The Japanese Imperial Family General News and Chat

[Curryong]

Newsweek report on the vaccination rate of the elderly in Japan. It?s expected that this sector of the population will be 70% fully vaccinated by the end of August.

R Japan Expects 70 Percent of Elderly Population to be COVID Vaccinated by End of August

[wannable]

Well it's not surprising, Japan is #1 worldwide with the highest aging population.  One can translate that their health is remarkable (pre pandemic and to date)

[Amabel2]

It seems very late in the day for people over 70 to be just having their vaccinations now.  In the UK, people of 60 plus were having it in March.... and now they seem to be doing people of 30 plus

[wannable]

If you have the hightest aging population in the world, it pretty much makes sense they are still vaccinating these people.

[PrincessOfPeace]

Japan hit by royal crisis as government advisory panel rules out allowing women to take the throne despite popular support and a shortage of male heirs

Japan hit by succession crisis as advisory panel rules out allowing women to take the throne

[Curryong]

Everybody had better hope that Prince Hisahito grows up, marries in his twenties and produces three or four sons for his country then. Otherwise Japan might be re-examining this issue in a couple of decades.
Seriously though, there is a difference between postponing something in the hope it will never happen and making SOME contingency plan as provision for the future, surely? I know the elite surrounding the Imperial Family is extremely cautious, but really?!

[TLLK]

3

[PrincessOfPeace]

Japan's imperial family may begin ADOPTING sons with aristocratic heritage to tackle a shortage of male heirs to the throne.

Japan's imperial family may begin ADOPTING sons to tackle a shortage of male heirs to the throne 

[Curryong]

How about instead ending the custom of cutting off female members of the Imperial Japanese family once they marry. Or, better still, take another look at allowing female heirs to inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne. After all, they have a perfect example right now in Aiko, Princess ToshI.

[Blue Clover]

Japan's imperial family may begin ADOPTING sons with aristocratic heritage to tackle a shortage of male heirs to the throne.

Japan's imperial family may begin ADOPTING sons to tackle a shortage of male heirs to the throne

An interesting solution to this problem.

[TLLK]

How about instead ending the custom of cutting off female members of the Imperial Japanese family once they marry. Or, better still, take another look at allowing female heirs to inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne. After all, they have a perfect example right now in Aiko, Princess ToshI.

Yes. I would hope that this is going to be an option for the female members of the Asian, Middle East and Africa will one day consider allowing them to ascend to the throne.

[PrincessOfPeace]

September 12: Princess Hisako attended the WE League match between Nippon TV Tokyo Verdy Beleza and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Urawa Reds Ladies at Ajinomoto Field Nishigaoka in Kita, Tokyo.

https://twitter.com/ImperialJPNfan/status/1437082908406075399?s=20

[TLLK]

A look back at 2021 for the Imperial Family which saw the Olympics, a milestone birthday for Princess Aiko and a long awaited marriage.  :snowflake:

Japan: A look back at the royal year focused on a not so royal wedding and the Olympics ? Royal Central

[TLLK]

Princess Aiko's first official duties revealed.

Princess Aiko?s first official royal duty revealed ? Royal Central

The first official royal duty of Japan?s Princess Aiko has been revealed by the Japanese Imperial Household.

Princess Aiko, 20, will attend the New Year Receptions as her first official royal duty since coming of age in early December. The events will take place on New Year?s Day 2022.

The ceremonies will begin at 10 am local time at the Imperial Palace.

The traditional public greeting of the Emperor and his family will not take place on 2 January at the Imperial Palace due to the global health situation. A video message from Emperor Naruhito will be released instead.

Her first official court duty was also announced. She will attend the memorial ceremony for Emperor Taisho on 25 December.

[PrincessOfPeace]

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has handed off the hot potato issue of imperial succession to the Diet, which is expected to divide lawmakers as there is no concrete proposal for the future at present.

More: Parties split on imperial throne succession as report submitted | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

[TLLK]

Japan?s Princess Yoko leaves hospital after recovering from COVID ? Royal Central

Japan?s Princess Yoko has left hospital after recovering from COVID and pneumonia.

Her Imperial Highness was discharged from hospital on Wednesday, 16 February.

The Imperial Household said the royal?s symptoms improved with treatment and had been released by her doctors. She will recuperate at her family?s home on the Akasaka Estate in Tokyo.

Princess Yoko, 38, was admitted to a hospital inside the Imperial Palace in Tokyo early last week after testing positive for COVID-19. At the time, the Imperial Household Agency said she was tested after developing a sore throat the previous day.

A few days later, she developed a moderate form of pneumonia and was transferred to the University of Tokyo Hospital.

Yoko is the first member of the Imperial Family to contract the coronavirus.

She was in close contact with her older sister, Princess Akiko, 40; however, her sister has since tested negative for the virus.

[TLLK]

Princess Aiko to hold first press conference ? Royal Central

Japan?s Princess Aiko is set to hold her first press conference on 17 March.

This is the press conference for her 20th birthday ? the coming of age in Japan ? that was postponed due to her university education.

Imperial Family members traditionally hold a press conference when they come of age, but the press conference was pushed back to allow the Princess to not interrupt her studies.

Her press conference will take place during her spring break. An Imperial Household Agency official said that this was ?the best period for the Princess to consider answers to questions from the press while feeling that she became an adult.?

Aiko is a student at Gakushuin University studying Japanese language and literature.

Now that she is an adult, Princess Aiko will undertake royal duties, but the Imperial Household has said her studies will come first. Her first public working event was the New Year celebration in 2022.

[TLLK]

Princess Akiko of Japan becomes visiting professor at Ritsumeikan University ? Royal Central

[Curryong]

Don?t know whether this post is in the correct thread or not, but I remember reading about this exhibition and how I?d dearly love to see it. I think Japanese decorative arts are just extraordinary, exquisitely beautiful in many cases, and it?s clear that members of the BRF were very alive to this in the 19th century.

It?s often forgotten that the period from the opening up of Japan to the West right up until the souring of relations in the mid 1930s was a time of a very close relationship between the UK and Japan, including a naval alliance in WW1. (These warm links weren?t really viewed very favourably here in Aus between the Wars, btw.)

From the article.
?Also featured are letters and photographs detailing deepening ties between the two countries during the second half of the 19th century. Among them is a letter from Prince Alfred to his mother, Queen Victoria, reflecting on his 1869 visit to Japan -- the first by a British royal -- and praising the Asian country's "beautiful landscape."

1869 btw was the beginning of the West falling in love with Japanese art and design, Japanoiserie, beginning with an exhibition in Paris and culminating in the Aesthetic Movement of the 1880s. Affie, like his parents did have a liking for drawing and painting and this visit probably caught his imagination.

?Among the exhibition's highlights is a set of silk screens given to Queen Victoria by Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi in 1860. The screens were previously thought to be lost and their provenance was only recently rediscovered by curators.?

Exhibit showcasing U.K.-Japan royal relationship opens in London

[TLLK]

@Curryong-I wish that there had been more photos to view, but the objects displayed were lovely. I had no idea that contact between the two nations had occurred as far back as 1610 especially since Japan had been famously isolated (by choice) for centuries.) I can understand why this exhibit would be very appealing. I wonder if the long postponed incoming State Visit between Japan and the UK will be able to take place? QEII would have known both of Emperor Nahurito's predecessors.

[Curryong]

Yes I am absolutely sure that the Queen has met the present Emperor?s parents and possibly grandparents. I?m not so sure about Hirohito attending the Coronation in 1953, in spite of the mentioned gift. He may have sent his son in his place. It was also reasonably soon after the war and there was still great resentment in both Britain and the Empire about the awful treatment of British and Aussie and Kiwi prisoners of war by Japanese troops so am not sure what kind of welcome he would have received by the crowds.

Some info about the early part British seamen adventurers played in those early days, though the Dutch were the big movers and shakers in SE Asia then!

1600. William Adams, a seaman from Gillingham, Kent, was the first English adventurer to arrive in Japan. Acting as an advisor to the Tokugawa shōgun, he was renamed Miura Anjin, granted a house and land, and spent the rest of his life in his adopted country. He also became one of the first English samurai.[citation needed]
1605. John Davis, the famous English explorer, was killed by Japanese pirates off the coast of Thailand, thus becoming the first known Englishman to be killed by a Japanese.[3]

The 1613 letter of King James I remitted to Tokugawa Ieyasu (Preserved in the Tokyo University archives)
1613. Following an invitation from William Adams in Japan, the English captain John Saris arrived at Hirado Island in the ship Clove with the intent of establishing a trading factory. Adams and Saris travelled to Suruga Province where they met with Tokugawa Ieyasu at his principal residence in September before moving on to Edo where they met Ieyasu's son Hidetada. During that meeting, Hidetada gave Saris two varnished suits of armour for King James I, today housed in the Tower of London.[4] On their way back, they visited Tokugawa once more, who conferred trading privileges on the English through a Red Seal permit giving them "free licence to abide, buy, sell and barter" in Japan.[5] The English party headed back to Hirado Island on 9 October 1613. However, during the ten-year activity of the company between 1613 and 1623, apart from the first ship (Clove in 1613), only three other English ships brought cargoes directly from London to Japan.
1623. The Amboyna massacre was perpetrated by the Dutch East India Company. After the incident England closed its commercial base at Hirado Island, now in Nagasaki Prefecture, without notifying Japan. After this, the relationship ended for more than two centuries.
1625. A number of documents including the Iaponian Charter, are the first published translated Japanese documents into English by Samuel Purchas

[Curryong]

I?m in love Japanese cloisonn? enamels and I hope British royals received some as gifts. Like you, I wish the article linked above had shown more illustrations.

Some of them in the V and A museum are truly lovely and must have taken such patience. The artists? eyesight must have been gone by forty though!

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/japanese-cloisonne-enamels-an-expression-of-endless-patience

[TLLK]

Princess Aiko to continue university studies online ? Royal Central

Japan?s Princess Aiko plans to continue her university studies online for the time being.

The only child of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako is in her third year of university and has said she will study online to prevent her parents from getting sick.

The Princess is said to want to take in-person classes but doesn?t want to risk exposing her parents to COVID-19 as Japan is seeing an uptick in positive cases. An aide said, ?Aiko?s heart was shaken, and after consulting with her doctor, she made this decision.?

Aiko?s classes begin on 12 April at Gakushuin University, where she is majoring in Japanese literature and language.

[Blue Clover]

Taking courses online should not be a problem in the near future for Aiko.

[TLLK]

Japan's Emperor Emeritus diagnosed with heart failure | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

Japan's Imperial Household Agency says Emperor Emeritus Akihito has been diagnosed with heart failure, but that his condition is improving with treatment.

The agency says the Emperor Emeritus, the father of Emperor Naruhito, underwent an MRI scan at the University of Tokyo Hospital on Sunday.

Doctors detected a faulty valve on the right side of his heart.

Heart failure was suspected based on several medical evaluations conducted since last month.

The agency says he doesn't feel the effects of the disease, and that his condition is improving since he started taking medication and restricting his fluid intake in late June.

In 2012, the Emperor Emeritus underwent a heart bypass operation after being diagnosed with angina. But his doctors say there's no link between that operation and his current condition.

The agency says for now the Emperor Emeritus has reduced his activities, such as by shortening his morning and evening walks, but that other restrictions aren't necessary. The agency says he will continue to receive treatment at home.