In a rare public appearance after several months of seclusion after having a nervous breakdown of sorts, Japanese Crown Princess Masako appeared in public as the palace released home videos of her two-year-old daughter, Aiko. This rare peek behind "The Chrysanthemum Throne" is a calculated maneuver towards the importance of publicity, something that, one could argue, until recently, royals never really had to worry about.
The Japanese Imperial Family is rarely covered due to conservative press opinion in Japan of matters royal. The American press is not so conservative. Recently, however, there has been a "quiet crisis" -- how very Japanese Zen, no? -- as Japan Media Review reports:
" ... in recent months the royal household has been getting a bit more publicity than it's used to -- and unusually bad publicity at that. The popular Crown Princess Masako, under pressure to bear an heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne, has not been seen in public for months and reportedly suffered a nervous breakdown. In May her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, stunned the press and public by using a routine press conference to allocate blame for his wife's illness and make a thinly veiled attack on Imperial Household Agency bureaucrats."
"The Japanese Imperial family is undergoing a quiet crisis. In the short-term it seems likely that the rules will have to be changed to allow the couple's only daughter Aiko to one day become empress. A long-term problem is that, if not actively disliked, more and more the Imperial family is simply ignored. Some commentators believe that public indifference to the Imperial family is the result of its growing irrelevance to modern Japan. They say it needs to find a new role for itself before the Japanese public loses interest completely. "
Unfortunaltely, Japan clings to an archaic code whereas women are not allowed to succede to the throne, and thus, Reuters reports, the stress of Crown Princess Masako:
"Royal watchers say much of the stress comes from pressure on her to produce a male heir and from moves to prevent her from acting as a sort of 'royal envoy' overseas.
"Aiko is the couple's only child and laws prohibit female succession. No boys have been born into the imperial family since Akishino, Naruhito's younger brother, in 1965. Both of Akishino's children are girls.
"Before this month, Masako had not left the palace since late April, when she returned from a month at her parents' vacation house in the resort town of Karuizawa, northwest of Tokyo. On the same day as the royal family arrived in Nasu, the Imperial Household Agency released pictures and home videos of Masako's two-year-old daughter.
"One video, aired on television, showed Aiko looking at a picture book and talking out loud as her father captured the scene on video.
"'Are you ready yet? Not yet,' Aiko said, repeating a verse used by children in Japan when they play hide and seek.
"Other video footage showed Aiko, wearing a light-blue dress, playing a harp with Masako, and the two of them dancing."
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