BBC NEWS
After the smoke bomb attack that happened as he was about to give a speech on the local elections campaign trail, he simply moved on to his next engagement.
But this is still shocking.
One: because Japan is one of the safest countries in the world and has very strict gun controls.
Two – perhaps more crucially – because this smoke bomb attack happened less than a year after Shinzo Abe, Mr Kishida’s predecessor, was assassinated – also while giving a speech among a crowd on a campaign trail.
There are major differences – unlike Mr Abe, Mr Kishida was evacuated very quickly and the assailant tackled quite promptly.
One video showed a shield being used around Mr Kishida the moment the young man was pinned to the ground.
However a number of people on social media pointed out that the very first person to tackle the attacker was actually a fisherman who was among the crowd and next to the assailant.
There are uneasy parallels between what happened today in a port in Wakayama in western Japan and what happened last year in the Western city of Nara when Mr Abe was fatally shot.
In the latest attack, the assailant appeared to be in the middle of the crowd as he threw the suspected smoke bomb. Videos show him holding an unidentified metal object.
In July last year, Mr Abe’s killer, Testsuya Yamagami, stood very closely behind him as he was speaking at a political event – he then shot him with a homemade gun.
