The gubernatorial election campaigns that kicked off Thursday could trigger a major change in the political scene if strong, reform-minded candidates challenging the highly centralized system emerge victorious.
The candidate lineups in the 11 prefectures up for grabs April 13 indicates that the attractiveness of both national-level politics and established political parties is fast fading among hopefuls.
Shigefumi Matsuzawa, a House of Representatives lawmaker who left the Democratic Party of Japan to run as an independent in Kanagawa Prefecture, is a prime example of the new trend.