[6] Both his father Yūzō and his grandfather Gizō had been men of high repute in the region, and Takeshita followed in their footsteps and decided to become a politician when he was in middle school.

[1] His wife committed suicide while he was away for the war, which author Jacob Schlesinger argued made Takeshita obsessive about his composure and highly reserved about showing anger to others.

[4] After the war, he remarried, to Naoko Endō, a distant relative, worked as an English teacher and managed a high school judo team before entering politics in 1951.

[1] In the 1958 general election he won a seat in the House of Representatives, joining the powerful faction of Kakuei Tanaka in the Liberal Democratic Party.

Like Tanaka, Takeshita was fond of "pork barrel" politics, retaining his own seat by bringing excessively huge public works projects to Shimane.

The rise of the strong Yen (endaka) enhanced Japan's status as a financial powerhouse[9] and led to the Japanese asset price bubble of the 1980s.

[1] Kakuei Tanaka was arrested in connection with the Lockheed bribery scandals in 1976 and found guilty by a lower court in 1983, placing pressure on his political strength.

Takeshita's initial tenure was relatively comfortable due to steady success in the Japanese economy at the time, but soon his administration began to see some issues.

The number of unskilled foreign workers (from areas such as the Philippines and Bangladesh) doubled between 1986 and 1988, and the American government passed into law the Omnibus Trade Bill, which threatened Japanese exports to the country.

Moreover, despite Takeshita diplomatic gestures, trade imbalance with both Western Europe and East Asia continued to widen, leading to friction between the Japanese and foreign governments.

[1] He remained a major behind-the-scenes player in the LDP, mentoring future prime ministers Sōsuke Uno, Toshiki Kaifu, and Keizō Obuchi.