Japan To South Korea: Lay Off The Emperor

TOKYO –It’s not clear if South Korean President Lee Myung-bak intended to infuriate Japan, worsen a couple of territorial disputes and complicate U.S. security...

Emperor Akihito’s Heart Surgery a Success, But Concerns for Monarchy Linger

Japan’s 78-year-old Emperor Akihito underwent successful heart bypass surgery yesterday at the University of Tokyo Hospital. The procedure, which lasted less...

Japan One Month Later: Elusive Royals Out of Seclusion to Help Victims

Apart from some miracle rescues, Japan has seen little good news in the month since catastrophe struck. Thousands of bodies have yet to be recovered, hundreds...

Akihito: The Son Also Rises

He is a slight, unprepossessing figure who has passed most of his life puttering contentedly beyond the reach of history's spotlight. His time has Akihito was...

The Excu-U-U-Se Me Citation

EMPEROR AKIHITO Koreans hoped for an abject apology for Japan's brutal occupation of their country from 1910 to 1945. What they got instead was the Emperor's...

JAPAN: The Falling Curtain

As the slender young woman in the ivory-colored dress stepped out of the limousine in front of the Tokyo palace of Crown Prince Akihito, it was all that the...

JAPAN: A Black Lily for the Prince

In the presence of so exalted a person as the Crown Prince Akihito. 24, the young girl who guided his tour of Lake Akan on the northern island of Hokkaido...

Education: Contract Renewed

For the chubby young Prince of the August Succession and Enlightened Benevolence, it had been a most enlightening year. Last week, pleased with his son's...

JAPAN: The Cautious Banzai

Had members of the imperial family not been glued to their radios, they might have been the last people in Tokyo to hear the news. When Crown Princess Michiko...

JAPAN: Son of Son of Sun

More than sheltered has been Japan's little Crown Prince Akihito; he has lived in a positive vacuum. At the age of three he was removed even from his own...