Mayor of Obama Japan gets invited to see President Obama's speech in Tokyo

MBS has the story here, about the mayor of a small city in Japan that coincidentally shares the same name as the president and thus probably has the largest number of supporters per capita. Having Barack Obama as a presidential candidate and then president has been a huge boon for the city - I haven't seen any exact numbers on that but it certainly has turned an otherwise nondescript city into a partially world-famous location, and along with that come all the Obama-related products that get sold as well.



And here's my translation.

President Obama on his first visit to Japan since becoming president. The meeting with Prime Minister Hatoyama will start soon, but there's another man who is making his way happily to Tokyo for the speech tomorrow.

President Obama waving his hand as he lands at Haneda Airport. For his first visit to Japan since becoming president there is extremely tight security with up to 16,000 security personnel.

Now moving to Fukui-ken, Obama-shi where we see a nervous man, Mayor Matsuzaki.

As for Obama city...

"I love Obama!" (supporters)

They've been continuing their support since the election, and have been asking the American ambassador to Japan to have Obama visit the city on his visit to Japan, but it didn't work out this time.

Still,

Mayor: "I had a really faint hope that it would work out, but it didn't happen."

It turned out that he was invited to the speech along with the governor of Fukui prefecture.

Mayor: "I received a call from the American ambassador. He asked me if I could come and I was extremely surprised, and really happy at the same time."

President Obama on the 14th will meet with their majesties the Emperor and Empress, and leave Japan.

In the middle of translating this I noticed that the whole script is also written out in Japanese on the right of the YouTube video, making it extra good for those studying Japanese.