Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi says she was shocked when she encountered a cockroach at home, then found herself unexpectedly “lonely” when it was gone.
The 65-year-old world leader narrated her encounter with the
pest in the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo while answering “some
of the questions I often get” in an anecdotal X post shared Saturday,
Aug. 22, originally written in Japanese.
One of the questions Takaichi, who is known for her active
presence on social media, answered is, “Have you already met the ghosts that
are said to appear in the official residence?”
The question is rooted in legends that the Tokyo mansion is
haunted by those who di£d during two coup attempts in the ‘30s, shortly after
the home was built.
Takaichi’s responded that she has not seen any spirits in
the halls of the residence. However, shd said she had seen a cockroach.
“I’ve never encountered a ghost, but until recently, I was
the one screaming when I came across cockroaches,” the Japanese prime minister
wrote on X before detailing the impact the encounter had on her.
“When I lived in the members’ dormitory, I never had an
encounter with cockroaches,” she wrote in the lengthy post.
“Even after moving to the official residence, I carefully
wiped down the floor under the dining table, put food scraps in a sturdy lidded
garbage can, and washed and sorted plastic containers, so I was shocked when,
one day, a cockroach suddenly scurried past my feet.”
Takaichi could not deal with the insect herself, she said,
citing her love for Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix manga, a childhood
favorite with themes of reincarnation.
“Maybe because of that, even now as an adult, I can’t bring
myself to kill insects, cockroaches included,” she wrote.
“Maybe this life is also part of that long cycle of reincarnation,” she
recalled thinking of the cockroach she spotted in the halls of the Tokyo
residence.
So she said she left the insect to roam the home for a while — until
one of the members of her staff learned of its existence.
“For a while, I endured it, hoping it would somehow leave on its own—but when I
told my secretaries about it, they were appalled,” Takaichi wrote. “‘It’s
unclean. I’ll handle it,’ one of the secretaries said firmly, and arranged for
Operation Combat.”
The prime minister did not spot any more cockroaches in the residence
after her staff took action, but she concluded her post by admitting that along
with relief, she felt a bit sad about the situation.
Takaichi wrote: “I felt relieved, but also a little lonely, or maybe
sad…”
Saturday’s cockroach anecdote came after Takaichi explained in a
different X post that she has been working more from the prime
minister’s home next to her office rather than the office itself.
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