PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE

A Japanese politician has been banned from local government meetings after he refused to take off his Mexican wrestling mask. The politician, who calls himself Skull Reaper A-ji, won a seat on Oita’s city council last month, but fellow assembly members swiftly barred him from the chamber, claiming his red-and-black leather mask violates council rules. Skull Reaper says his constituents like the disguise and refuses to remove it. “If I take my mask off,” he says, “I’m an entirely different person.”