Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his wife, Yoshiko, on Sunday moved into the prime minister's official residence from a dormitory for members of the House of Representatives, both in central Tokyo.
Since becoming prime minister in October last year, Ishiba had used the official residence for meetings with his administrative staff on holidays, but had never stayed overnight.
Repair work on the official residence ended in late December. Ishiba had said he planned to move into the residence in the near future for crisis management reasons.
As the official residence adjacent to the prime minister's office was the sites of bloody historic incidents including a failed military coup attempt in 1936, there are rumors that the residence is haunted. "I belong to the 'Obake-no Q-taro' generation, so I'm not too afraid," Ishiba joked when speaking to reporters last month, referring to a popular Japanese manga series about a little ghost called Q-taro.
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