On March 22, Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako visited victims of the New Year’s Day earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula on the Japan Sea coast. It was the couple’s second visit to a disaster area since Naruhito ascended to the throne in 2019, but this time there was chatter online about why the royal couple had waited so long. Officially, they said they had held off the visit due to fears that their presence could complicate matters for locals, and they did donate funds to help those affected, but even in the Emperor’s birthday message to the nation, he did not specifically mention the victims, which some people felt was unusual.

This feeling was likely prompted by how differently Naruhito had approached the matter compared to his father, Akihito, who retired so that his son could take over. Akihito would have likely been more proactive in his response to the Noto quake. In 1991, for instance, one month after the Unzen volcano erupted, he visited the disaster site. He was in Kobe two weeks after the Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. He sent a special video message to the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 five days after it struck, and thereafter visited the affected area with his wife, MIchiko, 7 weeks in a row. Naruhito, on the other hand, didn’t even record a message to the Japanese people during the COVID pandemic. 

According to Takeshi Hara, a political scientist who has written numerous books about the Emperor and the so-called Emperor System, the “Reiwa style” of Naruhito is shaping up to be very different from the “Heisei style” of his father. Hara sat for a lengthy interview with Asahi Shimbun that was published March 13—before Naruhito and Masako made their first visit to Noto—and he tried to summarize the contrast between the two emperors, but five years in Naruhito has not really established any kind of “style,” which is notable considering how hands-on his father was as a monarch.

Of course, activism is not part of the postwar Emperor’s job description. The Constitution defines his role as a “symbol” of the country, but doesn’t explain what that entails. Hara refers to Akihito’s 2016 message to the people where he implied his intention to step down. In the message, he mentioned the “challenges” of the two pillars of his symbolic role, which are “praying for the happiness of his subjects” and “standing beside them” as a figure of empathy. Hara interpreted this statement to mean that, in addition to the court rituals that the Emperor is required to carry out, Akihito felt it was his duty to comfort the people when troubles arose, as well as acknowledge the troubles of the past. This was something his father, Hirohito, the Showa Emperor, did not do, especially with regard to remembering the Pacific War for which many people hold him responsible. Akihito did remember the war, and made a point of visiting places closely associated with it. 

That empathy, says Hara, is the key to the Heisei style. In comparison, the Showa style after the war was vague and ambiguous. It’s why Akihito felt he had to step down. He was becoming too old to effectively carry out what he considered his duties as the Emperor, even though there is no provision in the law to allow him to leave the throne before he dies. Akihito, as well as Michiko, felt that “fortifying” the symbolism of the imperial household required “hard work.” By that standard, Naruhito’s status is as unclear as his grandfather’s was, and Hara finds it strange that the present Emperor’s “stance” has not been criticized, which would seem to indicate that “the Japanese people are just losing interest in the Emperor.” The former Emperor was always a vivid presence, and, in fact, remains a more engaging figure in retirement than his son is while actually occupying the throne. Even the crown prince, Akishinomiya, attracts more attention than Naruhito due to his son, the only younger male heir in the royal family.

Though Hara’s remarks don’t sound particularly controversial, at the beginning of the interview he states that he often discusses such topics with media outlets but generally his statements are “edited” so as to not cause any “offense.” Asahi assures the reader that this will not be the case with this interview, but Hara is not so much critical of the present Emperor as bemused by the debate among the political leadership and the general population as to what the Emperor is supposed to mean to them. He is especially perplexed by how Empress Masako has been wasted by the Imperial Household Agency. She was a professional diplomat before marrying Naruhito and her position has been overshadowed by her “adjustment disorder,” a condition that implicitly condemns the closed nature of the palace. Hara believes that, as a symbol of the monarchy, she is valuable: She should be encouraging all Japanese women to participate more constructively in society. The suppression of her capabilities simply reinforces the world’s view of Japan as a patriarchy that keeps half its population down.

Akihito, says Hara, demonstrated how an emperor could take matters into his own hands. He tried to erase the image of his father as a man who avoided taking responsibility for the greatest tragedy to befall Japan. Conservative elements criticized Akihito for literally “kneeling in front of people” when he visited evacuation centers, and yet he didn’t change. These elements insisted he limit his activities to carrying out palace rituals, most of which were invented during the Meiji era so as to make the monarchy self-justifying. The irony here is that Naruhito is, by his own account, a student of history and certainly knows about these “manufactured traditions.” Though he doesn’t have the power to change or abolish them, his father bucked the system when he went out to meet the people.

That’s why the argument over succession is a specious one. Much is made of the unbroken bloodline that has characterized the Japanese Emperor System. It’s why only males from the male side of the line are permitted on the throne, but Hara points out that nearly half the emperors in the past were illegitimate. Since there is no longer a consort system, it is extremely difficult to maintain a purely male line, which is why those who wish to do so are insisting the peerage be revived so as to provide a larger pool of prospective male heirs. But if you look at history, again, you’ll find that most Japanese nobility belong to a line of succession that was already several degrees removed from the central bloodline centuries ago. Would the public accept this solution, even if it understood it?

Hara doesn’t even seem to think that allowing a female emperor is the solution, because a female emperor would still have to give birth to an heir in order to maintain the line, which means she would have to marry, even if she didn’t want to. The Japanese people have “embraced diversity,” says Hara, which has no place in the Emperor System. The idea of “maintaining the system at any cost” is basically anathema to most Japanese, since the system is, by nature, exclusionary. They aren’t comfortable with the idea of an Emperor who serves whichever ideological position is at hand. Even left wing elements, who would normally be against the whole system, idolized Akihito because they thought he was a bulwark against changing the Constitution. Regardless of the Emperor’s approach to his duties, political actors will use him as they see fit, just as the young officers used him during the Feb. 26, 1936 coup attempt. 

The media did something similar with Akihito. By offering extensive coverage of his activities they “maximized” the authority of the palace, which was certainly not Akihito’s intent. When the interviewer comments that, in surveys, 70 percent of the people support “a symbolic Emperor System,” Hara replies that, per the Constitution, it is up to the people alone to discuss and decide the fate of the emperor, and yet the media has always elevated him beyond the people’s reach, mainly by using special language that is only appropriate for the royal family. The people were moved by Akihito’s abdication speech, because it was only the second time in history that an emperor had expressly declared that he is “human.” And it was a speech directed at the people, not the government or the media. Consequently, the government was compelled to change the law in order to allow him to step down. The emperor is not supposed to have political power, and yet he used what power he had over public opinion to get what he wanted. The media, says Hara, didn’t know how to talk about it.

The purposely arcane nature of the Emperor System is beyond most people’s understanding, and, for what it’s worth, nobody really cares, even nominal conservatives who pretend to worship the Emperor for the sake of tradition. But Hara believes it is the media’s task to explain these things so that people can really decide if they want or need the Emperor system. That will always be difficult as long as taboos rule.