Loving nature: Hisahito is pictured at a garden of the Akasaka imperial property residence in Tokyo. — AFP
THE nation got a new highly eligible bachelor yesterday as Prince Hisahito, the imperial family’s last hope for long-term survival unless the rules are changed to allow female succession, turned 18.
Although his formal coming-of-age ceremony has been pushed back to at least 2025 so he can finish school, according to the Imperial Household Agency, they released a video of him strolling in the woods, saying he is “extremely interested” in natural history.
“I hope to learn more through each and every experience, absorbing various aspects and growing through them,” the prince was quoted as saying.
Hisahito is the only son of Crown Prince Akishino, 58, and Crown Princess Kiko, 57, and is second-in-line to succeed his uncle Emperor Naruhito, 64.
Naruhito has a daughter, Aiko, 22, but she cannot succeed her father under the Imperial Household Law, in place since 1947, because of her gender.
Royal women must also leave the family when they wed a commoner – as in 2021, when former princess Mako, Hisahito’s other sister, married her university sweetheart.
The same rule does not apply to male members of the family, however, with Naruhito’s father Akihito, 90, having wed Michiko, 89, the daughter of a flour magnate whom he met on a tennis court in 1959.
The imperial family, whose history according to legend goes back 2,600 years, formally renounced its divine status after Japan’s defeat in World War II and it has no political power.
Akihito, who abdicated in 2019 due to his age and poor health, is credited with modernising the institution.
Aside from Hisahito and his father, the only other heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne is the emperor’s childless uncle Prince Hitachi, 88. — AFP
