On the 2nd, the 87-year-old emperor, along with Emperor Showa, became the oldest emperor of all time, who is said to have a solid record.
The Emperor Emeritus, who was born on December 23, 1933, has been born on the 2nd and has been born for 32,031 days, and has a longevity along with the Emperor Showa who died during his reign.
This is the oldest emperor since the Empress Suiko in the Asuka period, which is said to have a solid record.
According to the activity record of Emperor Showa, "Memoir of Emperor Showa", on July 12, 1985, Emperor Showa, 84 years old, became the oldest emperor of all time along with Emperor Mizuo after the Edo period. Occasionally, the celebration was not held at the will of Emperor Showa, but he ate Unaju with his aides.
The Emperor is currently worried that the infection of the new coronavirus is spreading and many people are facing difficulties, and he is refraining from going out, so according to the Imperial Household Agency, the event to celebrate the emeritus' longevity is It means that it will not be done.
The steps of the emeritus
The Emperor was the eldest son of Emperor Showa and was born on December 23, 1938 as a prince.
He spent his childhood as the war continued, and at the age of 11, he ended the war in Nikko, a evacuated destination.
During the post-war reconstruction period, he spent his youth, and at the age of 19, he visited a foreign country for the first time to attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth of England as the name of Emperor Showa.
The year after finishing college, he met the Empress Emerita at a tennis court in Karuizawa and got married at the age of 25. The celebration parade was packed with more than 500,000 people and was blessed by many people.
After that, he worked hard on public affairs with the Empress Emerita at home and abroad, and raised three children including His Majesty the Emperor at hand, and was shown a new image of the imperial family.
At the age of 55 due to the demise of the Showa Emperor, he was enthroned under the current constitution for the first time. At a press conference the following year, he said, "It is a symbol of Japan, and I would like to fulfill the duties of the emperor as a symbol of Japan's national integration."
Faced with the history of the war with the Empress Emerita, every year during his reign, he attended the "National Memorial Service for War Dead" on the day of the end of the war and expressed his wish that the war would not be repeated again.
In 1995, 50 years after the war, he embarked on a "remembrance trip" and visited Okinawa and the atomic bombed areas of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 60 years after the war, he visited Saipan, a fierce battlefield in the Pacific Ocean, and was memorialized overseas for the war dead.
The Emperor continued to pay close attention to the disaster-stricken areas with the Empress.
In 1991, I visited Shimabara City, Nagasaki Prefecture, which was hit by the eruption of Mt. Unzen Fugen, and knelt at the gymnasium to speak to the victims. After that, every time a major disaster such as the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995 occurred, I went to the site and visited the people who were affected by the disaster.
In the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, he spoke to the people with an unusual video message, visited the three prefectures of Tohoku for seven consecutive weeks, and occasionally visited the affected areas.
In 1992, he visited China for the first time as an emperor of all time, and visited 36 countries as an emperor, and was devoted to international goodwill.
In August 2016, the Emperor expressed his intention to abdicate in a video message, saying, "When considering the gradual deterioration of the body, we can fulfill our symbolic duties with all our hearts as before. I'm worried that it will be difficult, "he said in his heart.
Then, a special law for abdication was enacted, and on April 30, 2019, he was abdicated at the age of 85.
The latest situation of the emeritus
After the Emperor emeritus abdicated and took over the official duties to His Majesty the Emperor, he has been living quiet days with the Empress Emeritus.
In March of last year, I moved to the temporary residence of Sento in Minato-ku, Tokyo, after leaving the Imperial Palace where I lived with the Empress Emerita for more than 26 years in order to replace the residence with the Emperor's family.
There is no particular change in their physical condition, and they live in harmony with each other, such as taking a walk in the garden with the Empress Emerita twice in the morning and evening to get close to the nature around them.
On the other hand, as with the general public, life has changed dramatically, with the days of refraining from going out due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection.
The Emperor asks his aides every day about the status of the infection, and while thinking about the impact on people's lives and the hardships of medical staff, he is currently thinking about spreading the infection with the Delta strain.
The Emperor regularly visited the Institute of Biology in the Imperial Palace as a small outing opportunity to continue his research on the classification of gobies, and in May he published a treatise in a fish science journal.
Recently, he has been watching the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games on TV with the Empress Emerita and cheering for the activities of the athletes.
When the Emperor's family moves out of their residence in Akasaka Imperial Property this month, barrier-free renovation work will be carried out, and the Emperor and his wife are expected to move by the spring of next year.