Sociologist Yuiko Fujita from Tokyo University sets this enthusiasm against the backdrop of how Japanese politics has traditionally been dominated by older men.
“The fact that the prime minister is now a woman, someone with a different background from what people are accustomed to, creates a feeling that something is shifting,” she told Nikkei Asia.
However, some are not convinced her popularity will translate into votes.
“This is not a presidential election but a parliamentary election, in which the LDP’s candidates are mostly men tainted by past scandals,” political science professor Koichi Nakano, from Sophia University, told the BBC.
Since 2023, the LDP had been mired in a fundraising scandal, which led to the resignation of four cabinet ministers and a corruption investigation.
The snap election is a gamble for Takaichi as her party now faces a more unified opposition. The LDP’s former longtime coalition partner Komeito has joined forces with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan to form the largest opposition bloc in the Lower House.
Another major hurdle the LDP faces is how to convince voters that its spending-heavy measures will not exacerbate Japan’s financial fragility.
The government’s policy package may offer households short-term relief, but “fails to address the underlying problems of weak productivity and stagnant real wages”, Masahiko Takeda, a senior fellow focusing on Asia at the Australian National University, wrote in an article this week.
Moreover, Takaichi has dug herself into “a deep hole in foreign and security policy by antagonising China”, said Nakano.
Takaichi angered Beijing, Tokyo’s largest trading partner, late last year with her suggestion that Japan could respond with its own self-defence force if China attacked Taiwan.
The rift has plunged the historically tense relationship to its lowest point in more than a decade.
Meanwhile she has pursued closer ties with US President Donald Trump as Tokyo seeks more stability in its relationship with Washington, its closest ally.
On Friday, Trump endorsed Takaichi in a rare move for a US leader.