What does 22-year-old Japanese Princess Aiko look like and why did her cousin deprive her of the opportunity to become empress?

Japan's 22-year-old Princess Aiko, the only daughter of the ruling Emperor Naruhito, will never become the ruler, although she had a good chance of ascending the throne. She will have to give way to her cousin Hisahito, who was born in 2007.

However, society still hopes to influence the imperial family to reconsider the succession system, and the princess continues to be closely watched. OBOZ.UA decided to show what the emperor's heiress looks like.

Princess Aiko, who also has a middle name - Toshi, was born in 2001, when her grandfather Akihito was the emperor of Japan. He had two sons, Naruhito and Fumihito Akishino, and both of them had only girls. Until 2007, the family actively discussed this "problem" because only men could inherit the throne.

There was nowhere to go, so the only option seemed to be to abandon the tradition and transfer power to Princess Aiko. Society agreed with this.

However, almost 17 years ago, Akihito's first grandson, who became Aiko's cousin, was born. This forced the family to abandon their plans and come to terms with the fact that the throne would go to the younger son of the ruling emperor's brother, Naruhito. Although some Japanese still insist on the transfer of the imperial title to Aiko, her chances of doing so look rather dim.

However, the princess continues to lead a public life, engage in charity work, represent the country's interests, and recently graduated from university and appeared at her graduation ceremony in traditional dress. Now she will have a fruitful job at the Red Cross.

Aiko has very aristocratic hobbies: she loves to write and sometimes composes scripts for plays, sings, plays the piano and violin. If she wants to continue living at court, she will have to marry an aristocrat, but otherwise she will give up her duties and go after a "commoner" husband.

As OBOZ.UA wrote, this is exactly what the Japanese princess Mako did in her time. After getting engaged in 2017, she married Kei Komuro, a guy of non-aristocratic origin.

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