Masaru Wakasa (若狭 勝, Wakasa Masaru, born 12 December 1956) is a Japanese lawyer, politician and former member of the House of Representatives in Japan.

Wakasa started his career as a prosecutor for the Special Investigation Department of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, and wrote a book on lie detection based on his experiences in this role.

[1] In 2017, he left the Liberal Democratic Party to form a new political group called "Nippon First", which is affiliated with the Tomin First no Kai.

[3] The new party, co-led by Wakasa, effectively became the new main opposition party after Koike did not endorse "roughly half" of the candidates fielded by DP for the upcoming general election of 2017, leading to the decision to disband DP and have former members of DP to join the new party.

He also frequently appears on television as a commentator on legal issues.