In a country famous for overwork,
Sanae Takaichi just set a new standard for political insomnia.
At 3 o’clock in the morning on November 20, most of Tokyo was asleep.
Most, but not the Prime Minister.
Cameras caught Sanae Takaichi, barely three weeks into the job, walking out of her official residence in the pre-dawn darkness to hold what her office delicately called a “study session” with senior aides. Translation: a full-dress cabinet-level meeting while the rest of the country dreamed.
This wasn’t a national emergency. There was no missile flying overhead, no earthquake, no market crash. It was, apparently, just Thursday.
The timing instantly became legend. Japanese Twitter (still stubbornly calling itself “X” in 2025) exploded with the hashtag #3時閣僚会議 (3 a.m. Cabinet Meeting). Memes of Red Bull cans photoshopped onto the Cabinet table went viral within minutes. A tired salaryman posted a selfie from his morning train with the caption: “If the Prime Minister can do 3 a.m., I guess my 5:30 a.m. start isn’t so bad.”
But beneath the jokes lies something deeper, and more troubling.
Japan has been waging a quiet war against karoshi (death from overwork)
for decades. Companies are experimenting with four-day weeks. The government itself just launched a campaign urging workers to go home by 8 p.m. And yet here is the nation’s highest leader modelling the exact opposite: the idea that real dedication happens when everyone else has gone to bed.
Two days after the 3 a.m. session, on November 21, Takaichi’s cabinet pushed through the largest supplementary budget since the pandemic: ¥21.3 trillion in fresh stimulus.
Electricity subsidies, cash handouts to low-income families, wage-support grants for small companies; the works. Markets reacted instantly; 30-year JGB yields spiked to levels not seen since 2000, a polite way of saying “we’re watching the debt pile grow.”
Was the 3 a.m. meeting the final polish on that budget? A rehearsal for Diet questioning? Or simply the moment Japan’s new leader decided that sleep is a luxury the country can no longer afford?
Sanae Takaichi has never hidden her intensity. During the LDP leadership race she spoke of “restoring Japan’s pride” and “working until the job is done.” Now the job apparently never ends.
There is, of course, a long tradition of nocturnal leaders.
Churchill dictated memos at 4 a.m.
Margaret Thatcher famously survived on four hours.
Narendra Modi is rumored to keep vampire hours. But those were different eras, different pressures. In 2025 Japan, with its shrinking workforce and its collective exhaustion, the symbolism lands differently.
Some younger lawmakers are already grumbling privately. One anonymous minister reportedly told reporters, “If this becomes the new normal, half the cabinet will be hospitalized by spring.”
Others defend it. “She’s showing that the government moves faster than the bureaucracy,” “The old way took six months of committee meetings. She wants decisions in six hours.”
Maybe that’s the point. In a world that feels stuck (birthrate in freefall, wages flat for thirty years, China looming), perhaps a leader who refuses to sleep is exactly what Japan ordered. Or perhaps it’s the final symptom of a society that never learned how to stop.
As the sun rose on November 20, Sanae Takaichi walked back into the residence, aides trailing like tired ducklings. The cameras flashed once more, then clicked off.
Tokyo yawned, rubbed its eyes, and went back to work.
Because if the Prime Minister can do 3 a.m., who are we to complain?
What do you think: heroic resolve, or national madness? Drop your thoughts below. I’ll be reading them; probably at 3 a.m.
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