The prestigious education of Japan’s royal family

Japan’s Prince Hisahito turned 18 on September 6, 2024, an event that was celebrated not only by the royal family but also by the nation itself. 

Why was this milestone? Well, the prince is the first male of the royal family to become an adult in almost four decades. He is now the youngest of the 17-member, all-adult royal family, which only has four men – his father, Crown Prince Akishino, being one of them. 

And now, the young prince is the last in line to inherit the throne – at least, for now, until a new male heir is born. 

 

 

Prince Hisahito, the last heir to a declining imperial family

Japan is not alone in its struggles facing a rapidly ageing and declining population – its royal family is grappling with the same concerns and more.  

The 1947 Imperial House Law only permits a man to ascend to the throne.

Japan’s current emperor is Naruhito, the elder son of former emperor Akihito, who abdicated in 2019. Under the law, next in line for the throne is Crown Prince Akishino (Prince Hisahito’s father). Prince Hisahito is second in line and is followed by Prince Hitachi, the 87-year-old brother of Emperor Emeritus Akihito.

Beyond not allowing the female members of the family to ascend the throne, those who marry commoners must renounce their royal position too. This was seen with Mako Komuro, formerly Princess Mako of Akishino, who married her commoner husband and gave up her royal status in 2021. 

In January 2022, a government-commissioned panel of experts proposed a potential solution.

One possibility was for female members of the royal family to maintain their status even after marrying a commoner but without ascending the throne themselves. This would prevent the declining male population within the imperial family. Another proposal included adopting male descendants from now-defunct royal families to continue the male lineage.

If, miraculously, Japan suddenly decided to allow women to ascend to the throne, Prince Hisato’s older cousin, Princess Aiko, would be next in line to become Empress of Japan.

She is the only child of Emperor Naruhito and his wife Masako – but the existing law forbids Empress Masako and her daughter to take over that role even though they come from a direct line of descent.

That’s not to say that these women are undeserving of their royal titles – they are extremely smart and capable and can hold their own alongside their male counterparts. Members of the Imperial Family often enrol in the prestigious Gakushūin school system, where many of Japan’s elite families and “narikin” (nouveaux riches) send their children. 

Many then go on to earn degrees from Gakushuin University or become international students. 

A glimpse into Japan’s royal family’s education

Emperor Naruhito

His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Naruhito started off just like any other royal child – he was a student of the elite Gakushūin school system and graduated in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree in history.

But Emperor Naruhito didn’t just study history – he decided to make it. He was the first heir to the Japanese throne to study abroad. 

He halted his graduate programme at Gakushūin to go to Merton College, University of Oxford, where he spent two years researching marine transportation. In addition to pursuing his research and schoolwork, he was exposed to commoner activities, like using a bank card and doing his own laundry. 

Of course, his royal roots weren’t neglected.

The Emperor – known as Crown Prince Hito back then – had friendly relations with the late Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal British family. When he eventually returned to Japan, he worked on deepening ties between the two royal families and contributed to advancing Japan-UK relations. He even wrote a book titled The Thames and I – a Memoir of Two Years at Oxford. 

The Emperor then resumed his graduate degree at Gakushūin, finally earning his Master of Humanities in 1988. Since then, many other members of the royal Japanese family have gone abroad to the UK to study. 

Empress Masako

As the child of a diplomat, Masako Owada grew up visiting different parts of the world. She was born in Japan but attended daycare in Moscow. She then went to kindergarten in New York and high school in Massachusetts before graduating from Harvard University with a degree in economics.

After graduating, she returned to Japan, where she studied law at the University of Tokyo to prepare for the Diplomatic Service Evaluation. She was one of just three women to pass the exam that year, and eventually planned to head to the University of Oxford for a two-year graduate study in 1988. 

But life had other plans.

She met Emperor Naruhito – who was still Crown Prince Hiro at the time – at a tea gathering in 1986 while studying at the University of Tokyo. He was immediately captivated by her and proposed – but to his surprise (and the media’s too,) he was rejected. 

Of course, the idea of rejecting the future Emperor of Japan wasn’t something Owada took lightly, but she had other plans.

To her, she had built her future brick by brick, and she yearned to be a diplomat just like her father. If she married into the Japanese royal family, she would have to throw away her career, independence, and perhaps even the essence of who she was. 

But the soon-to-be Emperor Naruhito wasn’t dissuaded. He convinced her that the royal family would allow her to hold a position where she could carry out “another form of diplomacy.” Eventually, after a second rejection, she accepted his proposal and the royal couple married on June 9, 1993. 

Princess Aiko

Aiko, the only child of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, formally holds the title Princess Toshi. She was born on 1 December, 2001, and, like her father, grew up in the Gakushūin education system.

But unlike her predecessors, she grew up relatively unsheltered, having been on numerous public outings even before her coming-of-age ceremony.

In 2018, she made her first solo trip abroad to attend a summer program at Eton College, UK.

It was a short programme that was part of her high school schedule, and she would return after three weeks. Her parents supported her decision, hoping her time in the UK would broaden her views. There, she studied the English language and British culture, lived in a dorm with her classmates, and visited other parts of the UK too.

When she returned to Japan, she enrolled in Gakushūin University and pursued Japanese language and literature. After graduating in March 2024, she joined the Japanese Red Cross Society due to her interest in welfare activities.

Fumihito, Crown Prince Akishino

Emperor Naruhito’s younger brother, who is next in line for the throne, and the father of Prince Hisahito.

Similar to his brother, Crown Prince Akishino studied at Gakushūin University and then went to the University of Oxford’s St. John’s College to study fish taxonomy. He then returned to Japan to pursue a graduate degree in ornithology from the Graduate University of Advanced Studies in Japan. He has also worked as a researcher at the University Museum of the University of Tokyo. 

His duties as the Crown Prince have led him to visit countries like Indonesia and China. He even introduced tilapia to Thailand to solve malnutrition in rural areas and has since managed to maintain and expand aquacultural studies with the people of Thailand.

Now, aside from being next in line for the throne, he is the president of the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology and the Japanese Association of Zoological Gardens and Aquariums.

Just like his brother, the prince made history in his own way – he met his wife, Kiko, Crown Princess Akishino, while they were undergrads at Gakushūin. They married in 1990, breaking the precedent of marrying before his older brother Emperor Naruhito did. 

Kiko, Crown Princess Akishino

Born Kiko Kawashima, she is the second commoner to marry into the royal family after Empress Emerita Michiko.

Her father was a Tokyo native and professor emeritus at Gakushūin University. The family moved to Philadelphia in 1971 when her father pursued a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. The following year he taught at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania before moving back to Tokyo.

As a result of her father’s passion for education, the Crown Princess is fluent in Japanese, English, and German. She pursued undergraduate and graduate degrees in psychology from Gakushūin, then married Crown Prince Akishino while still in university. But married life and official royal duties didn’t stop her from continuing her education – she later earned a PhD in Humanities from Ochanomizu University.

Outside her academics, she is fluent in Japanese sign language and is an interpreter herself. She works closely with deaf communities within the country and often makes patronages that focus on children’s and medical causes. 

Mako Komuro

Formerly Princess Mako, she is the oldest daughter of the Crown Prince and Princess Akishino and the sister of Prince Hisahito. She is no longer part of the royal family, a result of marrying a commoner.

Even before she left her royal status, she had a great interest in art and architecture. She visited Vienna, Austria for two weeks on a homestay programme to visit museums, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and Schönbrunn Palace.

Then, she went abroad to study English at the University College Dublin and art history at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. In 2014, she then enrolled at Tokyo’s International Christian University, where she met her future husband, Kei Komuro.

The couple dated for a while, even resorting to a long-distance relationship while Mako pursued a master’s degree in Art Museum and Gallery Studies at England’s University of Leicester. In 2016, she returned to International Christian University, where she enrolled in a doctoral course at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. 

She now uses her background in art history to curate work at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Princess Kako of Akishino

The graceful, fashionable middle child of the Crown Prince and Princess Akishino. Like her family before her, Princess Kako graduated from the Gakushūin education system in 2013. Aside from academics, she is a good figure skater and even represented the Meiji-jingu Gaien Figure Skating Club back in 2007.

The princess initially began her undergraduate studies at Gakushūin University in the Department of Education, the Faculty of Letters. But in 2014, she decided to quit and join her older sister’s alma mater, International Christian University. This allowed her to travel to the UK to study performing arts and psychology at the University of Leeds.

During her studies, she took an interest in Irish culture and studied English at University College Dublin for a couple of months.

Prince Hisahito of Akishino

Unlike the rest of his family, Prince Hisahito did not enrol into the Gakushūin school system, and is the first one in the royal family to do so. Instead, he was enrolled into kindergarten at a school affiliated with Ochanomizu University, and then entered the Ochanomizu University Elementary School and Junior High School.

In 2022, he joined the University of Tsukuba Senior High School, where he is a member of the badminton club. In his free time, he enjoys studying insects. Perhaps we’ll see him go abroad to pursue a degree in entomology sometime soon.