Published: March 11, 2010
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO — When an official at the Imperial Household Agency suddenly announced last week that 8-year-old Princess Aiko was refusing to go to school because of bullying, he did more than just disclose a mundane problem facing a member of Japan’s ancient and secretive monarchy.
He also added a new twist to one of the most riveting but mysterious dramas in Japan, the seven-year depression and seclusion of Aiko’s mother, Crown Princess Masako, the Harvard-trained former diplomat. Aiko is the only child of Princess Masako and her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, and is widely known to be one of the few sources of joy for the troubled crown princess.
The episode has once again put Princess Masako’s unhappy story into the harsh glare of Japan’s tabloid press. The news media here portrayed her 1993 wedding as the fairy-tale marriage of a commoner to a prince but then grew increasingly critical of her inability to bear a male heir for the Chrysanthemum Throne. The mounting pressure is widely seen as contributing to what appears to have been a breakdown.
Since last week’s announcement, Princess Masako, 46, has emerged to take her daughter to school and even to sit with Aiko in her second-grade classroom. Some commentators speculated whether her mother’s problems had made Aiko overly sensitive or emotionally frail.
The question now is whether the report that her daughter was bullied will make Japanese more sympathetic to the princess’s plight, or only add to the criticism of her. Some said Aiko’s troubles might even feed growing calls by conservatives for her father, 50, to step aside as the successor to his father, Emperor Akihito, 76.
“Many people won’t want such an unhealthy family to become emperor and empress,” said Akira Hashimoto, a former schoolmate of Emperor Akihito who has written several books about the imperial family. “If Aiko’s problems continue, this will only put more pressure on the crown prince.”
The renewed attention began on Friday, when the Imperial Household Agency’s grand master, who manages the affairs of the crown prince and his family, said at a regular news conference that Aiko was staying home because of stomachaches and anxiety attacks. The grand master, Issei Nomura, then revealed that the agency believed that the princess had suffered “violent acts” by boys in her elementary school, though he did not elaborate.
The apparently unscripted outburst was unprecedented from someone in the usually tightlipped inner circles of Japan’s tradition-bound imperial family, and it immediately set off a frenzy of coverage in the Japanese media. Some reports have criticized the grand master for overreacting to a common problem faced by parents of other social classes.
However, the harshest words have been reserved for Tokyo’s elite Gakushuin Primary School, which was created more than a century ago to educate Japan’s prewar aristocracy. Tabloid weeklies have reported in scandalized tones how the school had allowed students to run, yell in class and tussle on the playground — roughhousing common at other schools but unacceptable at a school patronized by the imperial family.
Responding to the grand master’s comments, a director at the school, Motomasa Higashisono, said that Aiko was scared after two boys nearly collided with her by accident as they rushed down the hallway to get lunch.
“My understanding is that we have heard nothing about any acts of violence or bullying directed at Her Highness Princess Aiko,” Mr. Higashisono said. Still, there has been talk of whether the incident may prompt the imperial family to cut its ties to the school.
In an indirect way, the saga has also added to concerns of some conservatives about whether Prince Naruhito is fit to take the throne. Some court watchers, like Mr. Hashimoto, have begun to ask how the crown prince would be able to fulfill his duties as emperor with his wife incapacitated and now his daughter unable to attend school on her own.
Naruhito has also shared the blame for his wife’s failure to have a boy, which prompted a politically charged debate about whether to break with centuries of tradition and allow a woman to assume the Chrysanthemum Throne, one of the world’s oldest hereditary monarchies. This debate was halted three years ago when the wife of the crown prince’s younger brother, Prince Akishino, bore a son, ensuring a male successor for at least one more generation.
Others, however, said the school incident might have the opposite effect of making the public feel more compassion for Princess Masako. They said it could make the crown princess seem less distant if she was seen as a concerned mother facing her child’s bullying, an all-too-common problem in Japan’s high-pressure educational system.
“This will impress upon the public psyche that Princess Masako has problems just like the rest of us,” said Takeshi Hara, a professor specializing in the monarchy at Meiji Gakuin University here. “This could generate more support for her and the crown prince.”
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