading was the thread under an article about the prime minister keeping a minister in post, read on 9 October (6,058). This thread, at 2,974, is 13th. Five threads had the prime minister in the headline; they rank 1st, 13th, 18th, 20th and 28th. Each thread was read at a different number of hours after publication, so treat this as a rough guide. Things I did not check: that the British prime minister was away for a father's funeral, that France had announced the meeting days in advance, the report that the Trump administration asked Europe to release diesel, the prime minister's approval rating of around 60%, and that alcohol was served at the dinner all come from the comments; I have not checked them. My lady's words 'clingy', 'spiteful' and 'mob justice' cannot be counted, because the thread does not show what writers feel. Each comment was read and placed one by one, not by keyword, so treat the figures as approximate. The comment my lady shared cites a report that the Trump administration asked Europe to release diesel and says staying away was right because Japan has nothing left to release. It drew 1 agree and 3 disagree presses and stands somewhere from 1,635th to 2,020th (386 comments are tied on 1).
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.
