is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party who served in the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). He was first elected in the 2012 general election. He is a former career bureaucrat in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (briefly serving as Director of the CLAIR London Office) and graduate of University of Tokyo. Having unsuccessfully contested the Nagano 2nd district in the 2009 general election, he then served as a professor of local administration at Kanagawa University.
Mutai was Secretary to the Alliance of Legislators who wish to legislate for Mountain Day, which was inaugurated in August 2016.http://www.hodaka-kenich.com/Mountaineer/2014/05/29133319.php
In 2016 Mutai was appointed Parliamentary Vice Minister for Reconstruction and shortly after hit global headlines concerning an incident concerning a ministerial visit to a disaster-hit region. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37346423 Half year later at a campaign party Mutai joked about the incident only to be criticized by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. Mutai resigned from his post on the following day. http://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2017030901297&g=pol At the 2017 general election Mutai was defeated in his Nagano constituency but re-elected to the Diet under his party's proportional representation bloc.http://www.sankei.com/politics/news/171023/plt1710230090-n1.html He was reappointed to government as a State Minister for the Environment in October 2021 https://japan.kantei.go.jp/100_kishida/meibo/fukudaijin/index_e.html but relieved of his position in the August 2022 Kishida reshuffle https://japan.kantei.go.jp/101_kishida/meibo/fukudaijin/index_e.html.