"Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be."

— Marshall McLuhan, in a 1972 interview

The resounding victory in the July 2 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election by Gov. Yuriko Koike's Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First) group was seen in and out of Japan as not only a crushing defeat for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party but also a "game-changer." Some Japanese media pundits suggest a national "First" movement is at hand, while overenthusiastic foreign observers of Japanese politics hail the international media-savvy Koike and Tomin First as a "breath of fresh air," or a sign that, finally, a "progressive," "modern" political alternative to decades of LDP rule is at hand.