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The current line of succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne is based on the Imperial Household Law. At present, only direct male-line males are allowed to ascend the throne.
The list below contains all people currently eligible to succeed to the throne.
Emperor Shōwa (1901–1989) Emperor Akihito (b. 1933) 
Emperor Naruhito (b. 1960)The Imperial House Law of 1889 was the first Japanese law to regulate the imperial succession. Until October 1947, when it was abolished and replaced with the Imperial Household Law, it defined the succession to the throne under the principle of agnatic primogeniture.
In all instances, the succession proceeded from the eldest male heir to the youngest (Ch. I: Article 3). In the majority of cases, the legitimate sons and male heirs of an emperor were favoured over those born to concubines. Illegitimate sons would only be eligible to succeed if no other male heirs existed in the direct line; however, the illegitimate sons of an emperor had precedence over any legitimate brothers of the emperor (Ch. I: Article 4). Those in the line of succession suffering from "incurable diseases of mind or body," or when "any other weighty cause exists," could be passed over with the advice of the Imperial Family Council, headed by the emperor, and after consulting the Privy Council (Ch. I: Article 9). [1]
On 11 February 1907, an amendment was made to the Imperial House Law to reduce the numbers of imperial princes in the shinnōke and ōke, the cadet branches of the imperial family, who were fifth– or sixth-generation descendants of an emperor. The amendment provided for princes to leave the imperial family, either by imperial decree or by imperial sanction. They were then granted a family name and assumed the status of nobles with the peerage titles of marquis or count, thereby becoming subjects (Article I). Alternatively, a prince could be formally adopted into a noble family or succeed to the headship of an imperial family line as a noble (Article II). Under the terms of the amendment, those former princes and their descendants who left the imperial family were excluded from the line of succession and made ineligible to return to the imperial family at any future date (Article VI). [2] [3]
As of October 14, 1947, when the Imperial Household Law abolished the shinnōke (Princely Houses of the Blood) and ōke (Princely Houses) cadet branches, the immediate line of succession to the Japanese throne was as follows:
Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito; 1879–1926) The Emperor (Hirohito; born 1901) Prior to this date, the imperial succession was defined by the Imperial House Law of 1889. As the Taishō Emperor had no brothers, if the main family line had become extinct, the imperial line would have continued through the Fushimi-no-miya shinnōke cadet branch under the terms of the 1889 house law. The Fushimi-no-miya house constitute the nearest direct-male line of imperial descendants; the princes of this branch were descended from Prince Fushimi Kuniie (1802–1872), a 12th-generation descendant of the Northern Court pretender "Emperor" Sukō, who was himself the grandson of the 93rd emperor Go-Fushimi. Prince Fushimi Kuniie had 17 sons, 3 of which were by the prince's wife Princess Takatsukasa Hiroko (including his future heirs, Prince Sadanori and Prince Fushimi Sadanaru) and the rest were all by various concubines, of whom five begat ōke that were extant as of 1947. A 1907 amendment to the Imperial House Law further reduced the number of imperial princes eligible to succeed to the throne. Prince Chichibu and Prince Takamatsu had no known children. [4] [5] Prince Yoshi has no known children either. [6] All of the five grandchildren of Prince Mikasa who were born into the imperial family, after being conceived by sons Tomohito and Takamado, were female granddaughters as well. [7] [8] [9] [10] By the amended 1889 house law, the imperial line of succession continued as follows:
[bold - currently extant branches. Death dates given for the last living heads of extinct branches.]
Includes individuals' possible positions in the line of succession were the cadet branches to be reinstated. All princes born before October 14, 1947, lost their titles from that date.
The Nashimoto collateral branch became extinct in 1951, followed by the Yamashina in 1987, the Kan'in in 1988, and the Kitashirakawa in 2018. [12] The main Fushimi-no-miya line and the Kaya, Kuni, Asaka, Higashikuni, and Takeda collateral branches remain extant, though the present head of the Fushimi-no-miya family lacks a male heir to continue his lineage. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] Also, Fushimi is pending extinction for having no men below the age of 60.
Debate over the imperial succession was first raised in the late 1920s, after the Shōwa Emperor's accession. For the first eight years of their marriage, the emperor and empress only had girls; as a result, the emperor's younger brother, Prince Chichibu, remained first in line and heir presumptive to the throne until the birth of Crown Prince Akihito in December 1933. As a career military officer and known nationalist with radical leanings, the prince enjoyed close relations with the rightist faction in the military. During the early 1930s, his strong support for the "Imperial Way" faction in the army was an open secret; he cultivated strong friendships with several junior officers who were later instrumental in leading the revolt during the February 26 Incident. [18]
A large number of "Imperial Way" followers in the military were critical of the emperor for his scientific interests, self-effacing demeanour and presumed pacifism, considering him a "mediocre" individual easily manipulated by corrupt advisors. With his political leanings, Prince Chichibu antagonized his elder brother, who strongly reprimanded him on several occasions and arranged for his posting to unimportant positions where he could be more closely watched. Apart from Prince Chichibu, the February 26 rebels relied on the tacit support of Princes Asaka and Higashikuni, both senior army generals and imperial princes who were leaders within the "Imperial Way" faction and had close ties to prominent rightist groups. [19] If the emperor had either died or had been compelled to abdicate, Prince Chichibu would have received strong support from the rightists as the regent for Crown Prince Akihito; however, he was reported to have distanced himself from the "Imperial Way" officers following the suppression of the February 26 revolt. Still, in 1938, Prince Saionji expressed his worry that Prince Chichibu might someday usurp the throne by violent means. [20] By October 1940, however, Prince Chichibu had become seriously ill with pulmonary tuberculosis, and led a retired life from then on. He was quietly passed over in the line of succession in favour of his brother Prince Takamatsu, who began to undertake more official duties. In an emergency, Prince Takamatsu was intended to assume the regency for his nephew the Crown Prince. [17]
In July 1944, though the hopelessness of Japan's war effort became clear after the loss of Saipan, the emperor persisted in defending Prime Minister Tojo and his government and refused to dismiss him. Recognising the emperor's continued obstructiveness would lead to certain defeat, Marquess Kido Koichi, the Lord Privy Seal, quietly consulted with Konoe Fumimaro and the emperor's uncle General Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko about the possibility of forcing the emperor to abdicate in favour of his son the Crown Prince, and declaring a regency with Prince Takamatsu as regent. On 8 July, the decision was formally taken, with Prince Takamatsu endorsing it several days later. By this plan, Prince Higashikuni would replace Tojo as prime minister and attempt to negotiate a settlement with the Allies. However, the plan was ultimately dismissed as being too risky. Konoe had informed Kido of rumours that if such a situation were to arise, radicals in the military would stage a coup and take the emperor to Manchuria, still considered a safe location for a government, or replace him on the throne with a more militant imperial prince. In the event, Kido and Konoe used the influence of the Emperor’s mother, Empress Teimei, the Prince Takamatsu and his uncles the Princes Asaka and Higashikuni to pressure the emperor to ask for Tojo's resignation; this strategy proved successful, and Tojo resigned his posts on 18 July. [21]
Article 2 of the Constitution of Japan provides that "The Imperial Throne shall be dynastic and succeeded to in accordance with the Imperial Household Law passed by the Diet." The Imperial Household Law of 1947 enacted by the 92nd and last session of the Imperial Diet, retained the exclusion on female dynasts found in the 1889 law. The government of Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida cobbled together the legislation to bring the Imperial House in compliance with the American-written Constitution of Japan that went into effect in May 1947.[ citation needed ] In an effort to control the size of the imperial family, the law stipulates that only legitimate male descendants in the male line can be dynasts; that naishinnō (imperial princesses) and joō (princesses) lose their status as imperial family-members if they marry outside the imperial family; that shinnō (imperial princes), other than the crown prince, ō (princes), unmarried imperial princesses and princesses, and the widows of imperial princes and princes may, upon their own request or in the event of special circumstances, renounce their membership in the imperial family with approval of the Imperial House Council; and that the Emperor and other members of the imperial family may not adopt children.
For an imperial abdication to take place, such as the one that took place in April 2019, it requires special legislation and cannot be explicitly expressed by the monarch himself.
Before September 2006, there was a potential succession crisis since no male child had been born into the imperial family since Prince Akishino in 1965. Following the birth of Princess Aiko, there was significant public debate about amending the Imperial House Law to allow female descendants of an emperor and their descendants to succeed to the throne. In January 2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appointed a special panel of judges, university professors, and civil servants to study changes to the Imperial House Law and to make recommendations to the government.
On January 24, 2005, the Japanese government announced that it would consider allowing the Crown Prince and Crown Princess to adopt a male child, in order to avoid a possible succession disputes. Adoption from other male-line branches of the Imperial Line is an age-old imperial Japanese tradition for dynastic purposes, prohibited only in modern times after the adoption in 1947 of the American-written Constitution of Japan. The child would presumably be adopted from one of the former imperial branches which lost imperial status after World War II. However, a government-appointed panel of experts submitted a report on November 24, 2005, recommending that the imperial succession law be amended to permit absolute primogeniture. [22] The birth of Prince Hisahito temporarily relieved this discussion of urgency, but it continues to be a subject of debate.
As above, the liberal wing of the Diet of Japan has proposed absolute primogeniture, which would permit the women of the existing imperial household to serve as empress as well as produce heirs. Prince Tomohito of Mikasa opposed the introduction of absolute primogeniture, as have several Japanese lawmakers. [23]
The conservative wing of the Diet has proposed un-abolishing the Fushimi-no-miya and its branch lines, the Ōke. The Ōke are descended by a direct-male line from Emperor Sukō, who died in 1398. The Ōke families have not been considered aristocrats since 1947 and their descendants are engaged in various private business and media concerns. Notably, the far-right YouTuber Takeda Tsuneyasu , whose YouTube account was terminated in 2018 for hate speech violations, is a male-line heir to the Takeda-no-miya as a nephew of the current head. [24]
A 2005 poll found that 71% of the Japanese public believe the imperial family should have input on the succession problem. [25]
In November 2020, it was recommended that the discussion be shelved until Prince Hisahito himself becomes an adult and begins producing offspring, [26] this proposition has been criticized as possibly delaying the debate until the women of the imperial house would be too old to have children, as getting married removes them from the imperial house, [26] however such a law may retroactively bring princesses back into the family and resolve this problem.
In September 2021, it was considered to amend the Imperial Household Law and allow the 85-year-old Prince Hitachi to adopt a male member of the collateral branches of the imperial family. [27]
The results of various polls and surveys in recent years have shown consistent high levels of support for reigning empresses. According to a 2005 poll, 85% of the Japanese support reigning empresses, 71% support matrilineal emperors and 54% support absolute primogeniture. [28]
Polls in more recent years have shown overwhelming support, 76% in an Asahi Shimbun poll (2018), 92% in a NHK survey (2018) and 82%, 85% and 87% in Kyodo News polls from 2018, 2019, and 2021, respectively. [29] [30] [31]
Naruhiko, Prince Higashikuni was a Japanese imperial prince, a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and the 30th prime minister of Japan from 17 August 1945 to 9 October 1945, a period of 54 days. He is the shortest-serving prime minister, resigning after fifty-four days. An uncle-in-law of Emperor Hirohito twice over, Prince Higashikuni was the only member of the Japanese imperial family to head a cabinet and was the last general officer of the Imperial Japanese military to become prime minister. He was the founder of the Chiba Institute of Technology. He was one of the longest-lived members of any royal family.
Prince Yasuhiko Asaka was the founder of a collateral branch of the Japanese Imperial Family and a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Japanese invasion of China and the Second World War. He was the son-in-law of Emperor Meiji and uncle by marriage of Emperor Hirohito. As the commander of Japanese forces outside Nanjing in December 1937, Asaka presided over the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians in what came to be known as the Nanjing Massacre.
Morimasa, Prince Nashimoto was a member of the Japanese Imperial Family and a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army. An uncle-in-law of Hirohito, an uncle of his consort, Empress Kōjun, and the father-in-law of Crown Prince Euimin of Korea, Prince Nashimoto was the only member of the Imperial Family arrested for war crimes during the Allied occupation of Japan following defeat in the Second World War.
Kuniyoshi, Prince Kuni was a member of the Japanese imperial family and a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Meiji and Taishō periods. He was the father of Empress Kōjun, and therefore, the maternal grandfather of Emperor Emeritus Akihito.
The Kyū-Miyake, also known as the Old Imperial Family (旧皇族), were branches of the Japanese Imperial Family created from branches of the Fushimi-no-miya house, the last surviving Shinnōke cadet branch. All but two of these ōke (王家) were formed by the descendants of Prince Fushimi Kuniie. The ōke were stripped of their membership in the Imperial Family by the American Occupation Authorities in October 1947, as part of the abolition of 11 collateral branches with 51 members. After that point, only the immediate family of Emperor Shōwa and those of his three brothers retained membership in the Imperial Family. However, unofficial heads of these collateral families still exist for most and are listed herein.
Seshū Shinnōke (世襲親王家) was the collective name for the four cadet branches of the Imperial family of Japan, which were until 1947 entitled to provide a successor to the Chrysanthemum throne if the main line failed to produce an heir. The heads of these royal houses held the title of imperial prince, regardless of their genealogical distance from the reigning Emperor, as the term seshū in their designation meant that they were eligible for succession.
Asahiko, Prince Kuni was a member of a collateral line of the Japanese imperial family who played a key role in the Meiji Restoration. Prince Asahiko was an adopted son of Emperor Ninkō and later a close advisor to Emperor Kōmei and Emperor Meiji. He was the great-great-grandfather of the present Emperor of Japan, Naruhito.
Prince Kaya Kuninori was a member of the Japanese imperial family and the founder of one of the nine ōke in the Meiji period.
Prince Kuni Taka was a member of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family, who served as the chief priest (saishu) of the Shinto Grand Shrine of Ise, from 1909 until his death in 1937.
From 2001 to 2006, Japan discussed the possibility of changing the laws of succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne, which is currently limited to males of the Japanese imperial family.
The Imperial House is the reigning dynasty of Japan, consisting of those members of the extended family of the reigning emperor of Japan who undertake official and public duties. Under the present constitution of Japan, the emperor is "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people". Other members of the imperial family perform ceremonial and social duties, but have no role in the affairs of government. The duties as an emperor are passed down the line to their male children. The Japanese monarchy is the oldest continuous hereditary monarchy in the world. The imperial dynasty does not have a name, therefore its direct members do not have a family name.
Marshal-Admiral Yorihito, Prince Higashifushimi was the second head of the Higashifushimi-no-miya, an ōke cadet branch of the Japanese imperial family.
Prince Kitashirakawa Satonari was the founder of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family.
Prince Naruhisa Kitashirakawa, was the 3rd head of a collateral branch of the Japanese Imperial Family.
The Nashimoto was the oldest collateral branch (ōke) of the Japanese Imperial Family created from the Fushimi-no-miya, the oldest of the four branches of the imperial dynasty allowed to provide a successor to the Chrysanthemum throne should the main imperial line fail to produce an heir.
The Kaya was the seventh oldest collateral branch (ōke) of the Japanese Imperial Family created from the Fushimi-no-miya, the oldest of the four branches of the imperial dynasty allowed to provide a successor to the Chrysanthemum throne should the main imperial line fail to produce an heir.
The Kuni was the second oldest collateral branch (ōke) of the Japanese Imperial Family created from the Fushimi-no-miya, the oldest of the four branches of the imperial dynasty allowed to provide a successor to the Chrysanthemum throne should the main imperial line fail to produce an heir.
Kuniie, Prince Fushimi was Japanese royalty. He was the 20th/23rd prince head of the House of Fushimi and the eldest son of Prince Fushimi Sadayuki (1776–1841) and his concubine Seiko, which made him the 11th cousin of Emperor Sakuramachi. Despite being merely a distant cousin to the emperors, he was adopted by Emperor Kōkaku as a son in 1817, which made him a full prince of the blood just like an emperor's natural-born son.
Nobuko, Princess Asaka, born Nobuko, Princess Fumi, was the twelfth child and eighth daughter of Emperor Meiji of Japan, and the fifth child and fourth daughter of Sono Sachiko, the Emperor's fifth concubine.
Sono Sachiko (園祥子) was the fifth concubine of Emperor Meiji of Japan. Although Meiji was the last Japanese emperor to have more than one consort, the official role at court was not abolished until 1924; surviving concubines remained as members of the imperial family in retirement.