Four years later, prime minister Yoshiro Mori also looks like obvious television material with his imposing former rugby player's physique and ready smile.And yet while opposition leaders are popping up all over the airwaves in a variety of campaign ads, Mori's LDP has chosen not to give its man a starring television role in the run-up to next Sunday's election.None of its five 15-second television commercials shows even a glimpse of Mori - even though a few weeks ago the prime minister had been scheduled for a camera shoot.

Opposition politician Keiichiro Asao reckons the party may regard Mori as too much of a liability to be a television star after off-the-cuff remarks reviving painful memories of Japan's wartime militarism left his popularity in tatters.

``The LDP isn't courageous enough to have Mr Mori in its commercials,'' Asao told Reuters.While Mori's popularity may have dived as low as 12.5 per cent, support for the LDP is holding at a healthier 30 per cent.``You don't want to lose this remaining 18 per cent... Who support the LDP but don't support Mori,'' Asao said.

Since official campaigning started on June 13, all the parties have been spending lavishly on slick, high-impact television campaign advertisements.``The effect of television is that you get good results in a short period of time,'' said Toshitaka Matsuoka, who produces commercials for the main opposition democratic party.

Such commercials were once avoided by campaign managers, who thought they made candidates look artificial or insincere.Until Hashimoto's bravado martial arts display at the last general election, the few campaign commercials aired on television were dull affairs with party leaders speaking dead-pan into the camera.Industry sources reckon a single commercial can cost 100 million to 500 million yen ( $925,000 to $4.6 million). But the lure of the box has proved irresistible even at those prices. One of the first ads to hit prime-time viewers was by the small liberal party starring its leader, Ichiro Ozawa.