The Collaborative Party (Japanese: みんなでつくる党, Min'na de tsukuru tō, lit.

As of April 2024, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications recognizes Otsu as the sole leader of the party.

[23][24] The founder of the party, Takashi Tachibana, is a former employee of Japan's national public broadcasting organization NHK.

He resigned from his position in the accounting department at NHK after having leaked internal corruption to weekly magazine Shūkan Bunshun in 2005.

In 2012, he founded the "Tachibana one-man broadcasting station", a YouTube channel that vowed to fight against NHK.

[25] The party mainly exists to counter alleged bad behaviour by NHK license fee money collectors,[26][27] who Tachibana claims have connections to the yakuza.

[25] The party issues a special sticker that would allegedly protect citizen's properties and residences from these collectors and has a call center to assist people in avoid paying the license fee.

[25] Lacking a means of criminal prosecution, Tachibana claims that NHK has resorted to using debt collectors to pressure people for payment.

Higashitani was expelled eight months later in March 2023 for not attending any sessions, reputedly due to his fear of being arrested on grounds of alleged fraud and defamation against celebrities if he were to visit Japan, as he was residing in the United Arab Emirates for the entirety of his term.