Word: naruhito
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...modern sense, you couldn't ask for a more qualified crown princess than Masako. Daughter of a Japanese diplomat, educated at Harvard, Oxford and the University of Tokyo, Masako was so dedicated to her budding career in Japan's Foreign Ministry that she rebuffed Crown Prince Naruhito's engagement proposal for five years before finally marrying him in 1993. "I thought she was so striking and cool," says Harumi Kobayashi, a fan who has published three books on Masako...
...problem began with Princess Masako. An accomplished Harvard-educated diplomat, fluent in four languages, Masako married Crown Prince Naruhito in 1993 and was expected to bring a welcome dose of feminism to the stuffy Japanese imperial family. Instead, Masako was swallowed whole by the all-powerful Imperial Household Agency (IHA), the palace insiders that guard - and, according to some observers, dominate - the lives of the royal family. Unlike the British royals, for instance, the Japanese imperial family's schedule is completely controlled by the IHA. They aren't allowed to have opinions, passports or even last names. Stifled...
...panel to develop suggestions for warding off a looming succession crisis in the imperial family. By law and eons of tradition, the Japanese throne can pass only to males with emperors on the father's side. But no boys have been born into the family since 1965. Crown Prince Naruhito, 45, and his wife Masako, 42, have had only one daughter, 4-year-old Aiko. Naruhito's brother, Prince Akishino, 40, and his wife, Kiko, 39, have two daughters. So Koizumi's panel suggested that succession should pass to the Emperor's firstborn, regardless of gender. Assuming that Naruhito succeeds...
Last year may go down as the one in which the Japanese imperial family finally caught up with the Windsors in the dysfunction department. The saga began last May when Crown Prince Naruhito told reporters at a press conference that his wife, Masako, who has withdrawn from public life since December 2003, was suffering from exhaustion due to "acts" that denied the princess her career, her individuality and even trips abroad. (Masako was a career diplomat before she married Naruhito.) The crown prince said: "From what I have seen, she seems completely exhausted...
...Naruhito's comments were unprecedented in severity and directness, and they set off a flurry of speculation about who was making Masako so miserable. (Which was only fueled by a later announcement by the Imperial Household Agency that the unhappy princess had been diagnosed with an "adjustment disorder.") The favorite target of the press was the agency, the secretive bureaucracy that micromanages the Japanese royals, which is allegedly concerned that the 41-year-old Masako has given birth only to a daughter, Princess Aiko, who cannot succeed to the throne. The agency has gone so far as to request Emperor...