The Imperial Household Agency has announced that the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Japan will complete the rituals for their investiture on 26 April in a shrine ceremony.
The couple is currently on a tour of three of Japan’s most important prefectures, Mie, Nara and Kyoto; they left on 20 and will finish their visit on 23 April.
The 26th will mark the end of their investiture ceremony with a visit to three complexes: the Mausoleums of Emperors Showa and Taisho and the Musashi Mausoleum Cemetery.
All these visits are part of the rituals that mark the beginning of the Crown Princely Couple’s new roles within the Imperial Family.
Crown Prince Fumihito has been the heir presumptive to the Japanese throne since November 2020, during a ceremony in the capital Tokyo.
This proclamation came 18 months after his brother became Emperor of Japan, following the abdication of their father, Emperor Emeritus Akihito.
Crown Prince Fumihito and Crown Princess Kiko got married in 1990 and have three children: Mako Komuro, who recently made headlines as the latest member to be forced to abandon the Imperial Family for marrying a commoner, Princess Kako and young Prince Hisahito, who recently began high school.
Upon Naruhito’s ascension to the throne, Japan began its new Reiwa era, with the country’s government explaining the word as meaning “beautiful harmony.”
The end of the Crown Princely Couple’s investiture ceremony will mark another important step for the Emperor to consolidate his own reign, now certain of having a successor.
Japanese Imperial Law states that females are not eligible to be in the succession line for the throne, and that, while it is acceptable for male members of the family to marry commoners, females have to renounce their places in the Imperial Family if they want to do that.
This law has sparked an intense debate, especially among royal watchers around the world, seeing as though the current Imperial Couple have a daughter, Princess Aiko, who is currently excluded from inheriting Japan’s throne.
