Who is Naruhito, Japan’s new emperor?

Japan’s Emperor Akihito has marked the end of his three-decade reign with a ceremony in Tokyo as he prepares to abdicates in favour of his son, Crown Prince Naruhito.

Akihito, 85, is the first emperor to step down from the Chrysanthemum Throne in more than 200 years. The Taiirei-Seiden-no-Gi ritual, or main Ceremony of the Abdication of His Majesty the Emperor, took place in the Matsu-no-Ma state room at the Imperial Palace in the Japanese capital.

On Wednesday, Crown Prince Naruhito will be handed the Imperial Treasures in his first ritual as emperor. The royal will inherit “regalia that includes a sacred sword and jewels in a ceremony that will serve as the proof of ascension”, says Bloomberg.

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His nation is marking the occasion by extending its annual spring holidays - known as Golden Week - to an unprecedented ten days off.

Although Japanese emperors hold no political power, they serve as a national symbol. Emperor Akihito's reign “has been marked by his interactions with people suffering from disease and disaster, which have endeared him to many Japanese people”, says the BBC.

Akihito first voiced his desire to abdicate in 2016, citing concerns about his age and declining health. Opinion polls showed that the vast majority of his citizens were sympathetic to his wish to retire, and a special panel then set 30 April 2019 as the date for the end of his imperial era - known as Heisei, which can be translated as “achieving peace”.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced that Naruhito’s reign will be the “Reiwa” era. The term is made up of the two Japanese characters Rei, which means “commands” or “order”, and Wa, meaning “harmony” or “peace”.

Although gengo names are “traditionally drawn from classical Chinese literature”, Reiwa “breaks a 1,300-year streak by coming from Japanese poetry, the seventh century collection Manyoshu”, The Independent reports.

“Over time, the gengo comes to symbolise the national mood of a period, similar to how ‘the 1960s’ evokes certain images,” says Reuters.

Who is Naruhito?

Naruhito was born on 23 February 1960 in Tokyo and officially became crown prince following the death of his grandfather, Emperor Showa, in 1989.

Naruhito was the first member of the Japanese Imperial Family to study in England, according to specialist news site Royal Central.

To mark his rise to the throne, his first autobiography, The Thames and I, has been republished in English. The book covers his time as a postgraduate student at Merton College, Oxford, where he studied the historical use of the River Thames for transport.

Despite his royal title and status, the crown prince was “keen to absorb himself as much as possible into student life, even to living in a dormitory with other students”, the site adds.

According to The Japan Times, Naruhito harbours a “lifelong aspiration to emulate his parents, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, whom he has lauded for their strong identification with the public”, and has “repeatedly voiced his vision of an ideal emperor - one who can ‘share the joys and sorrows of the people’ and always remain close to them in their thoughts”.

In 1993, he married Masako Owada, a “high-flying, Harvard-educated diplomat”, the newspaper adds. They have one child, Princess Aiko, now 17.

Traditionally, women have been viewed as the child-rearers in Japanese society while fathers were expected to act as breadwinners, but Naruhito “has bucked tradition and advocated for a hands-on approach with Aiko”, says Time.

The next emperor, who took turns bathing and feeding his daughter in infancy, is “a symbol of a new definition of fatherhood”, Ken Ruoff, director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University, told the US magazine.

But one area where there will be continuity is in Naruhito’s desire to carry on the work done by his father in improving their country’s global image.

Emperor Akihito “never shied away from... showing ‘deep remorse’ and ‘sorrow’ for Japan’s aggression in Asia” during the Second World War, Jeremy Yellen of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told Time.

“I believe that Naruhito will largely follow in his father’s footsteps, especially in his rejection of revisionist views of Japan’s wartime past,” Yellen said.

At a news conference in 2015, the crown prince said: “Although I was born after the War and did not experience it, I think that today, where memories of the War have started to fade, it is important to look back in a humble way on the past and pass on correctly the tragic experiences of war.”

In addition to his royal duties, Naruhito is also an expert on water issues, a mountain climber and a viola player.

Quartz reports that he and his wife will be have big shoes to fill as the new heads of the imperial family.

“Akihito - who in his spare time conducts research on gobies [fish] - and his wife empress Michiko are deeply loved in Japan and are widely credited for their efforts in maintaining peace and in promoting better ties with neighbours such as China and South Korea, often in contrast to the conservative Abe government,” the news site says.