Smiling, well-connected, elected and utterly policyless, Ms Yuko Obuchi, the 26-year-old daughter of the late prime minister Mr Keizo Obuchi, symbolises a malaise in Japanese politics.
When her father was felled by a fatal stroke in April, Ms Obuchi was busy studying English in Oxford University. She quickly returned to Japan and was on the election hustings within weeks, campaigning for a seat in the general election held Sunday. Apart from a great smile, Ms Obuchi possesses a disarming honesty. "I don't know anything about politics," she beamed during her campaign, "but I will try very hard".
She won a landslide victory, easily defeating her nearest rival, an anti-nepotism protest candidate.
When Ms Obuchi takes her seat in parliament, she will be one of many reminders of the old guard of the Liberal Democratic Party. Representatives elected thanks to family political ties will make up around one quarter of the new lower house. Mr Wataru Takeshita, the younger brother of the so-called LDP "kingmaker", Mr Noboru Takeshita, who was forced to resign as prime minister in 1989 after a major bribery scandal, was an easy winner. So too was Mr Hiroshi Kajiyama, the oldest son of the late LDP official Mr Seiroku Kajiyama. Mr Kajiyama acknowledged on Sunday that there was an element of nepotism to his win.
But the real key to electoral success is not just to have a name, but to know how to use it. Especially in rural areas, political longevity comes to those who have access both to personal connections and to the pork barrel. Along with a known name, candidates from political dynasties inherit an inside track to important connections which enables them to bring a share of public funds back home. Voters in Japan want tax money to find its way from Tokyo to be sunk into local schools, roads and bridges.
This is something that Mr Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the popular opposition Democratic Party of Japan, may have overlooked. Mr Hatoyama, describes himself as a Tony Blair-like figure with a mix of Margaret Thatcher. He is much fonder of policies than the average Japanese politician, though his critics accuse him of constantly changing his views.
Though Mr Hatoyama comes from a family whose name is synonymous with Japanese politics, his re-election on Sunday was a very close call. Despite his party's surge in support, mainly in urban areas, the DPJ leader barely scraped home in his Hokkaido constituency in northern Japan. He was almost forced to resort to the so-called "zombie" system, which allows candidates defeated in a single-seat constituency to "come to life again" and get a seat through a proportional representation party-list vote.
Mr Hatoyama was quick to point the finger of blame for his near humiliation on his party's proposal to cut public works projects by 30 per cent over 10 years. This didn't go down well, he said, in a prefecture that relies on largesse from public funds to provide important grease for the economy.
The lesson is clear. If you are not going to deliver the goods on a local level, then political fame alone will not guarantee reelection.
In such an environment it is hardly surprising that the LDP, which relies on the rural vote, and its coalition allies reiterated mantra-like in the 12-day election campaign that a vote for them meant stability and the continuation of fiscal spending until the economy was restored to health. The government theme of more of the same helps to explain its savaging in urban areas, where pork-barrel politics are deeply unpopular. In Tokyo, for example, the LDP lost half of its seats.
But with the re-election of the LDP government under Mr Mori, fiscal rectitude, including cuts in public works projects, is firmly off the agenda. And with a parliament significantly populated by a new generation of Obuchis, Takeshitas and Kajiyamas, there is unlikely to be significant pressure from the new blood to put it there.
This has massive consequences for the future taxpayer. Not long before his untimely death, the former prime minister Keizo Obuchi cheerfully proclaimed himself the "world's No. 1 debtor".
According to the Finance Ministry, public debt, excluding that of local governments, last fiscal year soared 13 per cent to 482 trillion yen. By the end of next March it will have reached a level where even if the nation pays back 1 billion yen each day, it would take 2,000 years to settle its dues.
With additional political encouragement from Washington and the general Japanese business community to continue the free spending until the world's second-largest economy is back on its feet, the debt crisis will continue to mount.
The only possibility for radical economic change in the near future may lie in the extremely unpopular prime minister Mori's tendency to make verbal faux pas. According to a prominent commentator, Mr Masuyuki Fukuoka, the LDP will replace Mr Mori in the autumn if he continues with his series of foolish comments, including some which imply a sentimentality for the days of an aggressive imperialist Japan.
In such as scenario, the replacement front-runner is likely to be Mr Koichi Kato, a vehement opponent of coalition with the religious-backed Komei Party and a fiscal conservative. Under a Kato leadership, the spending on public works would likely be curbed and the debt mountain tackled. Depending, however, on which analyst is talking, this would mean either economic disaster or economic salvation for Japan.