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What do Japanese Crown Prince Akishino’s complaints reveal about royal rivalry and private frustrations?
- Akishino ignored royal protocol to discuss his daughter’s wedding plans and his own imperial duties, prompting speculation ‘he has his own agenda’
- He also suggested the retirement from public life of the former emperor and empress has left too few royals to carry out official duties
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The Japanese prince second in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne has courted controversy by ignoring royal protocol to discuss his oldest daughter’s marriage plans and the workload of the imperial family.
Less than two months after his brother, Naruhito, became emperor, Crown Prince Akishino and his wife, Princess Kiko, on Friday spoke to the local press in Tokyo ahead of their departure this week for their first official visit to Poland and Finland.
Asked about the planned marriage of his daughter, Princess Mako, to her commoner fiancé, Kei Komuro, the prince replied: “I have not heard from my daughter about it, so I do not know how things are at this stage and what she thinks about it.”
Media opportunities involving the Imperial Household Agency are tightly choreographed and usually produce little more than niceties. In light of that, Akishino’s frank admission he has not spoken with his daughter about the on-off wedding was unusual.
In September 2017, Princess Mako announced plans for her engagement to Komuro, a law student, and the wedding was subsequently pencilled in for November 2018. It was put on hold, though, when it was revealed Komuro’s mother had been involved in a dispute with a former boyfriend over money he loaned her to pay for Komuro’s university fees.
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