PROFILE: The cult of Koizumi

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Teenage girls squeal when he appears, women of a certain age jostle for a better look and crowds turn out in the thousands just to get a glance.

It's Junichiro Koizumi -- known as "Jun-chan" by his fans -- whose good looks, media savvy and calls for painful but vital reform have made him Japan's most popular prime minister ever.

Once dubbed a maverick, Koizumi has remade his image into that of a reformer ready to smash the Old Guard's stranglehold on politics.

The image, though, has tarnished a bit in recent weeks as some voters wonder whether substance matches his style.

Sunday's election for parliament's Upper House will provide the first nationwide test of whether Koizumi's support rates of just under 70 percent -- down a bit from early records - will spell victory for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its two allies in the ruling coalition.

Viagra

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Koizumi's reputation as one of Japan's more eccentric politicians isn't hard to fathom.

Running in a race to lead the LDP two years ago, Koizumi -- health minister at the time -- was asked which issue was more pressing: approving anti-impotence drug Viagra or cutting poisonous dioxin emissions.

The dapper politician's reply to a nationwide television audience: "Personally, Viagra."

Koizumi lost that race to the amiable "Everyman" Keizo Obuchi, but in April was elected as prime minister after a stunning upset victory in his third bid to lead the party.

"The fact that I was elected prime minister shows that the LDP has changed," Koizumi told a recent party rally.

Koizumi's skillfully crafted reformer image won resounding support from rank-and-file party members afraid the LDP was headed for a thrashing in the Upper House poll.

Destroy his party

He has even promised to destroy his own party -- which has ruled for most of the period since World War Two or hold its lawmakers' feet to the fire of a general Lower House election -- if that's what it takes to carry out his reform agenda.

Koizumi, 59, stands out from the serried ranks of generally colorless LDP politicians in lots of ways.

Take his taste in music. He makes no secret of the fact that he's a fan of X Japan, a group whose heavy metal sound and punk fashion command a cult following even after their disbanding.

Divorced after four years of marriage to a woman 14 years his junior, he kept custody of two sons but has reportedly never met a third, born after the marriage broke up.

'Lion King'

Koizumi's tall, slender build, his sharply cut suits and tousled, wavy hair that earned him the nickname "Lion King" make him easy to pick out in a crowd of somber party colleagues.

Koizumi has long advocated privatizing the postal services and its saving system as a step to rein in Japan's huge national debt -- a platform opposed by many inside the conservative LDP, where many lawmakers rely on postal workers for votes.

He wants to limit government bond issuance to 30 trillion yen ($247.1 billion) to get a grip on the bulging public debt.

Analysts and opposition leaders, though, complain that other policy details are scarce.

For all the novelty of style, Koizumi is a third-generation politician and a veteran of LDP politics.

Doubts persist about whether he really can -- or wants - to destroy the very foundation of the party that has ruled Japan for most of the past half-century.

Nationalist

Koizumi makes no bones about his nationalist tilt.

He has pledged to make a controversial visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine for the war dead where war criminals are also enshrined and supported a decision to approve history textbooks that critics say whitewash Japan's wartime atrocities.

He also advocates revising Japan's pacifist constitution to clarify the ambiguous status of the military as well as to allow Japan to take part in collective self-defense by going to the aid of an ally if attacked.

Koizumi studied economics at prestigious Keio University in Tokyo. He then studied in London, but cut short his stay after his father died in 1969, returning to run for the Lower House.

He lost. But three years later was elected and has been returned 10 times to the Lower House from the constituency of Yokosuka -- known for its U.S. naval base -- just south of Tokyo.

He served as health minister in 1988 and for a year as posts and telecommunications minister in 1992.

Reuters contributed to this report.