In his latest makeover, RocketNews24’s very own Mr. Sato becomes The Donald.

RocketNews24 Japanese-language correspondent Mr. Sato has gone through many transformations in the course of his duties. In the past, we’ve seen him undergo extreme makeovers to get the look of a Tokyo host club hottie and Japanese rocker Hyde. But recently, Mr. Sato’s unquenchable thirst for power has had him wanting to take on the persona of someone who’s been grabbing people’s attention all over the world: U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Before we go any further, we should point out that Mr. Sato in no way resembles the New York-born property developer and would-be politician. As a matter of fact, here’s what our reporter looks like on the days he hasn’t had a makeover or decided to dress up like a Dragon Quest slime.

Trump is known as much for his distinctive hair as his blunt manner of speaking, so we knew we were going to need some serious help getting Mr. Sato’s locks to look the part. As we have on many projects before, we turned to AnZie, a salon located in Tokyo’s posh Aoyama neighborhood.

▼ “Make me look like this guy, please!”

Mr. Sato’s hair is sort of a sandy brown these days, but it’s still pretty far off from Trump’s blond. Because of that, the first order of business was coloring.

After one round of bleaching, we still hadn’t achieved the brilliant hue we sought. Not one to do things half-way, Mr. Sato clenched his teeth and bore with the stinging sensation of a second bleaching.

▼ That’s more like it!

Mr. Sato nodded with approval as he looked in the mirror at his new tycoon-caliber hair color. But now we came to the real problem, which was how to go about copying Trump’s mysterious hairstyle.

We decided to go one step at a time, consulting along the way with the stylist. After pressing down the sides, combing the hair from the back of Mr. Sato’s head as far forward as it could stretch, and curling the tips upward with a styling iron, it was time to take a look at the final results of Mr. Sato’s metamorphosis into Donald Trump.

Behold, The Hidenori!

It turns out that Mr. Sato’s bangs weren’t quite long enough to perfectly mimic Trump’s, but the stylist still did a great job recreating the candidate’s ski jump-like ‘do. And while Mr. Sato was worried that some people might mistake his flying wedge of hair for that of classic anime characters Suneo from Doraemon or Hanawa from Chibi Maruko-chan, to anyone who didn’t grow up bathed in the soft glow of family-friendly Japanese animation, it’s pretty clear whose appearance he’s aping.

With his power tie knotted, Mr. Sato then came back to RocketNews24 headquarters to deliver a stump speech about his political platform.

▼ “We need to make sure all of our physical production stays as local as possible. From now on, you’re only allowed to poop in the office toilet, not at home!”

▼ “Where’s that copy of Go Hattori’s birth certificate I asked for?!?”

At one point, Mr. Sato got so into character that he was about to fire us all…

…until he realized that since we’re his coworkers, getting rid of us would just mean more work for him, and so he magnanimously deigned to keep us on.

It’s sadly too late for Mr. Sato to throw his hat in the ring for this year’s election, but it’s never to early to start thinking about future political cycles. So whatever you decide to do this fall, don’t forget to head to the polls four years from now.

▼ Vote Sato in 2020!

Related: AnZie website

Images ©RocketNews24

[ Read in Japanese ]