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.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.
"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."