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3.18.2013

Skull Reaper A-ji is for the people



I don't know much about the problems and concerns of people in Oita, Japan. But I do know that there is one hero who will do what it takes to tackle those problems head on: Skull Reader A-ji, city councilman. But only if they'll let him wear his mask: Japanese politician banned for wearing wrestling mask to meetings.

Skull Reaper A-ji, who was elected to the city council on a platform of educational reform and improved social welfare facilities, has been banned from council meetings for refusing to take off his full-face, red-and-black leather wrestling mask. For some stupid reason, Skull Reaper's stuffy fellow councillors have deemed the mask "inappropriate" for the assembly:

But 44-year-old Skull Reaper A-ji resisted their requests that he remove his trademark item of clothing, a red-and-black leather mask similar to the "lucha libre" masks affected by wrestlers in Mexico.

"People find it easy to come up and talk to me because I have a mask on," he told the Nishinippon Shimbun, adding that he has done a lot for the community for more than a decade, including visiting institutions for people with physical disabilities.

The chamber apparently declined to take his charitable work into consideration, however, and refused to allow Skull Reaper A-ji to take part in a meeting on Monday on the grounds that he was contravening a rule that states "a person taking the floor shall not wear items such as a hat."
Can't his fellow politicians see that the mask is the source of his power? They just don't get it. The best part of the article is that Skull Reaper A-ji isn't even the first Japanese elected official to wear a wrestling mask. He joins the ranks of Super Delfin of Osaka and, of course, The Great Sasuke in Iwate Prefecture.