The results of Sunday's election may have left a bitter taste in the mouths of some of the nation's big names.
Taku Yamasaki, vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, handed in his resignation Monday after losing his Diet seat to opposition candidate Junichiro Koga in the Fukuoka No. 2 constituency in Sunday's general election for the House of Representatives.
"A day has passed, and so I now feel a bit calmer," Yamasaki said, although his face flushed with apparent excitement after emerging from a meeting with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, his longtime ally, at party headquarters Monday morning.