13 things about Japan’s prime minister Sanae Takaichi

Sanae Takaichi (高市 早苗) is the first female prime minister of Japan. She is also the first female president of the Liberal Democratic Party (Jimintō) of the county.

Breaking News: Sanae Takaichi is Japan’s first female prime minister. She’s a heavy metal drummer and hard-line conservative. https://t.co/vfyRnftmfc pic.twitter.com/f17GPcm71o

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 21, 2025

BIOGRAPHY

Takaichi is a Japanese politician born and raised in Nara, Japan. Her father Daikyū Takaichi worked for an automotive firm affiliated with Toyota and her mother Kazuko Takaichi served in the Nara Prefectural Police.

Daikyū died in 2013 at age 79. Kazuko died in 2018 at age 86.

Sanae is an alumna of Nara Prefectural Unebi High School in Kashihara, Nara, Kobe University in Kobe, Hyōgo, Japan and the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management (MIGM) in Chigasaki, Kanagawa, Japan.

On March 7, 2025, Sanae turned 64. Here are 13 more things about her:

1. In 1987, she moved to the United States to work for Democratic congresswoman Pat Schroeder as a congressional fellow.
2. In 1989, she went back to Japan and worked as a legislative analyst, an author and a broadcaster.
3. In 1993, she was elected to the House of Representatives of Japan as an independent.
4. She was a member of the House of Representatives of Japan from 1993 to 2003 and from 2005 to 2025.
5. From 1994 to 1996, she was a member of the New Frontier Party (Shinshintō).
6. In 1996, she joined Jimintō.
7. In 2002, she was appointed as the senior vice minister of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
8. In 2004, she took an economics faculty position at Kinki University in Nara.
9. She and Taku Yamamoto got married in 2004, divorced in 2017 and remarried in 2021.
10. In 2012, she was appointed to head Jimintō’s policy research council.
11. She was Japan’s Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications from 2014 to 2017 and from 2019 to 2020.
12. From 2022 to 2024, she was Japan’s Minister of State for Economic Security.
13. In 2025, she became the president of Jimintō and the prime minister of Japan.

TIMELINE

When Sanae was young, she played the drums and the piano. She and Yamamoto have no children together but she adopted his three children from a previous marriage.

1980s

• In March 1989, she joined TV Asahi as a host of “Kodawari TV Pre-Stage”.

1990s

• On July 19, 1993, she assumed office as a member of Japan’s House of Representatives.
• On November 6, 1996, she joined Jimintō.

2000s

• On November 8, 2003, her term as a member of Japan’s House of Representatives ended.
• On September 11, 2005, she assumed office as a member of Japan’s House of Representatives again.
• In August 2007, she was the only cabinet member of Japan to join the country’s former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi in visiting Yasukuni Shrine in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan on the anniversary of the end of World War II.

2010s

• On September 3, 2014, she was selected as Japan’s Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications to replace Yoshitaka Shindō.
• In July 2017, she and Yamamoto divorced.
• On August 3, 2017, Seiko Noda replaced her as Japan’s Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications.
• On September 11, 2019, she became Japan’s Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications again.

2020s

• In December 2021, she and Yamamoto remarried.
• In August 2022, she became Japan’s Minister of State for Economic Security.
• In November 2024, she became the head of Jimintō’s newly organized research commission on public safety and measures against terrorism and cybercrime.
• On October 4, 2025, she assumed office as the president of Jimintō,
• On October 21, 2025, she assumed office as the prime minister of Japan.