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| josei tennō (女性天皇) |
By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
July 20, 2026
Since only some but not all the opposition parties approved the bill, the amendments cannot be said to reflect the unanimous opinion of the legislative branch.
Unanimity is a key constitutional principle for the Imperial Family in Japan. Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan provides that the position of the Emperor is derived from the will of the people. The Japanese interpret this article to mean that the will of the people must be unanimous. When former Emperor Akihito abdicated the throne in 2019, the Diet attached a supplemental resolution on unanimity to the special law for the abdication.
That resolution required a discussion in the Diet to obtain a “unanimous opinion of the legislative branch” on stable succession to the throne. The resolution contemplated a unanimous opinion that would reverse the declining number of Imperial Family members. This year, the Speakers and Vice-Speakers of both Houses of the Diet held a brief discussion and wrapped up a “unanimous opinion” and handed it to Prime Minister Takaichi on June 10. The opinion allowed female members to remain in the Imperial Family after marriage and permitted the adoption of males of Imperial Family branches that had left the Family in 1947.
After delivery of the unanimous opinion, the Takaichi Cabinet proposed amendments to the Imperial House law to maneuver around the unanimity requirement in the 2019 supplemental resolution. The legislation includes two critical new measures relating to Imperial succession that were not part of the unanimous opinion.
One is to include the offspring of an adopted male in the line of succession to the throne. This amendment would codify Takaichi’s desire to maintain strict patrilinear succession. Not all males in the Imperial Family branches will qualify for adoption: eligible adoptees must be at least fifteen years old and cannot already be married or already have children. In the discussion of this provision in the Diet, members recognized that adoption of male members of the former Imperial Family would offset the current shrinkage in the Imperial Family. The unanimous opinion of the Diet did not include a discussion of the sons of an adopted male.
The second new element in the legislation is not to give the husband and children of female members that remain in in the family the status of Imperial Family members. These children could not in any case join the line of succession because they are in the female line. It is highly unusual for members of a family to be separated by legal status. Nevertheless, the draft recognizes only the mother as a member of the Imperial Family and excludes the father and the children. Again, this provision was not part of the unanimous opinion.
The Takaichi Cabinet submitted a draft of the revised IHL to the Diet on June 30. Takaichi asked the leading parties to make their best efforts to pass the bill in the current session of the Diet. The Committee on Rules and Administration of the Lower House discussed the bill for just three hours on July 10. The House Plenary Sittings passed the bill later that same day.
Notably, the top opposition party, the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), voted yes on the bill. The party had originally opposed the idea of placing the male offspring of an adopted male in the line of succession. After hearing the explanation by the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minoru Kihara, in the committee to the effect that the revised IHL would not affect or bind future succession discussions in the Diet, the CRA changed its vote to yes. Under the bill, future discussions occur only at thirty-year intervals.
In protest of the CRA’s decision, four CRA lawmakers walked out of the Plenary Sittings. The Japan Communist Party (JCP) voted no on the bill, arguing that the bill had become totally different from the unanimous opinion of the legislative branch. Even the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) coalition partner, quibbled with the provision in the bill that limited adoptions of male members to those no younger than fifteen. It can hardly be said that the bill represents the unanimous opinion of the Diet.
On July 17, the Upper House in its Plenary Sittings passed the bill by a vote of 184 to 57 – obviously not a unanimous view.
Looking at the voting in both chambers, six parties approved – the LDP, JIP, CRA, the Democratic Party for the People, Komeito, and Sanseito. Five opposition parties voted in the negative – the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, JCP, Reiwa Shinsengumi, the Social Democratic Party, and Okinawa Whirlwind. Team Mirai approved the bill in the Upper House but released its members in the Lower House to vote as they saw fit. Interestingly, the Conservative Party of Japan abstained.
It is still unclear why Takaichi has been so hasty in completing revisions of the IHL in the current session of the Diet. Popular sentiment is against the quick action. In the poll of Asahi Shimbun last month, 71 percent of respondents thought that legislation for adopting males in the male line did not need to be made soon. In a more recent Asahi Shimbun poll, 60 percent of respondents thought that the revised Imperial House Law had not received views of the people, while only 24 percent thought it had.
The conservative lawmakers obviously hoped to maintain the imperial throne in the male line. It is likely that they wanted to act now while Takaichi enjoyed a high approval rating in the polls. They made it but possibly at the cost of that very approval rating. The same recent Asahi Shimbun poll revealed that the approval rating for the Takaichi Cabinet declined from 60 percent in June to 53 percent in July. The disapproval rose from 27 percent to 35 percent. This finding may reflect popular reaction to the part of Takaichi’s legislation that blocks the possibility of Princess Aiko becoming Empress.
In other results, a poll by Jiji Press found that 39.5 percent approved of placing the sons (and subsequent offspring) of an adopted male in the male line of succession, while 26.9 percent disapproved. 34.0 percent hoped to give Imperial Family status to the husband and children of a female family member who remained in the Imperial Family after marriage. A smaller number, 27.5 percent, did not.
Takaichi depends on conservative lawmakers for her political base. The vice president of the LDP, Taro Aso, is one of the greatest advocates for these revisions of the IHL. His younger sister is Princess Nobuko of Mikasa. Nobuko established a new family and separated from the Mikasa Family just two years ago, in 2025. According to the revised IHL bill, Nobuko could adopt a son whose offspring would be in the line of succession to the throne.
Looking back to Michinaga Fujiwara, who exercised great power in the Imperial Family in the eleventh century, former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is worried that the Aso family might be Fujiwara in Reiwa era. Michinaga left a tanka, a famous verse: “I realize this whole world is mine, only I ignore the eclipse of the moon.” Takaichi needs to keep Aso as her guardian in the LDP.
Noda also asked the government to take seriously the fact that the IHL excluded adoption to avoid disruption of the imperial lineage. Eleven former imperial families that lost royal status in 1947 are 36 to 38 degrees away from reigning Emperor Naruhito. Naruhito and they must reach back some six hundred years to find their common ancestor.
Takaichi will now be remembered as a prime minister who prized patrilinear succession over the legitimacy of the throne.
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
July 20, 2026
Prime Minister Takaichi has been aggressively trying to expand the male line of succession to the Imperial Throne, but she is doing so in a way that undermines the constitutional basis of the Imperial Family. On June 10, the House of Representatives of the Diet passed a bill that amends the Imperial House Law (IHL) to permit the adoption of males of former imperial families. The Upper House approved the bill on July 17. The law gives the male offspring of the adopted male (but not the male himself) a place in the order of succession to the throne of the Emperor.
Since only some but not all the opposition parties approved the bill, the amendments cannot be said to reflect the unanimous opinion of the legislative branch.
Unanimity is a key constitutional principle for the Imperial Family in Japan. Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan provides that the position of the Emperor is derived from the will of the people. The Japanese interpret this article to mean that the will of the people must be unanimous. When former Emperor Akihito abdicated the throne in 2019, the Diet attached a supplemental resolution on unanimity to the special law for the abdication.
That resolution required a discussion in the Diet to obtain a “unanimous opinion of the legislative branch” on stable succession to the throne. The resolution contemplated a unanimous opinion that would reverse the declining number of Imperial Family members. This year, the Speakers and Vice-Speakers of both Houses of the Diet held a brief discussion and wrapped up a “unanimous opinion” and handed it to Prime Minister Takaichi on June 10. The opinion allowed female members to remain in the Imperial Family after marriage and permitted the adoption of males of Imperial Family branches that had left the Family in 1947.
After delivery of the unanimous opinion, the Takaichi Cabinet proposed amendments to the Imperial House law to maneuver around the unanimity requirement in the 2019 supplemental resolution. The legislation includes two critical new measures relating to Imperial succession that were not part of the unanimous opinion.
One is to include the offspring of an adopted male in the line of succession to the throne. This amendment would codify Takaichi’s desire to maintain strict patrilinear succession. Not all males in the Imperial Family branches will qualify for adoption: eligible adoptees must be at least fifteen years old and cannot already be married or already have children. In the discussion of this provision in the Diet, members recognized that adoption of male members of the former Imperial Family would offset the current shrinkage in the Imperial Family. The unanimous opinion of the Diet did not include a discussion of the sons of an adopted male.
The second new element in the legislation is not to give the husband and children of female members that remain in in the family the status of Imperial Family members. These children could not in any case join the line of succession because they are in the female line. It is highly unusual for members of a family to be separated by legal status. Nevertheless, the draft recognizes only the mother as a member of the Imperial Family and excludes the father and the children. Again, this provision was not part of the unanimous opinion.
The Takaichi Cabinet submitted a draft of the revised IHL to the Diet on June 30. Takaichi asked the leading parties to make their best efforts to pass the bill in the current session of the Diet. The Committee on Rules and Administration of the Lower House discussed the bill for just three hours on July 10. The House Plenary Sittings passed the bill later that same day.
Notably, the top opposition party, the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), voted yes on the bill. The party had originally opposed the idea of placing the male offspring of an adopted male in the line of succession. After hearing the explanation by the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minoru Kihara, in the committee to the effect that the revised IHL would not affect or bind future succession discussions in the Diet, the CRA changed its vote to yes. Under the bill, future discussions occur only at thirty-year intervals.
In protest of the CRA’s decision, four CRA lawmakers walked out of the Plenary Sittings. The Japan Communist Party (JCP) voted no on the bill, arguing that the bill had become totally different from the unanimous opinion of the legislative branch. Even the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) coalition partner, quibbled with the provision in the bill that limited adoptions of male members to those no younger than fifteen. It can hardly be said that the bill represents the unanimous opinion of the Diet.
On July 17, the Upper House in its Plenary Sittings passed the bill by a vote of 184 to 57 – obviously not a unanimous view.
Looking at the voting in both chambers, six parties approved – the LDP, JIP, CRA, the Democratic Party for the People, Komeito, and Sanseito. Five opposition parties voted in the negative – the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, JCP, Reiwa Shinsengumi, the Social Democratic Party, and Okinawa Whirlwind. Team Mirai approved the bill in the Upper House but released its members in the Lower House to vote as they saw fit. Interestingly, the Conservative Party of Japan abstained.
It is still unclear why Takaichi has been so hasty in completing revisions of the IHL in the current session of the Diet. Popular sentiment is against the quick action. In the poll of Asahi Shimbun last month, 71 percent of respondents thought that legislation for adopting males in the male line did not need to be made soon. In a more recent Asahi Shimbun poll, 60 percent of respondents thought that the revised Imperial House Law had not received views of the people, while only 24 percent thought it had.
The conservative lawmakers obviously hoped to maintain the imperial throne in the male line. It is likely that they wanted to act now while Takaichi enjoyed a high approval rating in the polls. They made it but possibly at the cost of that very approval rating. The same recent Asahi Shimbun poll revealed that the approval rating for the Takaichi Cabinet declined from 60 percent in June to 53 percent in July. The disapproval rose from 27 percent to 35 percent. This finding may reflect popular reaction to the part of Takaichi’s legislation that blocks the possibility of Princess Aiko becoming Empress.
In other results, a poll by Jiji Press found that 39.5 percent approved of placing the sons (and subsequent offspring) of an adopted male in the male line of succession, while 26.9 percent disapproved. 34.0 percent hoped to give Imperial Family status to the husband and children of a female family member who remained in the Imperial Family after marriage. A smaller number, 27.5 percent, did not.
Takaichi depends on conservative lawmakers for her political base. The vice president of the LDP, Taro Aso, is one of the greatest advocates for these revisions of the IHL. His younger sister is Princess Nobuko of Mikasa. Nobuko established a new family and separated from the Mikasa Family just two years ago, in 2025. According to the revised IHL bill, Nobuko could adopt a son whose offspring would be in the line of succession to the throne.
Looking back to Michinaga Fujiwara, who exercised great power in the Imperial Family in the eleventh century, former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is worried that the Aso family might be Fujiwara in Reiwa era. Michinaga left a tanka, a famous verse: “I realize this whole world is mine, only I ignore the eclipse of the moon.” Takaichi needs to keep Aso as her guardian in the LDP.
Noda also asked the government to take seriously the fact that the IHL excluded adoption to avoid disruption of the imperial lineage. Eleven former imperial families that lost royal status in 1947 are 36 to 38 degrees away from reigning Emperor Naruhito. Naruhito and they must reach back some six hundred years to find their common ancestor.
Takaichi will now be remembered as a prime minister who prized patrilinear succession over the legitimacy of the throne.
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