{"id":2079,"date":"2026-11-15T02:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T02:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2079"},"modified":"2026-11-15T02:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T02:04:16","slug":"he-ran-his-entire-campaign-wearing-his-wrestler-mask-was-elected-to-the-city-council-in-japan-and-now-the-council-lets-him-wear-it-at-every-session-my-dream-came-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/he-ran-his-entire-campaign-wearing-his-wrestler-mask-was-elected-to-the-city-council-in-japan-and-now-the-council-lets-him-wear-it-at-every-session-my-dream-came-true\/","title":{"rendered":"He ran his entire campaign wearing his wrestler mask, was elected to the city council in Japan, and now the council lets him wear it at every session: \u201cMy dream came true\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Billyken Kid is 52 years old and steps into the ring in Osaka wearing a mask that has been with him his whole life. In October, he won a seat on the Kawanishi City Council in Hyogo Prefecture, and he didn\u2019t take it off for a single day of his campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then came the question no one in that room had ever asked: could he keep wearing it during council sessions? On November 6, the majority of the council said yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four of the five groups supported the idea, with a simple argument: voters elected him knowing he wore the mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He is only asked to have his identity verified before entering. It doesn\u2019t break any rules, because there are no rules governing masks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The group that opposed it, made up of members of the Liberal Democratic Party and others, raised a concern: he had already appeared in public with and without the mask, and they wanted to know whether he would wear it all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After the vote, Billyken summed it up this way: \u201cMy dream came true\u201d. He acknowledged that some people disagree and said he hopes to earn recognition through his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\u2019ll take it off at commemorations and formal ceremonies; on other visits, he\u2019ll decide based on the wishes of whoever is welcoming him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Billyken Kid is 52 years old and steps into the ring in Osaka wearing a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2081,"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079\/revisions\/2081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmicalculatornhs.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}