A fiercely nationalist, comic-loving former Olympian, an Arabic-speaking ex-newsreader and the son of Tokyo’s notoriously racist Governor have emerged as key contenders for Japan’s troubled political crown.

But even as a nation prepares to be underwhelmed by its fourth prime minister in three years - and wonders collectively whether it can ever take politics seriously again - one more surprise may be brewing from Japan’s writhing political chaos.

The call has gone out within the ruling party for fresh blood, charisma, ideas or anything that might win it a general election. The odds seem strongly against it, but Japan may, just possibly, get its first woman prime minister.

Yesterday, just over a week since the shock resignation of prime minister Yasuo Fukuda, five candidates from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) tendered their candidacies to replace him – the largest number of leadership hopefuls since 1971.

The five fighting for the party presidency and the votes of LDP membership on September 22 include Shigeru Ishiba, a former defence minister who resigned in scandal earlier this year and Kaoru Yosano, who casts himself as a fiscal disciplinarian.

With the forthcoming general election clearly focused on the economy and Japan’s stalled reform agenda, the five candidates were already being careful not to scare off the national electorate. Nobuteru Ishihara said he was in favour of “cordial” reform, while Mr Yosano spoke of “kindhearted” reform.

The clear favourite, though, is Taro Aso, a blue-blood political scion, an overt lover of manga cartoons and a man viewed as sufficiently populist to help the LDP win the general election now likely to be called for early November. He has so far been open about plans to use government spending to help Japan out of its economic stupor – a supposedly vote-winning policy in keeping with decades of LDP strategy.

Most political pundits are now betting the prize will go to Mr Aso, the grandson of perhaps the country’s most celebrated prime minister, Shigeru Yoshida, and a man clearly groomed for power all his life. Around 40 per cent of MPs in the ruling party are already said to be backing Mr Aso, which, if accurate should give him an unassailable edge.

But the pundits have been wrong before, and none of them predicted Mr Fukuda would fall as hard and fast as he did on Monday. Also, Mr Aso comes with certain caveats that even the LDP cannot ignore: his family’s mining company used POWs as slave labour during the War and his nationalist rhetoric has included remarks that have caused offence to China and Japan’s other Asian neighbours.

But Mr Aso faces competition in the form of Yuriko Koike, the first ever female candidate for the LDP presidency and a potentially formidable opponent. Her gamble is simple: she represents a dramatic new direction for an old party struggling to make itself electable again, and she has already associated herself with the policies and legacy of Junichiro Koizumi – the maverick reformist and the last prime minister with any widespread popular appeal.

Ms Koike opened the bidding with the assertion that “Japan is in crisis now.”

The 56-year old former television anchor already has a taste for breaking Japan’s glass ceilings – prime minister Shinzo Abe made her the country’s first female defence minister, although her tenure turned out to be short. A fluent speaker of Arabic, her 17 years in politics have constantly raised eyebrows. She has flipped ideologically between hawk and dove on a range of big issues and even changed parties: viewed alternately as hopelessly frivolous or cannily shrewd, her nickname is wataridori, or “migratory bird”.

As Japanese woke up to their third prime ministerial resignation in as many years last week, a mood of despair crept across the nation. The powerful Keidanren business lobby decried the sudden move as “not just irresponsible, but pathetic.” A senior Toyota spokesman said that the government had “hung a noose around its neck”. One finance ministry official openly wondered whether Japan had become an international laughing stock.

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