Your Party
In January 2012, Watanabe announced that Your Party would join forces with Osaka governor Toru Hashimoto's political group "Osaka Ishin-no-kai", and praised Hashimoto's economic reform efforts in Osaka. He announced that Your Party would sever ties with Hashimoto's Japan Restoration Party in May 2013 after Hashimoto made controversial comments regarding comfort women being a necessary part of World War II and suggesting that American servicemen use the Japanese sex industry to keep their urges under control.