Akihito

Emperor Akihito (Japanese: 明仁) (born December 23, 1933) is the current Emperor (天皇, tennō) of Japan and the 125th according to the traditional order of succession. He is the world's only reigning emperor.

In Japan, the reigning emperor is never referred to by his first name, but rather is referred to simply as tennō heika (天皇陛下, "His Majesty the Emperor"). The era of Emperor Akihito's reign bears the name "Heisei" (平成), and by custom, after his death, he will be renamed "Emperor Heisei".

Akihito is the eldest son and the fifth child of the Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) and the Empress Kōjun (Nagako). He is also first cousin once removed of Princess Bangja, the last crown princess of Korea. Titled Prince Tsugu (継宮, Tsugu-no-miya) as a child, he was raised and educated by his private tutors and then attended the Boy's Elementary and Secondary Departments of the Peers' School (Gakushuin) from 1940 to 1952. He was separated from his parents at the age of three.

During the American firebombing raids on Tokyo in March 1945, he and his younger brother, HIH The Prince Masahito (now Prince Hitachi), were evacuated from Tokyo. During the American occupation of Japan following World War II, Prince Akihito was tutored in English by Elizabeth Gray Vining. He briefly studied at the Department of Political Science at Gakushuin University in Tokyo, although he never received a degree. However, he later became an amateur specialist of ichthyology and published numerous papers and books about gobiid fish. Although he was heir-apparent to the Chrysanthemum Throne from the moment of his birth, his formal investiture as Crown Prince (Rittaishi-no-rei, 立太子の礼) was held at the Kokyo Imperial Palace on November 10, 1951.

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan

In June 1953, Crown Prince Akihito represented Japan at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. On April 10, 1959, he married Miss Michiko Shoda (born October 24, 1934), the eldest daughter of Mr. Hidesaburo Shoda, the president and later honorary chairman of Nisshin Flour Milling Company. The marriage broke all precedents as the new Crown Princess was the first commoner to marry into the imperial family. Then-Crown Prince Akihito and Crown Princess Michiko made official visits to thirty-seven countries. The Crown Prince assumed the throne after the death of his father on January 7, 1989, formally becoming the 125th Japanese monarch on November 12, 1990. In 1998, during a state visit to the United Kindom he was invested with the Order of the Garter.

Since succeeding to the throne, Emperor Akihito has made an effort to bring the imperial family closer to the Japanese people. The Emperor and Empress Michiko of Japan have made official visits to eighteen countries, as well as all forty-seven Prefectures of Japan. The emperor and the empress have three children:

HIH The Crown Prince Naruhito (b. February 23, 1960),
HIH The Prince Akishino (Fumihito, b. November 11, 1965, titled Akishino-no-miya) and
HIH The Princess Sayako (titled, Nori-no-miya, or Princess Nori, b. April 18, 1969).

Despite being constrained by his constitutional position, he also issued several wide-ranging statements of remorse to Korea and China, for their suffering under Japanese occupation, beginning with an expression of remorse to China made in April 1989, three months after the death of his father, Hirohito.

On December 23, 2001, during his annual birthday meeting with reporters, the emperor, in response to a reporter's question, remarked that he felt a "certain kinship with Korea", and went on to explain his feeling as resulting from the fact that the mother of Emperor Kammu (736–806) was a descendant of a Korean dynasty Muryeong of Baekje as documented in Shoku Nihongi. The emperor also noted that Koreans who migrated to Japan in ancient times introduced important aspects of culture and technology to the country, and then called upon his countrymen never to forget the regrettable fact that Japan’s exchanges with Korea have not all been so friendly.

In June 2005, the emperor visited the U.S. territory of Saipan, the site of one of the most important World War II battles from June 15 to July 9, 1944. Accompanied by Empress Michiko, he offered prayers and flowers at several memorials, honouring not only the Japanese who died, but also American soldiers, Koreans forced to fight for Japan, and local islanders. It was the first trip by a Japanese monarch to a World War II battlefield abroad. The Saipan journey was received with high praise by the Japanese people, just as during the emperor's visits to war memorials in Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Okinawa in 1995.