Princess Aiko's increasing popularity is sparking discussions about changing Japan's male-only succession law.

Japan’s beloved Princess Aiko is often cheered like a pop star.

During a visit to Nagasaki with Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, the sound of her name being screamed by well-wishers along the roads overwhelmed the cheers for her parents.

As she turns 24 on Monday, her supporters want to change Japan’s male-only succession law, which prohibits Aiko, the emperor’s only child, from becoming monarch.

Along with frustration that the discussion on succession rules has stalled, there’s a sense of urgency. Japan’s shrinking monarchy is on the brink of extinction. Naruhito’s teenage nephew is the only eligible heir from the younger generation.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    35·
    8 hours ago

    I mean… yes, thats true, buts it more complicated than that.

    At the end of WW2, elements within the Japanese military and government executed an ultranationalist coup attempt.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident

    In broad strokes, the Emperor was planning to surrender, after the Potsdam Conference, after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after the Soviet Union declared war on Japan.

    A significant number of military higher ups, many various officers… decided that was bullshit, and concocted a plan to take the Imperial family hostage, destroy the Emperor’s recorded speech that was to announce the surrender and urge all Japanese people to actually surrender.

    This plan ended up failing, but maybe now you can see that significant portions of the Japanese military wanted to keep fighting, literally to death.

    So, if you’re trying to make sure that something like this coup does not reoccur in the years following surrender… it makes some sense to try and support the people who wanted to comply with you, wanted to end the war, who would and actually could ensure stability.

    Consider an alternative example.

    Iraq, 2003-6.

    The US basically just wholesale dismantles the Iraqi government, including its military, which was a significant source of employment for a lot of people.

    Those former Iraqi military members then go on to be a very significant, effective and capable element of the Iraqi “Insurgency”/Resistance, for… what, 10, 15 years?

    Can you not imagine something like that playing out in Japan, up into the 1960s?

    I’m not trying to endorse or defend anybody’s policies or actions here… I’m just trying to point out that it’s more complicated than how you summarize it.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        6·
        6 hours ago

        There is a pretty damned good movie that climaxes with the Kyujo Incident, called “The Emperor In August”, came out in 2015.

        It’s basically the Japanese equivalent of “Downfall”.

        Its genuinely an intense and gripping story, nearly unbelievable story, … it’s fucking insane, and its more insane because that movie is quite historically accurate.

        A lot of the minute details of what happened actually were recorded in significant detail, so … there’s really a minimal level of ‘artistic intepretation’.

        Maximum possible recommend seeing this movie.