Emperor Akihito is considered a symbol of “the state and unity” of the Japanese people. He is also head of the Japanese Imperial Family, the oldest continuing hereditary monarchy in the world.
Mythology holds that Emperor Jimmu, a descendant of the Shinto Sun Goddess Amaterasu, was enthroned in 660 B.C. But scholars agree that emperors have reigned in Japan for more than 1,500 years – and that they have all descended from the same imperial family.
For centuries, the reigning sovereign was thought to have divine powers. But that changed in the aftermath of the Second World War, a conflict that reduced much of Japan to rubble and ashes, and knocked the royal family from its lofty pedestal.
After the First World War, Japan became increasingly militaristic, a stance fuelled by Shinto mythology, a nostalgia for the Bushido warrior code, and overarching nationalism. It attacked China in the 1930s and established a brutal occupation of much of that country’s coast.
Early in the Second World War, Japan joined forces with Germany and Italy in their fight against the Allies. But despite its early astounding victories, Japan was eventually brought to its knees with both conventional and atomic weapons, and Emperor Hirohito (Showa to the Japanese) was forced to sign an unconditional surrender.
The war had left Japan devastated. By 1945, almost all its major cities were in ruins, industry and transportation networks were obliterated and the people were grappling with severe food shortages.
That year, Allied Powers moved in and began a seven-year occupation.
War crime trials were held, and hundreds of military personnel were executed. Though he had been supreme commander of the Japanese army and navy, Hirohito and all members of the imperial family were exonerated by Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of the Allied powers.
Nonetheless, the emperor was stripped of all political and military power in a constitution that was established in 1947.
He renounced any ties to divinity, and Japan’s emperor has been a ceremonial figurehead in a constitutional monarchy ever since.
Hirohito’s son, Akihito, became Japan’s 125th emperor in 1989. He is married to Empress Michiko, the first empress in Japan’s long imperial history who did not come from the nobility.
Their eldest son, Crown Prince Naruhito, is first in line to the throne. His brother, Prince Akishino, is next in line.
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