Toru Hashimoto began his term as Osaka mayor Monday with a promise to radically reform the municipal bureaucracy and then took off for Tokyo to meet senior Diet members and long-time supporters like Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara.
Sounding both like a local politician concerned only about local matters and a future candidate for higher office, Hashimoto told reporters that national change begins in Osaka.
"We have a system in the city and prefecture of Osaka where the lines of responsibility and authority are unclear. Unless this changes, Japan will sink," he said.