Japanese Imperial Family Today

  What Did Emperor Say?   For a long time, His Majesty the Emperor has not said anything about the issue of his niece Princess Mako's marriage. In a sense, this is only natural, as it is a matter for the Akishino family, a different family, and not something that the Emperor should bother to talk about. As His Majesty knows the weight of his own words better than anyone else, he must have had to be cautious even though he had many thoughts on the matter.   It was at his birthday press conference in February of this year that the Emperor broke his silence. It was reported early on that the media would be asking questions about the issue of Mako's marriage at this time. However, since the Imperial Household Agency would be in charge of the press conference, it was expected that the Agency would restrain them from doing so. Nevertheless, the Emperor, perhaps of his own volition, dared to answer the question.   What was that statement? The full text is he...

What is the Komuro's Debt Problem?  After the death of Kei Komuro's father, Kei's mother Kayo, received financial support of over 4 million yen (some $36.44K) from her then fiancé during the engagement period in the name of Kei's school fees and living expenses. After the engagement was dissolved, the former fiancé requested that these monies be repaid as a loan, but Komuro's mother and Kei did not repay the money, claiming that it was a donation.   The issue was first reported by the Japanese women's weekly magazine, Shukan Josei, in December 2017, three months after the announcement of Mako and Komuro's informal engagement.   https://www.jprime.jp/articles/-/11267   In the article above, we can see from the entries in the bank passbook that the ex-fiancee had been sending money one after another as Kayo told him to.   This issue triggered various scandals involving Komuro's mother and Kei, which came to light one after another. 'The Financi...

Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Mentions the Provisions of Succession to the Throne in the Constitution. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, at a meeting of the House of Representatives Cabinet Committee on April 2, expressed his view that the Constitution allows for an emperor whose mother is of the emperor's lineage to succeed to the throne in a stable manner.   https://nordot.app/772734869954953216?c=39546741839462401  At the same time, he explained that the Imperial Household Law limits the succession to the throne to male lineage. He stressed again that it is necessary to "carefully and carefully examine the issue, taking into account the weight of the fact that the male line of succession has been maintained without exception since ancient times.  [...] 　 With regard to the return of the former Imperial Family to the Imperial Register, he reiterated his intention not to confirm the intentions of the male descendants.   Since March of this year, the Jap...

    　 Six members of the Japanese Imperial Family over the age of 65, including the Emperor and Empress, were vaccinated against the new coronavirus on the 1 st of this month.  The Emperor Emeritus and his wife were vaccinated at their residence, Sento Temporary Palace (Minato-ku, Tokyo), while Prince and Princess Hitachi, Princess Nobuko Tomohito, and Princess Hisako Takamado were vaccinated at the Imperial Household Agency Hospital in the Imperial Palace. The Asahi Shimbun reported this as a story from an official. This is the first time that members of the Imperial Family have been vaccinated. (Taken from the Imperial Household Agency website) According to media reports, seven members of the Imperial Family, including the 87-year-old Emperor Emeritus Akihito and the 86-year-old Empress Emerita Michiko, are eligible for the priority vaccination program for those over 65 years old, and six others, excluding the 97-year-old Princess Yuriko of Mikasa, have been va...

  Komuro graduated from Fordham Law School on May 23, but he did not post his picture or message online, and unlike many of his classmates who live near New York, he did not attend the graduation ceremony. His whereabouts have not been traced since then.     There has been a lot of speculation about his future.   First of all, it is widely believed that he will take the NY State Bar Exam scheduled for July 27 and 28.   As for where he will work after that, there is currently no information that he will work for a law firm in NY State. Many of his classmates have been offered jobs at law firms where they have internships even before they take the final exams or the bar exam, but no such information about Komuro has been received.   So, it has been suggested that he will work for one of the UN agencies in New York.   https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/cb90a1c5dd2662c33edfc47973abc2e7fc1f084d   "Since he left for the United States, there...

 The Japanese government held the fifth meeting of an advisory panel (chaired by Atsushi Seike, former president of Keio University) to discuss a stable succession plan for the throne, and heard opinions from four experts on foreign royal families and history. on May 31. This was the fourth time the panel has interviewed experts in this field. PositiveOpinion on Female Emperor, Experts Say (Kyodo News) - Yahoo! News Click here to see the progress of the expert panel to date. The Prime Minister's Office page on the expert panel is here (with minutes).   　Naotaka Kimizuka, a professor of British political and diplomatic history at Kanto Gakuin University, argued that the current system, under which only males of the male line whose father's side of the family is related to that of the emperor should succeed, should be changed and that both male and female lineages should be recognized as heir to the throne. He argued that priority should be given to the first c...

Note:   In the original text, footnotes are grouped together at the end of the text, but here, for the convenience of the reader, the footnotes for the relevant sections are placed at the end of the divided text.   Read Previous                                                                                   7. About the article in Gendai Weekly released on November 30, 2020   In the Weekly Gendai [Note 34] published on November 30, 2020, there was an article about what the ex-fiancee had said, and a similar article was published the following week on December 11. In these articles, it is mentioned that the ex-fiancee said that she would not ask for money, but there is no mention of the fact that she said she did not think the matter was settled.   I...

 Note:  In the original text, footnotes are grouped together at the end of the text, but here, for the convenience of the reader, the footnotes for the relevant sections are placed at the end of the divided text.    Read Previous                                                                                Read More Discussions with my ex-fiancee (May 2019 - November 2020)   As I mentioned at the beginning of this document, the purpose of this document is to correct, to the extent possible, the misinformation that has been circulating in the world about the alleged financial troubles by clarifying to some extent the actual history of the exchanges that have taken place between myself, my mother, and my ex-fiancee. Up to this point, I have explained my poli...

Note:  In the original text, footnotes are grouped together at the end of the text, but here, for the convenience of the reader, the footnotes for the relevant sections are placed at the end of the divided text.   Read Previous                                                                                   Read More 4. Reasons for publishing the document on January 22, 2019 (2019) and misunderstood aspects of the document   The document that I published on January 22, 2019 [Note 6] (hereinafter referred to as the "2019 Document") is a statement of what I thought I had to make public, at least this much, when I started discussions with my ex-fiancee. As I wrote in "2," my mother and I thought that in order to facilitate the discussion between the parties, we sho...