Known for his background in construction and earthy and tenacious political style, Tanaka is the only modern Japanese prime minister who did not finish high school or graduate from a university.

Domestically, he pursued his "Plan to Remodel the Japanese Archipelago", an infrastructure development program, before it was shelved due to inflation and the 1973 oil crisis.

At the time of Tanaka’s birth they were considered relatively well-off in Futada, but when business ventures undertaken by Kakuji, notably importing Holstein cattle and koi farming, ended up failing the family fell into poverty.

[5][2][6][7] Tanaka contracted diphtheria at the age of two and the aftereffects caused him to stutter, but he lost it by practicing his speech by himself for long periods as a child.

Ōkōchi, apparently impressed with Tanaka's energy and ambition, helped the young man start his own architectural firm in Tokyo.

[a] The fledgling firm was successful as it received contracts from the Riken Concern, but after only two years Tanaka was drafted into the army and sent to Manchuria, where he served as an enlisted clerk in the 24th Cavalry Regiment, reaching the rank of superior private (jōtōhei) in March 1940.

The rebuilding in Korea had just begun by the time it was abandoned due to the surrender of Japan, but Tanaka had been able to go to cash in his advance on the contract, ¥15 million in Japanese war bonds, at a bank in Seoul before it became worthless.

Oasa was in the middle of forming the Japan Progressive Party (日本進歩党, Nihon Shinpoto) and asked Tanaka to contribute money, which he happily did.

He worked around the election laws of the time by opening a branch office in Kashiwazaki and placing large "Tanaka" sign on the building to gain name recognition.

Then in 1948, the Doshi Club defected to the new Democratic Liberal Party, and Tanaka instantly won favor with the DLP's leader, Shigeru Yoshida.

Yoshida and the DLP dropped most of their ties with Tanaka, removed him from his official party posts, and refused to fund his next re-election bid.

He was re-elected, and made a deal with Chief Cabinet Secretary Eisaku Satō to resign his vice-ministerial post in exchange for continued membership in the DLP.

[citation needed] During the 1950s, Tanaka brought Etsuzankai members to his residence in Tokyo by bus, met with each of them individually, and then provided them with tours of the Diet and Imperial Palace.

This practice made Etsuzankai the most tightly knit political organization in Japanese history, and it also furthered Tanaka's increasingly gangster-like image.

[34] Fukuda and Tanaka soon became the two battling heirs of the Satō administration, and their rivalry was dubbed by the Japanese press as the "Kaku-Fuku War."

As head of MITI, Tanaka gained public support again by standing up to U.S. negotiators who wanted Japan to impose export caps on several products.

[12] During 1973 and 1974, Tanaka visited the United States, France, Britain, West Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

[36] His state visit to Indonesia as invited by President Soeharto to discuss Indo-Japanese trade relations was protested by a number of local anti-Japanese sentiments denying international investment, which occurred on 15 January 1974.

Upon taking office in 1972, Tanaka published an ambitious infrastructure plan for Japan which called for a new network of expressways and high-speed rail lines throughout the country.

[5] In October 1974, the popular Bungeishunjū magazine published an article detailing how businesspeople close to Tanaka had profited by setting up paper companies to purchase land in remote areas immediately prior to the announcement of public works projects nearby.

Although Henry Kissinger tried to stop the details from making their way to the Japanese government, fearing that it would harm the two countries' security relationship, Miki pushed a bill through the Diet that requested information from the Senate.

"[46] In the "Second Lockheed Election" of December 1983, Tanaka retained his Diet seat by an unprecedented margin, winning more votes than any other candidate in the country.

[48] Public chiding of Tanaka continued during 1985, including Sega's publication of an arcade game titled Gombe's I'm Sorry (ごんべえのあいむそ〜り〜, Gonbē no Aimusōrī) featuring a caricature of Tanaka dodging various celebrities in a quest to collect gold bars and grow wealthy, with the title punning on the Japanese term for "prime minister", Sōri (総理).

On New Year's Day of 1987, he made his first public appearance since the stroke, and was clearly in poor condition: half of his face was paralyzed, and he was grossly overweight.

[citation needed] The Tokyo High Court dismissed Tanaka's appeal on 29 July 1987, and the original sentence passed down in 1983 was reinstated.

[50][51] Takeshita won the LDP leadership election in November 1987 and served as prime minister until resigning amid the Recruit scandal in June 1989.

The announcement ended his 42-year career in politics; the remnants of his faction, now led by former Prime Minister Takeshita, remained the most powerful bloc within the LDP at the time of his retirement.

It split in 1992, after Noboru Takeshita was sidelined by the Recruit scandal, with Tsutomu Hata and Ichiro Ozawa leaving the LDP and forming the Japan Renewal Party.

After Obuchi's death, Hashimoto led the faction until refusing to stand in the 2005 general election due to a fundraising scandal, and died shortly thereafter.

Due in part to her father's historical role in Sino-Japanese relations, she became popular in the People's Republic of China and publicly opposed several anti-PRC actions by Japan and the United States, including Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine.