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.
Abolish monarchies
Fuck monarchies.
Abolish all monarchies!
Whilst I agree in principle (since hereditary monarchies are inherently anti-meritocratic), there is actually a strong argument for constitutional and apolitical figurehead monarchs (i.e mostly powerless). They serve as something of an antidote to cults of personality and can also act as a uniting force in times of crisis.
There are better ways to counter a cult of personality than a cult of divine providence.
They also print money from tourism. That usually the real reason to keep them around.
The French got rid of their monarchy, and yet Versailles gets more visitors than Buckingham palace.
Do they? It’s not like the palaces and fancy hats just vanish if you abolish the institution. The tourists will come anyway, there’s no king in the Versailles palace and it’s still a major tourist attraction.
Japanese conservative monarchists are wild.
Look up the Google Maps reviews of the imperial palace. For some context, the majority of the imperial palace is completely off limits to the general public (in stark contrast to most developed countries), and the royal family does a new years greeting.
The reviews are monarchists unironically saying things like that they travelled for days, lined up for hours, caught a glimpse of one of the royal family, were temporarily transported to heaven, and will dedicate their lives hoping for the forever prosperity of the royal family.
were temporarily transported to heaven
Makes sense, the japanese monarchy is one of the few that still claims divinity and Shintoism still says they should be venerated.
And that is the mechanism the major religions exploit. Or monarchies. Or both.
So they’re like maga
I guess they missed the memo on how their monarchs aren’t actually divine, or maybe they really, really, REALLY want to keep that tradition alive. Could be both, too, or other reasons.
Aiko has gained admirers since debuting as an adult royal in 2021, when she impressed the public as intelligent, friendly, caring and funny.
Oh yeah? The Spanish princess is learning to fly fighter jets:
Do you have any idea how expensive it is to trainer a fighter jet pilot?
Seems like we shouldn’t be cheering their vanity projects while people in their nation still live in poverty.
IMHO monarchs should lead their troops into battle, as should presidents and PMs. Actually you know what let’s put the whole legislature on the front lines too.
Live action Porco Rosso is looking rather different
TIL that Japan has royal family.
It was the one term of their surrender.
And their dinasty at least dates back to the 6th century
Crazy to think this family started WW2 with the Nazis and here we are talking about how she should be able to be empress.
The Japanese Imperial family is still in power because the US found them a useful tool for controlling the Japanese population after the war. Also she is not responsible for the sins/crimes of her grandfather.
If the Japanese people wish to idolize her and make her the Empress who are we to deny their wishes?
Yea let’s just do the exact same thing again. Surely the outcome will be different this time! Let’s gamble hundreds of millions of lives on it!
Also she is not responsible for the sins/crimes of her grandfather.
She’s responsible so long as she benefits from his power.
who are we to deny their wishes?
Err… nobody is denying anything. They are allowed to worship and we are allowed to criticize.
Agreed on her not being responsible for the sins of her grandfather, but it’s kinda fucked up that her grandfather was allowed to keep ruling after WWII, rather than being replaced by a family member or something.
Blame Douglas McArthur, he came up with the idea of keeping her grandfather as Emperor and he made sure to exclude any evidence that could be used to try him for war crimes.
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.
Reality is always more complicated than a snap take by a arm chair quarterback.
Hey, that’s actually pretty interesting, thank you!
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.
I’ll take a look. Arr!
Same for the fascists and mafia in Italy, they weren’t purged because communists bad
This feels so backwards.
Well a monarchy is backwards and women not being allowed to become monarch is also backwards… So then we’re looking forward, right?
If she chooses to abolish the monarchy? totally.
If not, this just seems like royalty PR campaign.
Would her teenage brother becoming the next Emperor be more likely to accelerate the decline of the monarchy?
It’s always japan. They rushed everything except culture in the race
