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And the Bismarck goes to....Sanae Takaichi · John’s Newsletter

• 0:00
  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Good morning everyone and welcome to Around the world in 20 minutes where we try
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: to make sense the beguiling new planet we find ourselves on and we are heading
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: toward the end of the year and what a bunch of extra stuff we have for you.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So please do give.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Today is the day.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those of you who listen regularly and don't give, it's an honor system.
• 0:36
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• 0:39
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• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And for that, you get Around the world in 20 minutes.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Patrick Henry Podcast,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: the Trump Revolution, the Founders Briefing, the Dead Realist Society.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're about to start on Hemingway.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Then we're going to move on to Lonesome Dove,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: The McMurtry,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Raymond Chandler, one of my favorite writers ever, great fun, and John Steinbeck.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: A bunch of Americans, all of whom you'd want to have a beer with and would do all.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: One thing they have in common, they'd all be great.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So what is it that we're giving you to end the year here?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's have a look at what's coming.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have the 2027 calls and that beautiful week when you're all bored in
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: between Christmas and the new year.
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  SPEAKER_00: I love that week.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when we always do the 2027 calls, the last week of the year.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Earlier, probably the week ahead of Christmas, we'll have a postmortem.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: On the 2026 calls,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: everything is looking great with the one possible fly in the ointment
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: that Andy Burnham's honeymoon hangs on just a little too long.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I'm still pretty confident that works out.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the general theory of them all declining all the powers running Europe.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, with the riots, I'm winning in the general sense, if not the specific.
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  SPEAKER_00: But if I lose, I'll lose fair and square.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
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  SPEAKER_00: Everything else, though, looking great.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: India, looking great.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that's done.
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  SPEAKER_00: Starmer's out.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy about the midterm call.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: That leads me to the next thing we will have on the night.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: We will have at least one or two podcasts about the midterm.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a dinner to go to in Washington.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be there again about half the time.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: We then of course have the awards to give
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: That one's easy.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But today we're going to start awards season and all these extra things that we do
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: by giving out the Bismarck.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this one was more contested.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And although our winner won decisively, there were pockets of resistance.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the people who led the pockets,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: and I won't give his name to protect the guilty,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: But he said to me rather bitterly, you have this thing for Japanese prime ministers.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that sort of gives it away.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's our spoiler.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because without further ado,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to hand the Bismarck, think of a golden walrus-shaped scapegoat.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to hand this award,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: the Bismarck,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: to a well-deserving Sine Takechi,
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: the Prime Minister of Japan, who has righted the ship in her country.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what this tends to be the Bismarck's It is a word for the best statesman of
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: the year, but it's primarily among the great powers.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, if a rising power,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: if a statesman did particularly well or a smaller power, we might give it to them.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But really,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's among the great powers who has changed the trajectory of their country
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: the most.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think Takechi and won decisively.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: About two thirds of us voted for Takechi.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So she is the worthy winner.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Ironically, she came to power and why we're doing this today, a year ago just now.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it seemed a good time to have a retrospective and give her the much coveted Bismarck Award.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine a scary walrus in a Prussian uniform and that's what the Bismarck looks like.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Why did she win at a big picture Olympian view?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've said this,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: the Japanese political culture since World War II is remarkably consistent,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: that there are a series of revolving door prime ministers who are as gray
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: as their suits, Who become trivia questions and only guys like me know their names.
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  SPEAKER_00: But they don't really matter that the deep state of the LDP run the place while
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: the prime ministers come and go.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: But although that is reasonably efficient, there are no changes in trajectory for Japan.
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  SPEAKER_00: It drifts.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then every once in a while you have a leader of significance.
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  SPEAKER_00: Prime Minister Sato, Prime Minister Kishi, Sato.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Tanaka certainly was one that mattered.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Kaozumi mattered.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Abe mattered.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And now Sine Takechi breaks this list of colorless non-entities and is
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  SPEAKER_00: the next great prime minister or prime minister at least of his And so that's
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: the main reason she's changing the trajectory of Japan and the revolving door.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: She did this by a number of interesting moves.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And she moved even closer,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: like her mentor and protege Shinzo Abe,
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  SPEAKER_00: the late lamented assassinated Shinzo Abe,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: probably my favorite leader of the last decade,
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: who actually assembled,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: more than the Americans,
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  SPEAKER_00: the anti-Chinese coalition in the Indo-Pacific,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: set up the Quad when it went more abundantly,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: set up and established the Quad with India, Australia.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Japan and the United States.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And has really led the opposition to Chinese adventurism in the Indo-Pacific.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she is his worthy successor and picked a fight with the Chinese,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: making it very clear where she stood.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what she said as a realist and what I love about Asia,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: everybody's a nationalist and everybody's a realist.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's not a lot of Wilsonian nonsense to get through.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It makes the analysis cleaner, more elegant, more interesting.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Takechi said forthrightly for a realist,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: obviously Japan is our historical rival,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: and they are a pure superpower competitor of our greatest ally,
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  SPEAKER_00: the United States, who we have to be even closer to.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if Japan were to take Taiwan,
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  SPEAKER_00: that would be a strategic threat of the first order to Japan,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we might then have to help defend Taiwan.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: All of that...
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it's pretty obvious.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: But again,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: it's like reading the Harry Potter books and mentioning the name of
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: the Dread Voldemort, mentioning the name.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's something in that.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when she did mention all this, the Chinese went predictably crazy, historically.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think she did this on purpose.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Here's an example where I actually believe in Macbeth rather than Hamlet.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think she picked this fight on purpose because it helps her in every which way.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: It helps cement her closer ties with America, which she wants to do anyway.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Most of all, it helps make her popular.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: She knows that the Japanese,
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: like the Chinese,
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: again, like everyone indeed, in the Indo-Pacific, is a nationalist.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so by refusing to back down and kowtow to the Chinese, she made herself infinitely popular.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: When she took office, she was in a very unpropitious stance.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: The LDP always has a low level of corruption.
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  SPEAKER_00: None of its revolving door of prime ministers had managed to do much of anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so they were deeply unpopular.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: They'd been She took advantage of saying no, and her numbers changed.
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  SPEAKER_00: She's also very good at connecting with the kids in that she's very forthright
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  SPEAKER_00: and actually speaks in non-Delphic, non-cryptic ways.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And she used this as rocket fuel to go to about a 75% approval rating.
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  SPEAKER_00: She then immediately called a snap election and won a sizable majority,
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  SPEAKER_00: a thumping majority in the Diet.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this secured her position and that we called this.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is one of our calls for this year.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's probably the most complicated, certainly the most intricate call we made.
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  SPEAKER_00: We saw this coming because we knew that she was the protege of Shinzo Abe,
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  SPEAKER_00: that great operator,
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  SPEAKER_00: that his faction is the largest faction within the LDP,
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  SPEAKER_00: that that would help and that she would take advantage of this and stop
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  SPEAKER_00: the revolving door.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And indeed, all of that happened.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: This morning,
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  SPEAKER_00: a year in, she finds her approval rating Trending down, nestling down to about 50%.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is the lowest level since she's taken office,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: but it's still a robust number for a Japanese leader 12 months into their term.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And to give you, again,
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  SPEAKER_00: as we say in America,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: if the approval rating is between 40 and 50, we know what's going on.
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  SPEAKER_00: If it's above 50, the president...
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So there's that.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: She's at 50.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't get dicey for Japanese leaders traditionally until they get to be about 30%.
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  SPEAKER_00: When it's 30, probably that premiership is nearing its end.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So she's got a long way to run.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not 75 anymore, but it's still a very, very healthy 50.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And critically, well ahead of her party and every other party.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's no one in the wings about to challenge her.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is the other great advantage that she has.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So she's going to be around.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: This play is going to run for quite a while.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the biggest coup she's used was winning plaudits for her refusal domestically
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: to back down in this diplomatic war with China.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: She's 65, protege of Shinzo Abe.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so she wins the award.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the kids like her because she, you know, she actually seems like a human being.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: She's married her husband twice, the second go around for them.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton material.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Mr. Yan.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yamamoto, he is the former member of the lower house.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I believe he's had a heart attack.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's ill. She works as a housewife.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: She'd much rather hang out with him.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: A la Thatcher, she ignores the social dinners, which are such a part of Japanese politics.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't do that like Thatcher.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't socialize with the cabinet.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: She goes home and has pizza and listens to Deep Purple, her favorite band.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: She likes prog rock.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Also likes The Doors, which I'm even more partial to.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: She hangs out with her husband.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: She also,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: like Thatcher,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: has a phenomenal work ethic and,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: like Thatcher, a blunt sense of humor that connects well with people.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: No one, and like Thatcher, no one is neutral about her.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: She's both loved and hated.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so she does kind of come out of that environment,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: but connects with the kids in a way no one in her party does.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And indeed, her approval rating is 15 to 20 points above the LDP.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So she's safe as houses for now.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: However, there are storm clouds.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, as the guy leading the opposition to her for the Bismarck said,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: and again,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'll protect his name,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: we'll protect the guilty internally, we have to be allowed to have meetings.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: He said,
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: not only do you have this thing for Japanese prime ministers,
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: but it's a good thing she wins the walrus,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: as we call the Bismarck, because that's what it looks like, the walrus award.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, This year, because there are problems that are coming together.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that may be true.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's often true of leaders.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: First, there's a cabinet scandal, low level.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: There are always these scandals.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: The LDP is plagued by low level corruption scandals all the time.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: A minister, I think he's either the roads minister or the ag minister, I think.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: He was not building roads in his prefecture in areas that didn't vote for him.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when Takechi found this out, she said, gosh, that's lame in English, which I love.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: But she hung on to him for a little bit too long and so that's hurt her a little bit.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: There are increased economic pressures on her and I'm going to get to that in a minute.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is just regarding borrowing.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Japan has always had this massive debt,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: the largest debt among the advanced industrialized countries,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: but it tends to be held by old ladies who go to the post office and deal with it
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: so they weren't likely to move their money.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So even though the debt rate was high, the interest on that debt was very, very low.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's beginning to change now.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking about the carry trade the other day,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Cy and I, and that's beginning to change now.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to watch that as the bond yields go up there.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is a pressure to come.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Their doubts,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: for instance,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: her biggest domestic agenda is to take Japan's consumption tax,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: which is rather high, it's 8 or 9%, and lower it to 1% for the next couple years.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And she said somehow magically nobody would have to pay for this,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: though it sounded suspiciously to me at the time like Keynesian spending.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: She's yet to make it clear how this is going to work exactly.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And she wants to double defense spending.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's on safer ground there with the Chinese bearing their fangs at her being
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: for defense spending isn't a problem for her.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: The other problem, though,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: is that the test of her closeness to America and calling out the Chinese as
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: the Voldemort they are to Japan, the Chinese are now turning the screws on her.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there is an interesting article also yesterday,
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: thank you,
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: sweetheart,
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sarah gave me the article,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: in the Financial Times,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: where Japan notified,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: it's panicking,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: and notified Scott Besant,
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our treasury secretary,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: that Japan is months from running out of critical rare earth
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: as China squeezes supply.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: She's picked a fight with the biggest guy on the block and
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: who is using rare earths both with America but even more with Japan to try to have
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: the whip hand of them.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Tokyo has asked Washington to help convince Beijing to ease this chokehold in yittrium.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yittrium...
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: It gets in the way of Japan manufacturing automobiles,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: defense sector things, and chip industries.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yttrium is a heat-resistant metal,
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: which is crucial to manufacturing things like jet engines,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: semiconductors, cars, and the like.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really where the Japanese live, yttrium.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the US has already complained that China has not fully lived up to
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: the trade truce of last year, of October.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Just when Abe was coming to power.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Surprise, surprise.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Japan has filled about two-thirds of its rare earths commitments
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: the United States, but a much smaller percent to Japan.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: has complained through Besson that they're not fulfilling this pledge to ease
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: the rare earths under the trade truce.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: But they're really, really squeezing the Japanese.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And without yttrium, literally Japanese manufacturing could grind to a halt.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: In the medium run, rare earths aren't rare.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: We just have to strip mine,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: find the stuff and have an industrial policy with our allies to deal with this.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not taking this so far, the Trump people, very preoccupied with the Iran war.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And again, Diane, this is one of these problems.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're dealing with third order priorities, you weren't doing other things.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: This notion...
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: That Washington can walk and chew gum.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's not my experience having been there.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: They tend to focus on one big thing if we're lucky in foreign policy
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: and domestic policy, if we're lucky.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we're worrying about fourth order priority Iran,
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: we're not worrying about getting the rare earths in order with our allies
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: for dealing with peer superpower competitor China.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now Japan is at the thin end of this wedge, and this is now just beginning to bite.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Popularity is still high but trending down.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: The usual LDP scandals, confusion about are we going to pay for our Keynesian spending or not.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Defense spending seems to be fine and the Chinese really turning the screws.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Debt being issued at almost no cost, that seems to be coming to an end too.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Takechi has done a great deal,
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think is a worthy winner of our Bismarck for writing the ship,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: for changing the revolving door,
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: for being even closer to the United States,
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: for going back to her mentor Abe's plans for balancing against Chinese adventurism
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: in the Indo-Pacific.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: She is a woman of significance and historical importance, but there's one other but to add.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: People will desert you very,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: very quickly if they're not used to hanging out with you,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: if they have no tribal loyalty to you.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Takechi has distanced herself.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Takechi has been different.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's why she's won the Bismarck.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: But part of...
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Our notion of ancient studies,
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: of classics,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: is the Greek idea of a Janus-faced attribute,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: that attributes for the Greeks were not good or bad.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're both.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: What can be bravery can be stubbornness.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I used to say to John McCain,
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: you were brave in the Cold War when it was black and white,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: and now you're clueless in a multipolar world of shades of gray.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same attribute.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: It fits in one era.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't fit in the other.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: At the moment, the staturite qualities of Takechi You're helping her immeasurably.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is when it begins to rain, who will be with her in those moments?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who will be with her when the rain falls if she doesn't go
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: to these sake-fueled dinners and hangs out with her husband, listening to the...
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love that she's a human being.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love that she feels a domestic commitment to her family, to her husband.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: I like that she likes playing the drums and likes prog rock.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I like that she's an individual.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: But this very individuality and differentness and uniqueness,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: which helped win her the Bismarck today,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: could be trouble for her in our Classics viewed Athenian world later when it rains
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: and she has no one around to give her an umbrella and stop the deluge
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: from ruining her.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: We will see.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: But for today, the worthy winner of the Bismarck is Sine Takechi.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody take care and I'll see you very soon.