This feels so backwards.
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
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It’s always japan. They rushed everything except culture in the race
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?
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?
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, but its 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/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_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.
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!
Osu-!
Reality is always more complicated than a snap take by a arm chair quarterback.
Same for the fascists and mafia in Italy, they weren't purged because communists bad
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!
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.
So they're like maga
And that is the mechanism the major religions exploit. Or monarchies. Or both.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But France feels like an exception though. I wouldn't say tourists are flocking to Albania or Austria to see the relics of their monarchies like people do with France.
There's a real appeal behind having an active monarchy in place, even if it's just symbolic. Take the UK as an example of this. One of the bigger draws to the country is that you get see all these monarchy related things places that are still occupied and used by a real royal family that has real historical depth and influence.
I can't speak to Albania, but Austria has a massive amount of tourism and Schönbrunn Palace is the most visited attraction in the country. The Belvedere palaces are up there, too. I think the reason that London, Paris, and Vienna receive so much tourism is related to their being former imperial metropoles rather than anything to do with how current or not the royal family is.
There are better ways to counter a cult of personality than a cult of divine providence.
I almost could agree in principle that's how it might work, but as a person living in a monarchy (UK), they literally just protect their own and the establishment, every time. The status quo isn't apolitical but deeply conservative.
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:
Live action Porco Rosso is looking rather different
TIL that Japan has royal family.
And their dinasty at least dates back to the 6th century
Well.... 6th century BC... maybe, depending on how much you trust the sometimes sketchy historical accounts.
It was the one term of their surrender.
Abolish monarchies
I personally don't care either way about the Japanese monarchy. The reality is that the monarchy today is purely symbolic and it's only kept because the Japanese people want it to be there. Japanese culture is very big on traditions like this and I highly doubt that any attempts to change the line of succession is going to happen. Like with many things in Japan, there's probably more interest in changing the line of succession outside of Japan than there is inside of it.
These monarchists enjoy hurting themselves all day, can't relate.