All six of Japan’s major newspapers reported have rejected advertisements for the translation of Ben Hill’s book: Princess Masako - Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Daisan Shokan, Tokyo-based publisher of the Japanese version of “Princess Masako - Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne”, said all the dailies had turned the advertisements down.

“The six major newspapers have rejected the ads for this book completely,” said company president Akira Kitagawa.

“Newspapers … ought to make freedom of speech their basic principle as media independent from the judgment of officials,” Kitagawa said in a statement released at a news conference.

Masako, 43, once a lively career diplomat, has been largely absent from the public eye for the past three years, suffering from a mental disorder palace officials have attributed to the stress of adjusting to life in the imperial palace.

More JAPUNDIT reporting on this book here.

Editor’s Note: The following review of Ben Hills’ book was written in February but circumstances did not permit its posting at that time.

Diana and her glamour and angst are gone. Charles and Camilla have wed. Wills shows no sign of marriage any time soon.

But wait. There’s that other royal couple. The one in that far away country. Wasn’t there something in the news about how Princess Masako of Japan is seen as something of a Diana figure?

I’m guessing- and yes, I confess to speculation here - that this is partly how the new book, “Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne” by Ben Hills was born. I say this because as the book traces the early lives of the royal couple - Princess Masako and Crown Prince Naruhito - references to Charles and Diana are thrown in, particularly at the beginning.

It’s hard not to read this book, originally written and published in an English speaking country (Australia) as an attempt to introduce an English speaking audience starved for royal gossip to an enticing new subject. And what a subject it is.

Don’t know how long this link will be good, but go here to see an interview with Ben Hills, author of Princess Masako - Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Scroll down and click Pressures on Princess Masako.

Then you can make up your own mind whether or not Mr. Hills is Rosemary’s baby.

Ben Hills, the author of Princess Masako, Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne, a controversial biography of Crown Princess Masako that is scheduled for release in Japanese in September, has received death threats over the book. Publisher Daisan-Shokan also has been subjected to protests by right-wing nationalist groups.

Hills said he has received several email death threats, via his website, in the lead-up to the Japanese publication. “They were saying things like, ‘Die white pork!’ They were quite racist,” Hills said.
The emails were sent anonymously, Hills said, adding that the senders did not identify themselves as part of any organization.

Kodansha Ltd., which was originally set to publish the Japanese version, pulled out after the contents of the book were criticized by the Japanese Imperial Household Agency. Daisan-Shokan agreed to publish the Japanese version in the spirit of free speech.

In an email written to Hills, which Kyodo News has obtained, the publisher’s president, Akira Kitagawa, said a Japanese ultra-nationalist group visited company’s office on Aug 10 and demanded the publication be pulled.

“Just now, two black cars with ultra-nationalistic slogans on them are parking besides the building where my company address is. They are shouting hysterically, ‘Stop the publication of Princess Masako’ with huge loudspeakers,” the email said.

“Policemen are just watching them and let them do as much as they want to do. This is how your book is getting more and more popular in Japan before being published,” Kitagawa said.

Publication of the Japanese version is also being resisted by more respectable segments of the Establishment. Asahi Shimbun reportedly has refused to carry an advertisement for the book because it is disrespectful to the royal family.

Hills said he was deeply disturbed by the recent events.

“The Japanese establishment is just trying to censor my book and it really is quite outrageous. It’s censorship pure and simple,” he said.

As for how the book will be received in Japan once published, Hills said he hopes readers will make up their own minds.

“The Japanese will be able to read it and judge for themselves. To me, it’s really not important whether they like it or they don’t like it. They have got to read it and make their own minds up. It’s obviously going to be a controversial book. It criticizes some sacred cows,” he said.

It looks like Ben Hills’ book on Princess Masako of Japan (Princess Masako - Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne) finally will see the light of day in Japanese with the announcement by Tokyo-based publisher Daisan-Shokan that they plan to go head with publication of a translation of the controversial book.

Long-time JAPUNDIT readers will remember that Kodansha originally had planned to publish the tome, but they had second thoughts when the Japanese government started raising questions about some of the information reported by Hills.

In February, publisher Kodansha scrapped plans for a Japanese edition of Princess Masako - Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne, prompting Australian author Ben Hills to complain that the Japanese government had censored his work.

The foreign ministry had sought an apology and “appropriate steps” from Hills, whose book it said contained many factual errors.

Apparently, the upcoming Japanese version will contain some corrections, but these mostly will be to correct certain “factual errors, such as dates.”

See past JAPUNDIT reports on this book and the ensuing brouhaha here, here, here, and here.

Princess Kiko with Prince Hisahito, who is the first male born into the Japanese Imperial Family in 41 years and who may end up one day becoming the Emperor of Japan, as they arrive at the imperial farm in Takanezawa.

I’m still waiting for a comprehensive list.

1. Factual error - Hills says Masako’s grandfather is a criminal who caused the mercury pollution. He was brought in to salvage the company and the situation after the fact, and not the cause. He wasn’t the one who presided over polluting of the river. It’s such an easy timeline to check.

Not true. Look at pages 174-175 of the American edition. For those who don’t have the book and have not read it: “Disposing of the ‘Chisso Problem,’ which had been used as an excuse to derail the romance five years before, was relatively simple, since, as we have seen, there was never really a problem form the start.” Look also at pages 134-135. “What was Egashira’s role in this horror story? Quite obviously, he had ntphing to do with the establisment of the factory or its industrial processes. He remaiend based in Tokyo, and his prime responsibility as ‘outside’ president and then chairman was to keep the company afloat. . .” The closest Hills comes to blaming Masako’s family is this line, page 135. “Morally, if not legally, he bears a heavy burden of responsibility.” But this is quickly followed by: “Having said that, if the Marunochi attorney had telephoned Kitaoka down in Kyushu he would have learned that the victims bear Egashira no grudges.”

2. most Westerners can’t accept - that emperors never had any political power in its 1500 year history, except in the 7th Century(?) for about 20 years. Everything was done in his name, but his will was decided for him by the government of the moment. All through the history, he was a puppet. Think about it. If emperors had real power like of kings of England, would the same line have lasted unbroken for 1500 years?.

Page 195: “This system–an emperor who reigned in name alone and left the actual ruling to the shoguns, those ‘barbarian-subduing generalissimos’–contineud righ tup until the aqrrival of Commodore Perry’s warships in the middle of the nineteenth century.”

3. Someone posted a “factual innacuracy” regarding the term Showa. Interestingly, this so called list of “factual innacuracies” seems to have disappeared from Japundit. Essentially, a poster complained that Hills innacurately claims that Emperor Hirohito was given the posthumous name “Showa,” when in fact the entire period during which Hirohito reigned is termed “Showa.”

Here is the relevent quote on page 164. “He was posthumously given the name of Showa or ‘radiating peace’, which many thought quite Orwellian considering his role in the world’s most devastating war.” A snippy comment? To be sure. Factually innacurate.

Well, the term Showa refers to more than just one thing. It does refer to period, but is also happens to be the posthumous name given to Emperor Hirohito.

Like all his predecessors, he is known since his death by a posthumous name, that, according to a tradition dating back to 1912, is the name of the era coinciding with his reign. Having ruled during the Shōwa era (Enlightened Peace), he is now known as Emperor Shōwa.

4. The poster named calico wrote: Hills is also mistaken that members of the Japanese royal family are not allowed and have never divorced in the past.

Hills never makes this claim. Look on pages 274-275. “It is commonly said that divorce is forbidden to members of the imperial family who are on, or in line to, the throne . . . but it is not quite true. It is correct that in the history of the Japanese monarchy, only one royal, a distant cousin of the Meiji emperor . . . divorced . . . A number of others are known to have lived emotionally if not physically apart from their wives . . .”

5. BTW, talking about the restricted lives of the royals, if that’s
what Ben wishes to call, it was the allied powers, the occupation army lead by Douglas MacArthur and the International Military Tribunal (IMTFE) lead by William Webb of Australia that drew the basic blueprints of the future role of the royal family in Japan.

Page 201-202: “Paradoxically, as Kunaicho’s influence on the outside world withered, MacArthur’s root-and-branch reforms had the effect of enormously increasing its power over the few remaining royals.”

6. Hills repeatedly states that Princess Masako was sacrified for his parents’ social ambition

Hills actually makes it very clear that Princess Masako’s father was vehemently opposed to the match. Look at page 175L “However, two apparently immovable obstacles remained. The first was that Masako’s influential father reamined opposed to the match.” Then again, on page 176. “Yanagiya’s . . . visit was just the start of weeks and months of subtle pressure and inducements to persuade Masako’s paernts, princiapply her domineering father, to change their minds. . . . ‘Of course there wasa lot of pressure, but also there were advantages,’ says Matsuzako. ‘If the marriage went ahead it would be very prestigious for Gaimusho, and also for Owada personally.’ It took three long months for the parties to reach the consensus required by Japanese social etiquette; he told his daughter that it was her decision.”

Now, yes, it looks like Owada was promised some prestige. But this hardly reads like the story of a man who excitedly sacrificed his daughter for his own personal gain. In fact, he spent substantial time *not* giving his approval.

Owada in general is a cypher in this book; you get no real sense of his character (or, for that matter, of anyone else’s, except perhaps the Crown Prince). But to state that Hills repeatedly makes the claim that Masako was sacrified to me isn’t an accurate reading of this book.

I’m not sure that those of you who turned in these “factual innacuracies” have actually read the book.

I recently wrote an email to Ben Hills, author of Princess Masako–Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne, to tell him about the discussion we are having here. I even invited him to drop in and take part if he felt so inclined. Understandably, he politely declined the invitation, but he sent back the statement below which he had previously issued to various wire services.

In his reply to me, Mr. Hills also had the following to say:

I would invite your subscribers to check on the history of the Chang book, and to note the remarkable similarities to my case. The book was a worldwide bestseller, a Japanese publisher agreed to translate it and publish it in Japan, the Japanese Ambassador in Washington called a Press conference to denounce its “innacuracies” (which no other historians in the world had noticed in their favourable reviews of the book) — and, lo and behold, the Japanese publisher declined to go ahead with the publication, citing “errors.” Sound familiar?

He also said but that he would be happy to reply to resonable questions from JAPUNDIT readers that are sent to him through me, so here is your chance. Please use the comments below this note to ask any questions you might have about the Mr. Hills or the the book, and I will be happy to send them along.

Kazunobu Kakishima, editor at Kodansha, denied the company was scrapping the Japanese translation because of the government’s protest.

The decision, he said, came after Ben Hills refused to acknowledge making factual errors during an interview with a Japanese TV station.

“We have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to maintain trustworthy relations with the author and thus we were forced to cancel the book.”

Three other publishers in Japan have contacted Hills, according to the AP report, and one of them might publish the book later.

Stay tuned.

Even though it is called “The Last Word“, I always check that feature first on every weekly issue of Metropolis Magazine Online. Marie Iida , an editorial assistant at Metropolis , has written about the disappointment of Japanese women when the government discarded Junichiro Koizumi’s proposal to allow female heirs inherit the Throne, following the birth of Prince Hisahito to Princess Kiko and Prince Akishino last month. But what really prompted me to comment about her “last word” is this assertive, and somewhat worrisome, passage:

It’s true that the ladies of Japan haven’t been doing too badly these days. We’re doing markedly better career-wise—you can bet that all those high-end brand stores in Ginza are not being built for men. We can even choose to stay single forever and leave Japan childless instead of opting to marry manga-reading worker bees. And after years of being randomly fondled by strangers, we have won the right to group all different kinds of women into a body odor-free train decorated with hot-pink flowers, the Japanese metro’s nod to grrrl power.

It does say much indeed, albeit not necessarily true. Actually I couldn’t fathom her irony, nor understand in what way a shrinking society could be considered “not too bad”, as far as Japanese women concerned, or is it that driving the business in Ginza is enough to consider that “the ladies of Japan” are scoring a point?

And suppose Prince Hisahito had never been born, would female imperial successions be a giant step in post-feminism in Japan? or would it merely hide a much different reality of Japanese women, or to say the least, much different from their Western counterparts?
I’d like to hear your say on the topic, I am still perplexed by that passage!

Just when you thought that the arrival of a new boy in Japan’s Imperial family solved (or at least put off the need to deal with) the Chrysanthemum Throne succession question, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura, who is a close ally of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, announces that the Japanese Imperial law needs to be revised in order to “ensure a stable male-line succession of emperors.”

Some of the main proposals floated by conservative politicians, including Abe, to ensure a male-line succession are giving royal status to some male members of former Imperial families and having them succeed existing Imperial branch families.

Shimomura staunchly opposes any change in the law that would allow female monarchs and their descendants to take the Japanese throne, which was promoted by the Koizumi Administration.

In the meantime, a recent Mainichi Shimbun telephone poll indicates that 63 percent of Japanese favor revision of the Imperial House Law, with 72 percent supporting the concept of female emperors.

With all the talk about royalty here over the past few days, thought you might get a kick out of this image, which was shot in Kyushu.

Found at Andy In Japan.

Well, as expected, all of the newspapers in Japan, including the English ones, were filled with all kinds of news about the latest addition to the royal family. Little of the reporting was truly informative, some was trite, and some of it (including the obviously posed for photo shown here from the Japan Times, which issued an extra in English) was downright dumb.

The first reaction that bubbles up when faced with all this reportage overkill for such a non-story is, “Who cares?” This has nothing to do with me.

But one report I found convinced me that it has plenty to do with me and everyone who is living in Japan. Because we are paying for all it!

According to the report, the new prince from day one of his life will be paid an annual stipend of 3 million yen a year. His sisters also receive the same amount each year, Prince Akishino receives 30.5 million yen, and Princess Kiko gets 15.25 million yen for “their personal use to maintain royal dignity.”

This means that Prince Akishino and his family are getting around 55 million yen a year, tax free, just because they are them.

With the arrival of a new male heir for the Chrysanthemum throne, we may see more than a few disparaging comparisons of the Japanese Imperial household and its male-only policy with the royal houses of Europe, which allow females to reign.

Regardless of which gender gets to be the symbol of state in Japan, there’d be one problem with this comparison: it’s inaccurate.

Well, it’s a boy, and the politics surrounding this imperial birth will be interesting indeed to watch. Congratulations to the family on this unsurprising birth and a safe delivery.

Is it any wonder that Princess Masako scheduled a vacation overseas at just this precise moment? And how interesting, too, that the Imperial Household Agency actually let her go.

Some are already saying that one boy heir isn’t enough, so there is no end to the pressure the mother of the heir can feel, apparently.

But, according to a source close to the palace, the birth of a son will only postpone, not solve, the problem.

“Even if it is a boy, he would end up being the only member of the Imperial Family, and that would be intolerable,” the source told The Times. “To put it very bluntly, you need to have reserves.”

This strange, Byzantine soap opera continues. What are your thoughts?

Here are three brief but fascinating updates on stories we regularly feature at Japundit: the new member of the imperial family, the identity of the new prime minister, and new revelations about China’s attitude toward Japan.

Check out this video from 2002 World Cup, which was hosted jointly by Japan and Korea.

Note how president Kim Dae Jung and his wife enter the box first, and then effectively block Japanese Emperor Akihito and Princess Michiko, all the time totally ignoring the efforts of the Japanese Imperial Couple to get past them to their seats at the far end of the box.

Had the roles been reversed, I’ll bet there would have been people in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul within minutes, cutting off their fingers and chewing on the Japanese flag.

Japan’s Imperial Household Agency has announced that Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko are switching their ride from the current Nissan Prince Royal to a new Toyota Century Royal. The Nissan Century Royal is being retired after more than 30 years of service.

The Agency will purchase a total of four of the 5,000-cc, eight-passenger Century Royals for 52.5 million yen each, which means that the new cars will cost the nation more $2.1 million total. The new cars are said to be fuel-efficient and made of environmentally friendly materials, and their ceilings are covered with Japanese-style paper.

Beleaguered Princess Masako is off to the Netherlands for her first trip since 1999. Her name, if not her face, has appeared in the press a great deal since she signed off her royal duties due to a “stress related illness” which many say has to do with the pressure she has been under to conceive a son. Fortunately Princess Kiko has stepped up to the pregnancy plate and Masako may be off the hook there.

I thought it was interesting that Princess Masako was off to the Netherlands. Apparently, her doctors recommended that she take this trip. Apparently Masako’s father is a judge on the World court at the Hague, and Queen Beatrix herself has extended the invitation to Masako. And I suppose that the Netherlands has other opportunities to relax.

I hope that the family is able to enjoy itself and have a proper holiday.

As we have reported here already, the issue of Imperial succession, which has been in the news for the past six months, took a dramatic turn last week Japan’s Imperial Household Agency announced that Princess Kiko, wife of the Prince Akishino is with child.

When I first heard this news, I recalled the tanka poems penned by Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko for the annual imperial verse reading ceremony on January 12. Their poems both mentioned storks, and I remember joking with Mrs. JP that it sounded like they were declaring their intention to produce an heir to the throne during 2006.

The theme for this year’s poems was “smile” and the following is a translation of Princess Kiko’s poem:

A stork takes wings
It circles in the arch of the sky
We look up
With a big smile.

The nuance of the Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko’s poems was so obvious at the time that reporters asked the Imperial Household Agency if there was a hidden message behind them. According to a news report written on January 13th, long before it was announced Princess Kiko’s pregnancy:

The Imperial Household Agency denied the poems indicated the possibility of the couple having a third child, saying they were simply recalling a visit to a ceremony last year in which protected storks were released into the wild.