Prince Hisahito, the third child and only son of Prince and Princess Akishino, turned three on September 6th. Hisahito is the first male child born to the Imperial Family in 41 years and currently holds third place in line to the Japanese Throne, after his uncle and father. Prince Hisahito has 2 older sisters, 17 years old Princess Mako and 14 years old Princess Kako.

click to view full-sized image from Japan Times

Pictures released on occasion of Prince Hisahito’s birthday show him riding a bicycle and later, dressed in traditional Japanese attire. According to reports, the little Prince is a lively boy who enjoys outdoor activities, playing with toy balls and helping with gardening. He is currently 3’1’’ tall and weighs about 30 lbs.

His parents and sisters affectionately call him ‘Yuyu’, ‘Yu-chan’ and ‘Hisahito-Kun’.

Before Prince Hisahito’s birth, the Imperial Family of Japan had been plagued by lack of male heirs. That led to increasingly vocal calls to amend the Imperial Succession Laws so that Princess Aiko, the only child of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, could ascend to the Throne one day. However, with the birth of the male Heir, the calls for Imperial equality have been largely stifled: in 2007, Prince Minister Shinzo Abe officially announced that he would not go forward with plans to alter the succession laws. Since Prince Hisahito’s birth, his parents have acquired a more prominent role in the Imperial Family: as critics note, they are often called to fulfil engagements befitting the Crown Prince and Princess.

You can find more information about Prince Hisahito, including pictures and videos from his birthday, in this thread.

Marsel Japanese Royals Birthday, Portraits, Prince Hisahito, Succession

Click for the photo at Reuters

 Jordan’s King Abdullah II issued a decree on Thursday naming his eldest son, Hussein 15 years old as crown prince. In a palace statement that was released yesterday said “immediately assume the title and privileges of his post”.

The post of heir apparent has been un-named since 2004 when King Abdullah removed the crown prince title from his half brother, Hamzeh. King Abdullah became King in 1999. Queen Rania is the mother of Crown Prince Hussein.

dazzling Jordanian Royals Abdullah II, Prince Hussein, Succession

Click here to see the photo at belgapicture

According to a report in the Asahi Shimbun, a team of archaeologists have examined artifacts from near Hashihaka, a 280-meter key-hole shaped burial mound, and have discovered evidence that the ancient tomb may belong to Himiko or, in Chinese, Pimiko, the legendary third-century shaman queen of the Yamatai kingdom in Japan. Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers found out that clay fragments from the rim of the mound were made between 240 and 260 A.D., just the time around which the queen is reported by Chinese sources to have died. In addition, an ancient Chinese chronicle, the “Records of Wei“, says: “When Pimiko passed away, a great mound was raised, more than a hundred paces in diameter. Over a hundred male and female attendants followed her to the grave.” And the burial mound, that is situated in the town of Sakurai, near the ancient capital of Nara in central Japan, is, in fact, much larger than other ancient tombs built before or at the same time in Japan. The nearest one in size measures just 110 meters in length. (Article)

The discovery is likely to provoke new debate over Japanese history and the royal family, which the Imperial Household Agency still claims is descended from the mythical sun goddess Amaterasu. Queen Himiko is mentioned several times in records from the Chinese court, with which the Yamatai kingdom had links, but the earliest Japanese sources, compiled in the 8th century, fail to mention her, with but one remarkable exception. Read more…

ChiaraC Historical Royals, Japanese Royals Ancient Tombs, Imperial Household Agency, Queen Himiko, Succession

 The Danish Constitution on the Act of Succession will be ammended to allow the monarch’s first-born child of either gender to succeed the throne, following the successful referendum on equal primogeniture this weekend.

According to Politiken.dk, 45.5% of the entire Danish electorate (4.03 million Danes) voted in favour of the proposed change, which will see future first-born daughters of Danish monarchs retain their place in the order of succession even if a younger brother is born. At least 40% of the electorate was required to vote ‘yes’ to the referendum for it to pass. 59% of eligible Danes voted, with 7.8% voting ‘no’ and 5.3% casting a blank vote.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told his Liberal Party that, “It’s a strong signal that shows that we want to be a society where men and women have the same opportunities, whether it’s for ordinary people or princes and princesses,” after the result was announced.

It was unsure just two hours before the polls closed if the ammendment would pass. Exit polls provided by Politiken and TV2 stated that only 75.5% of those who turned out to vote had voted ‘yes’ – which overall created a 37.9% ‘yes’ from the total electorate, falling 2.1% short of the required target.

This caused Prime Minister Rasmussen to tell the Danes that, “The polling stations are open until 8 pm. I appeal, of course, to people to use their right to vote, and if you share our point of views to vote in favour,” via TV2.

Doubt was also raised months ago when the referendum was announced to be held on the same weekend as the elections for the European Parliament (where Denmark has 14 seats), which generally see a lower voter turn-out than national elections. The fact that this law will not have any large effect on the succession until at least second-in-line Prince Christian has children also caused debate about the reason of holding the referendum in 2009.

Read more about the succession referendum here.

JessRulz Danish Royals Elections, Prime Minister Rasmussen, Prince Christian of Denmark, Succession

Click for the photo at royalblog.nl

Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko are presently on a two-week goodwill tour of Europe that began in Austria and took them in the following to Bulgaria and Hungary. The fourth and last leg of their journey is going to be Romania. The visits are taking place in order to celebrate the 140th year of Japanese diplomatic ties with Austria and Hungary and the 50th year since Tokyo resumed formal relations with Bulgaria and Romania.

Last Thursday the couple was welcomed by Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov and his wife Zorka at the Presidential Palace in Sofia. On Friday, the prince and Parvanov were to open a replica of a famous Thracian tomb, funded by the Japanese government. On the royal programme were also visits to the golden-domed Alexander Nevski cathedral in Sofia and the Boyana Church, a UNESCO World Heritage site. At 18th secondary school “William Gladstone” as well as at Sofia University the prince and princess met with pupils, students and lecturers in Japanese studies.

On Saturday, the royal couple were received by Bulgaria’s former king and premier Simeon Saxe Coburg and his wife Margarita (Article) before they travelled on to Hungary where they visited an exhibition of Japanese design in Budapest’s Museum of Applied Arts. (Article) They went to see the Budapest Zoo and the Hungarian Museum of Agriculture on the following day. On Monday they met with Hungary´s President Laszlo Solyom who discussed environmental issues with his guests before presenting them with presents of a Herend porcelain bird and a zither.

Yesterday, Prince and Princess Akishino arrived on the fourth leg of their tour, in Romania, where they were scheduled to visit the Japanese School before meeting with Romanian President Traian Basescu and his wife Maria today at Cotroceni Palace in Romania´s capital Bucharest. (Article) Read more…

ChiaraC Japanese Royals Bulgaria, Hungary, Official Visit, Prince Akishino, Princess Kiko, Princess Masako, Romania, Succession

Click here to read an article about the couple´s visit to Bulgaria

 On May 10, Prince and Princess Akishino are expected in Austria for a four-day visit. They are scheduled to visit there Klosterneuburg diocese, Vienna’s Schönbrunn Castle, the Neusiedler Lake National Park in the province of Burgenland as well as the Japanese school of Vienna and the capital’s Museum for Natural History. 

Princess Akishino’s stay in the European country will probably remind the Japanese princess of happy times, as the former Kiko Kawashima attended elementary and high school in Austria when her father, Tatsuhiko Kawashima, became the chief researcher at The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, near Vienna. Stemming from that time, the princess is fluent in German. That Princess Kiko, as she is informally called, has always kept in touch with some of her father´s old friends in Austria, Norbert and Gabriele Orac, became obvious to the public in summer 2006 when the couple invited her eldest daughter, Princess Mako, for a two-weeks stay at their home in the suburbs of Vienna.

Prince and Princess Akishino will continue their trip by departing for Bulgaria on May 13 where they will stay until May 16, in order to mark the 50th anniversary of the reinstatement of diplomatic relations between Bulgaria and Japan. The couple will also visit Hungary and Romania, as 2009 is proclaimed the year of friendship between Japan and the Danube states. In January, Bulgaria’s President, Georgi Parvanov, and his wife, Zorka Parvanova, paid an official visit to Japan. (Photo)

Read more…

ChiaraC Japanese Royals Austria, Bulgaria, Official Visit, Prince Akishino, Prince Hisahito, Princess Kiko, Succession

Click here to view the photo at wikimedia.org

According to the Imperial Household Agency, Prince Yoshihito (who was to become Emperor Taisho afterwards) and Princess Sadako were married in a small ceremony at eight o’clock in the morning on May 10, 1900; at the Imperial Shrine on the palace grounds in Tokyo. Only members of their immediate families attended the rites, and on April 29, 1901; nearly one year after the wedding, their first son, Hirohito, was born.

At least, that is the official story given and repeated in most histories of Japan. But court gossip tells another tale, and its version is strongly supported by Count Yoshinori Futara, the personal “public relations adviser” of the Emperor for a time, who wrote in 1928 that Prince Hirohito was “born on the night of April 29, 1900″ – exactly one year before the date that is officially presented to the public.

Read more…

ChiaraC Historical Royals, Japanese Royals Emperor Hirohito, Emperor Meiji, Emperor Taisho, Empress Teimei, Succession

Click the image to see the photo at Mainichi Daily News

  Crown Prince Naruhito, the next heir to the Chrysanthemum throne, is celebrating his 49th birthday today. On this occasion he has given a news conference last Friday in his Tokyo residence. The Crown Prince expressed his concern for his overworked father´s burden and promised to do all he could to help alleviating it. Concerning his ailing wife, Crown Princess Masako, the Prince said that he does not expect her to hurry in expanding her official duties and that he would support her in taking careful steps so that her condition would not regress due to pushing herself too hard. When during this conference a reporter asked for his opinion on the imperial succession, the Prince stated that he would prefer not to make any comments on the issue even though he acknowledged its importance (read an article by the Japan Times here and one by GMA News.tv here).
One has to know something about the background and the internals of the Japanese imperials in order to really be able to appreciate the Prince´s intentions and to understand why he choose to stay silent on a matter that for every royal house is usually of the utmost importance: “Who will succeed to the throne in the generation after him?”

Read more…

ChiaraC Japanese Royals Birthday, Prince Naruhito, Succession