In this 2017 commentary excerpted from WiLL magazine, writer Naoki Hyakuta and journalist Rui Abiru sharply criticize former Ministry of Education vice-minister Kihei Maekawa, exposing what they describe as moral hypocrisy, bureaucratic corruption, and media double standards.
The dialogue highlights how politicians and newspapers that once condemned Maekawa during the amakudari scandal later reversed course and praised him solely because he opposed the Abe administration.
The piece argues that Japan’s media and political class abandon principles for expediency, revealing a deeper crisis in governance, journalism, and public trust.

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Publication date: 2017-06-29
When he was being criticized by those around him for covering up amakudari, people like Ms. Renho, who had been calling Mr. Maekawa “human trash,”
The August issue of the monthly magazine WiLL (840 yen), released the other day, is filled with essays that every Japanese citizen should go to the nearest bookstore and purchase immediately.
The same applies to people all over the world, but I will convey it to them.
Below is an excerpt from the featured dialogue between Naoki Hyakuta and Rui Abiru.
Former Vice-Minister Maekawa is the trash of the bureaucracy
Naoki Hyakuta
Writer
Rui Abiru
Editorial writer, Sankei Shimbun
Fish rots from the head.
The misery of Japan’s education world, as if drawn in a picture, is right here
“Mentei Fukuhai” as his motto?
Hyakuta
In the Kake Gakuen issue, the media are working desperately to defend the remarks of Mr. Kihei Maekawa, former Administrative Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
It’s astonishing.
He used to take girls out and go on dates with them as his hobby.
Clearly, he’s a pervert (laughs).
And on top of that, it is itself strange to take seriously such a ridiculous excuse as “investigating the actual conditions of poverty among girls.”
Abiru
And moreover, his favorite saying is “mentei fukuhai” (laughs).
Hyakuta
Does he even know what “mentei fukuhai” means?
Abiru
Mr. Maekawa also says, “Bureaucrats need the skill and the disposition for mentei fukuhai.”
I can still understand “skill,” but what on earth does he mean by “disposition”?
Hyakuta
He’s kidding, isn’t he.
Does he not even have the feeling of “shame”?
Abiru
When I asked a weekly magazine reporter, “Why do you praise Mr. Maekawa?” he said, “I investigated a lot, but he didn’t sleep with the girls.”
That’s irrelevant (laughs).
What he is doing is “enjo kosai in the broad sense.”
Hyakuta
So as long as it doesn’t violate the Anti-Prostitution Law, anything is fine?
If so, then it would also become strange for weekly magazines to criticize the fact that Diet member Takaya Muto purchased sex from underage boys.
Abiru
If it was “a survey of poverty among girls,” then why did he not survey men at all?
Did he really have to conduct it thirty times, and did he leave the survey itself in documents to make use of it in education administration?
The more you think about it, the more questions arise.
Hyakuta
To begin with, there are no impoverished women in sex establishments.
Abiru
Many sex businesses are sources of yakuza funds and breeding grounds for crime.
And yet the top of education administration was frequently visiting them, so that alone is quite abnormal.
Hyakuta
When you watch the footage of his press conference, you can see his whole personality come out.
The moment he was asked about the sex businesses, sweat started dripping like a waterfall (laughs).
No matter what you say with your mouth, the body reacts honestly.
Abiru
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has made it clear that when the amakudari problem came to light and it became necessary to impose punishments, Mr. Maekawa did not submit his own punishment upward, but only brought in the punishment of his subordinates, and requested that his own retirement age be extended.
He says, “Political pressure distorted the administration,” but Mr. Maekawa himself is the brother-in-law of former Education Minister Hiromichi Nakasone (at the time).
Was there really no case in which he used that background to wield power?
Hyakuta
Considering that he climbed all the way to vice-minister, it would not be strange even if he did.
Abiru
They say his family business, Maekawa Seisakusho, was a vendor that dealt with schools and such.
Hyakuta
There may also have been some vested interests involved there.
In any case, I can only think that this press conference was done because he was fired as vice-minister, so he snapped and acted out of personal resentment.
Abiru
The ones who are truly pitiful are the current bureaucrats at MEXT.
People will end up thinking, “MEXT officials are all practicing mentei fukuhai” (laughs).
Hyakuta
It’s really the worst!
Abiru
When he was being criticized by those around him for covering up amakudari, people like Ms. Renho, who had been calling Mr. Maekawa “human trash,”
and the newspapers that had written that all of his retirement pay should be taken away,
have now completely flipped, and are treating him as a “hero.”
Hyakuta
Weekly magazines pick up women’s voices saying “Mr. Maekawa saved me,”
and praise him as if he were some kind of “Daddy-Long-Legs.”
It’s really terrible.
They criticized him up to now, but if he is an enemy of the Abe administration, they praise him.
There is no conviction or anything.
To be continued.