For four years, two months and eight days, Princess Aiko has been perhaps the most talked-about little girl in Japanese history. By September, however, her anxiously anticipated cousin-in-waiting could relegate her from royal star to bit-part player.
Japan has been plunged into eight months of agonising limbo. If Kiko, wife of Prince Akishino, second in line to the Chrysthanthemum throne, gives birth to a boy, then the Imperial family will have the male heir required by law. It will not need to shatter tradition and make the Crown Prince’s daughter, Aiko, the first female monarch for 200 years. If Kiko has a girl then Aiko will recover her unofficial status as heir apparent and the Government will need to press ahead with a change to the law.
Nearly three quarters of Japanese, who have fallen in love with Aiko, want the law changed; traditionalists are firmly against any revision. In the past 48 hours, Aiko has flipped from beloved imperial granddaughter, to potential Emperor, to potential Emperor’s cousin.
Fortunately for everyone, the toddler Princess, a cheerful-looking soul occasionally paraded before the press cavorting in a park or playground, is blissfully unaware of the political turmoil around her, and the massive public debate of which she — and her future cousin — are the centre.
It is an issue on which everyone has a view. When Kiko’s pregnancy was leaked on Tuesday afternoon, shares in companies that make baby clothes and prams soared, the theory being that talk of a royal birth makes Japanese women broody. The last time the market experienced the phenomenon was before Aiko’s birth in 2001. There were rumours that she may have been the product of IVF treatment, but she was proof that the Crown Prince and his wife were in breeding mode. There was plenty of time for the couple to produce a boy.
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With the increasing ill-health of Princess Masako, that belief faded and was replaced by the threat of a succession crisis. Suddenly, Aiko’s role took a major shift: no longer the cute sister of some future emperor, but a potential Emperor herself if only the 19th-century law were changed to allow female heirs.
Grooming for the role is required — the Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says a reason for pushing the Imperial Law Revisions through quickly is because, if her future is on the throne, Aiko needs to start learning how to be an Emperor right away.