Japan’s PM promised to ‘work, work, work.’ For some, that’s a red flag.

Unlike her predecessors, Japan’s new Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae has never been to a posh restaurant for dinner. She sleeps only 2 to 4 hours a night. All she does, she said shortly after her election, is “work, work, work, work, and work.”

Her remarks – which this week were named Japan’s “catchphrase of the year” – have caused a stir in a country notorious for karoshi , or death from overworking.

They wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow a few decades ago, when Japan was still basking in the glow of its postwar rise into an economic superpower, and workers who dedicated their lives to companies were celebrated as “corporate warriors.” But today, when Japanese workers appreciate work-life balance and scoff at overworked employees as “ shachiku ,” or company slaves, the words struck a ne