JAPAN'S new prime minister admits he is no Mr Charisma - Yoshihiko Noda likens himself to a marine bottom-feeder rather than a glittering goldfish. But that, he says, is his appeal.

The 54-year-old, who as finance minister kept to plodding statements so as not to spook financial markets, stresses his credentials as a responsible, moderate and middle-of-the road leader at a time of national crisis.

When he announced his candidacy in an essay in a conservative magazine this month, Mr Noda said: "I am an ordinary man. I do not have large financial resources... I am not stylish and my looks are not my selling point."

On Monday, making his final pitch for the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, he used the fish metaphor, humbly telling his fellow DPJ MPs: "I am a loach. I can't be a goldfish."

The son of a paratrooper in the Self-Defence Forces, Noda, a married father of two, holds broadly conservative political views.

This month, on the anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender, he angered neighbour South Korea when he said that Japanese Class-A war criminals convicted by an Allied tribunal were in fact not war criminals.

Noda is a graduate of the prestigious Waseda University's School of Political Science and Economics.

He then joined the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, set up by Panasonic founder and business guru Konosuke Matsushita.

The elite leadership course trains its students in management skills and world affairs, but also in ancient arts such as the Japanese tea ceremony, kendo stick fighting and Zen meditation.

Mr Noda is the first Matsushita alumnus to lead Japan.

He was first elected at age 29 to the legislature of Chiba outside Tokyo and entered national politics in his mid-30s with the short-lived Japan New Party of Morihiro Hosokawa, who later became prime minister.

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)