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Manga Fan Tarō Asō is a Frontrunner to Lead Japan (Updated)

Update: More stock information added.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has resigned Wednesday after his conservative faction lost control of the upper parliamentary house in the July 29 elections, and Tarō Asō, a self-proclaimed manga fan and the secretary general of Abe's ironically named Liberal Democratic Party, is a frontrunner to replace Abe. According to Kyodo News, Asō and the other LDP executives are planning to vote on a successor as soon as September 19.

The Associated Press (via the Forbes website) notes that Japanese stocks in general fell on the news, as highlighted by a 0.50% drop in the Gamers! chain of character goods stores, went up 71%, closing at 157 yen ($1.34).

Anime production company TV Tokyo (1.67%). Hiroaki Kuromachi, an analyst with Bear Stearns, predicts that if Asō is indeed confirmed for the position, share prices of "Asō-related" (anime, manga and fandom) companies stand to rise up to another 10%.

In addition to openly talking about his manga-reading habit ("about 10 to 20 [manga magazines] a week"), Asō Cosplay Summit last month. Also last month, Asō posted a Japanese essay about how manga has spread internationally and how the term "manga" has entered the vocabularies of other languages, similar to how "sushi," "tsunami," and "karaoke" have.

When Asō was foreign minister, his ministry increasingly used manga to communicate its message, particularly through called upon French presidential candidate Segolene Royal to "read a little bit more" manga after Royal criticized manga for a perceived high degree of tolerance for expressions of violence and pornography.

Asō's party has been criticized for a series of financial and governmental scandals, and commentators view the recent electoral defeat as a backlash from voters. Asō is also known for his controversial, nationalistic stances during his tenure as foreign minister.