It's that time of year, and the hills of Nagatacho are alive with the sound of musical chairs — Japan's leadership game with the objective of changing the subject, not the tune.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has multiple reasons to pick this moment for a Cabinet reshuffle: the drip, drip, drip of scandals involving school operators from Osaka to Okayama; the unpopular conspiracy bill his ruling coalition railroaded through the Diet; the omnipresent and widely detested battle to amend the war-renouncing Constitution. And finally there's Abenomics, which after five years hasn't even boosted wages 2 percent, much less inflation.

Not that it'll do any good, but when the music stops who should be left without a chair if Abe really wants to reboot his government and stabilize his sliding support rate?