AP PHOTOS: Political campaigning, Japan-style

In this Dec. 9, 2014 photo, Masatada Tsuchiya, left, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidate for a Tokyo district, and his canvasser wave to pedestrians from his campaign car during a lower house election campaign rally in Tokyo. White-cloth covered microphones, white gloves, milk crate podiums, and white sashes emblazoned with candidates’ names are the props for election campaign rallies, Japanese style. Japan election campaigning has its own rituals and symbols, including speechmaking from dawn to dusk with blaring megaphones. But the sudden timing of Sunday’s election means that in many districts there are few candidates, since opposition parties were caught off-guard by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to dissolve the parliament and call a vote. Turnout is expected to be light. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) In this Dec. 9, 2014 photo, Masatada Tsuchiya, left, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidate for a Tokyo district, and his canvasser wave to pedestrians from his campaign car during a lower house election campaign rally in Tokyo. White-cloth covered microphones, white gloves, milk crate podiums, and white sashes emblazoned with candidates’ names are the props for election campaign rallies, Japanese style. Japan election campaigning has its own rituals and symbols, including speechmaking from dawn to dusk with blaring megaphones. But the sudden timing of Sunday’s election means that in many districts there are few candidates, since opposition parties were caught off-guard by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to dissolve the parliament and call a vote. Turnout is expected to be light. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

By Associated Press December 12, 2014 1 min read

TOKYO (AP) – Some deliver their stump speeches standing on plastic milk crates, Japan’s version of the proverbial soapbox. Others climb atop platforms on specially-equipped vans.

A snap election for the 475-seat lower house of parliament has thrust more than 1,000 candidates out into an early December chill. Their names are plastered everywhere – on signboards, on large sashes they wear across their fronts – in hopes that voters will remember them when they go to polling stations on Sunday.

The color of choice is white, for the gloves some wear, the cloth covers on the tops of their microphones, even the vans that ferry them around.

It can be a tough sell in the big city. Lesser-known candidates in Tokyo draw only a handful of bystanders and earn barely a glance from many passers-by. Undeterred, the candidates forge on, thanking and bowing to prospective voters, before moving to their next stop.

Associated Press photographer Eugene Hoshiko captured these scenes over the course of the 12-day campaign.