Welcome! A nice and informed comment, and I hope you will post your thoughts again in the future.
Thank you very much, for the friendly welcome and for the compliment.
From your post, I can understand that the "coincidence" of the informal public engagement of Mako and Kei (many years after they became engaged privately) occurring at precisely the moment when it was most likely to persuade the public to support female branches was likely not accidental.
I am, for one, convinced that it was not.
At the time of the expert hearings concerning the imperial succession, female branches etc., several years ago, Prince Akishino was on his birthday press conference asked for his thoughts on the issue. He said he´d prefer the lawmakers to come to a decision quickly as he wanted his daughters to marry early. I found that odd at the time because Akishino never struck me as the type of father who would pay that much attention to the emotional needs of his daughters as to have a strong opinion on when they should marry. So, when Mako´s engagement was published and it was made known that the couple had been together for years, I had a lightbulb moment: when Akishino made that remark about early marriage, he clearly was already aware of Mako´s commitment to Komuro.
Their actions to prevent the enactment of Koizumi's planned bill in 2006 were what finally ensured the imperial family would become radically smaller over the next 40-50 years - likely shrinking to 2 working royals at the lowest point (whereas as many as 16 just in Aiko's generation would have been possible had they just passively allowed Koizumi's reforms to succeed).
Yes, it is indeed ironic that the emperor and empress are now fighting and struggling to get a law passed that they themselves helped to prevent but a few years ago.
Had Princess Kiko´s third pregnancy been published but a few months later than it actually was, imperial princesses would by now in all probability have the right to stay in the family when they marry.
I have doubts about the imperial family playing a role in the first leaks. Ms. Komuro's ex-fiancé has seemed extremely willing to do his part in tarnishing the reputation of his former fiancée and her son.
I suppose there are - in the lives of all of us - some people who would be quite happy to tarnish our reputation (particularly if they had the additional hope of getting a financial benefit from it) if the opportunity arose. Fortunately, that is not that often the case as most of us don´t intend to marry a royal.
The imperial family is used to dealing with the pitfalls that come with a life in the spotlight. They are known to usually ignore that sort of nastiness (and at the utmost comment it by saying they won´t comment). By asking Komuro for a press conference, Prince Akishino lent a credibility to those tabloid stories that they could not have attained in any other way.
I may be wrong in my guess that the imperial family leaked the rumours. But if they did not they certainly made the most of them to put down Komuro. Much more imo than was necessary in order to save their own face. Besides, I think the timing is highly suspicious. Why did not the fiancé come forward right after the engagement was made public? Why wait such a long time? From his point of view, the timing makes no sense whatsoever. From the point of view of the imperial family, in contrast, it would be perfectly logical...
Besides, if you take a closer look it´s a really really harmless story. I tend to believe Komuros explanation. He may be naive but he is honest. Compare the accusations against his mother to those against the grandfather of the crown princess (Egashira). I do not think that there is any room for debate in that her family background is much worse than Komuros in that respect. Still, she is the crown princess and will be the empress. But Komuro would not be deemed worthy of marrying a princess who would become a commoner anyway after the wedding? Give me a break.
The imperial family is making this much bigger than it had to be. They
could have done the contrary. After the engagement, there were tabloid stories quoting people close to Komuro who said he was such a noble character that he would be worthy of being a prince. I think we see the influence of the imperial family there clearly... If they did not leak the rumours against Komuro it, at least, would have been in their power to get other tabloids to defend him. But they did not. Komuro´s reputation does not matter to them. That of the Empress, however, obviously matters very much as someone - was it you? sorry, I forgot - already took the trouble of pointing out in this thread.