A New Japanese Emperor

Japanese Imperial Standard.

While Japan no longer has an empire, it does have an emperor (an odd thought), and as of today, it has a new one.*  Emperor Naruhito.

It has a new Empress as well, Empress Masako, who was a career Japanese diplomat prior to marrying Naruhito.  For reasons that aren't clear to me, Empresses don't go through the formal investiture ceremony in Japan.  That may have something to do with the traditional role of the Emperor as a Shinto Priest.

Naruhito, age 59, is the first Japanese Emperor to take office since World War Two who was not alive during World War Two.  Having said that, there's only been three Japanese Emperors since World War Two, if we include Hirohito, who was of course Emperor during World War Two and up until 1989.  After Hirohito came his son Akihito, who just resigned, making Naruhito the first Emperor in 200 years to take office following a resignation of his predecessor.  Akihito was born in 1933 and was therefore 12 years old when World War Two ended.

That's significant as well in that Akihito was born into a Japanese royal family whose heirs had a technical claim to an expectation to be accorded an official deity status, although that is really fairly grossly exaggerated in the West.  The Japanese royal family dates back to vast antiquity and its origins are so ancient that they frankly aren't very well known.  The first generally recognized emperor is Jinmu, who reigned starting in 660 BC, which is a very long time ago.  Not surprisingly, with a family tree that ancient, the claim to the title of Emperor isn't completely unchallenged and there have been competing lines over time.  Having said that, the fact that the Japanese imperial family tree can be traced back that far is really impressive.

Jinmu with a long bow, as depicted in the 19th Century.

The role of the Emperor has been a hard one for westerners to figure out.  At various points in Japanese history the Japanese crown had nearly no power at all.  In the history of modern Japan, it really acquired power with Emperor Meiji, who reigned from 1867 until 1912 and who, with the aid of his supporters, both modernized Japan and restored the power of the Imperial crown.  Following the Meiji Restoration the crown had power of some sort, but it's always been difficult to discern.  During the 1920s that power may or may not have waned following what amounted to a sort of right wing military coup following an attempted young officers left wing military coup.  Everyone acting in both coups claimed to be acting with the interest of the Emperor at heart.

The pivotal modern Japanese Emperor Meiji.

From the 1920s until the end of World War Two a confusing era resulted in which various historians claim that Hirohito had more or less power.  He clearly had a fair degree, no matter which view a person might take.  That came to an official end in 1945 when the Imperial crown was really saved from termination by the Allies, who found it useful to preserve it.  Hirohito retained his position as Emperor for a very long time after that, but with no real official power, although as late as a couple of decades later it was discovered that high ranking officers of the Japanese Defense Force still consulted with him on matters, resulting in a scandal.

Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito in 1945.

Hirohito, as noted, had been required to renounce claims to a divine status following World War Two but the claim was rather vague in the first place.  A more significant role was that of Shinto Priest, which the emperor always was.  The Imperial heads of state always receive the treasures of the Japanese crown, which date back centuries and into antiquity, that have Shinto significance, but I don't know if the Emperor remains a Shinto Priest as they once did.**  At any rate, the strong claims, to the extent they existed, of divinity were boosted by the Japanese military in the 20s through the 40s and post war surveys by the Japanese government found that the Japanese people had never actually believed the Emperor had divine status anyhow.  His renouncement of the claims, therefore, had no real impact on their views.

In any event, for the first time in modern history a Japanese Emperor has ascended to the thrown who was 1) born after Japan was no longer an Empire; and 2) was born after the crown had disclaimed any divinity.  A new era of some sort, in an era when monarchy remains, but its hard to tell why.

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*Having said that, it's hard to figure out exactly why the Japanese Empire is historically regarded as such prior to the 20th Century, unless you take the view that the consolidation of power in the crown in the Japanese islands themselves constitutes an empire.

As there is some ethnic diversity in the overall island holdings, that's not an illegitimate view.  Hokkaido was in fact the home of an ethnically separate people.  The Japanese started colonizing the island in the 1330s.  Okinawa is also the home of an ethnically separate people.  It didn't become part of the Japanese Empire until 1879.

**Like a lot of things surrounding Japan, the Japanese Imperial Regalia are mysterious.  They consists of a named sword, a named mirror, and a jewel. They are not as impressive, reportedly, in appearance as a person might suppose.

The sword is known to have existed as far back as the 680s, but it's older than that.  The mirror is also ancient and may or may not have been destroyed and replaced in a fire in 1040.  The jewel is likely prehistoric.

These items are not revealed to the general public and its sometimes speculated that they've been lost or destroyed.  Japan, however, is remarkable in its ability of preservation of artifacts so the better bet, in my view, is that they're all original.  They're all absolutely ancient as well.