Emperor Akihito celebrated his 89th birthday on the 23rd.
In April, the Emperor moved from his temporary residence in Minato Ward, Tokyo, to the Akasaka Imperial Palace, where he spent more than 30 years after his marriage to the Empress Emerita.
According to the Imperial Household Agency and related parties, every morning and evening, the Empress Emerita and Empress Emerita take a walk in the garden, and when they do so, people from nearby buildings sometimes wave to the Emperor and Empress, and the Empress retires. It seems that they are looking forward to interacting with each other, such as waving their hands.
In his new home, he has resumed his hobby of practicing the cello, and invites a lecturer about twice a month to enjoy the performance, and the Empress Emerita sometimes attends and listens to him.
Twice a week, she also goes to the Imperial Palace's biological research institute to pursue her life's work, researching gobies.
In July, he was diagnosed with heart failure, but he continues to take medicine and is improving, and the cataract and glaucoma that he underwent surgery in September are doing well.
Every day, together with Her Majesty the Empress Emerita, she reads her essays and Japanese language textbooks from her elementary school aloud, and spends her days quietly and regularly, chatting with staff members.
On the 23rd, a birthday celebration event will be held at the residence in a simple manner with thorough infection control measures, and the Emperor will be congratulated by Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress and Prince Akishino and his wife.
Recent situation of the Emperor
This is the current situation of the retired emperor announced by the Imperial Household Agency.
His Majesty the Emperor Emeritus will celebrate his 89th birthday this year.
After moving to the Sento Temporary Imperial Palace (Takanawa, Minato Ward) in March 2020, in April of this year, he moved into the former Akasaka Imperial Palace, the Sento Imperial Palace. After moving out of town, I returned to the place of memories where I lived for over 33 years until December 1993.
In June of this year, with the exception of the University of Tokyo Hospital, the Imperial Household Agency Hospital in the Imperial Palace, and the Biological Research Institute, special exhibitions commemorating the 50th anniversary of Okinawa's return to Okinawa, "Ryukyu" and " Special Exhibition Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Okinawa's Reversion: Okinawa's Reversion to Japan Traced through Official Documents", and the special exhibition "100 Years of an Imperial Family: Prince Takahito Mikasa and His Era" held at the Gakushuin University Archives in December. Other than that, I didn't go out.
His Majesty, as in the past, is spending quiet, peaceful days regularly with the Empress Emerita.
Every day, after waking up, I take a walk in the garden with the Empress Emerita, and after returning, I feed the little gobies kept in the aquarium in the dining room.
You will have breakfast while watching the TV news at 7 o'clock, and after that you will slowly read the newspaper and read aloud with the Empress Emerita.
Since the days of the Crown Prince, we have read Montaigne's "Zessouroku", Pascal's "Pensée", Tatsuo Hori's "Yamatoji/Shinanoji", and Torahiko Terada's essays. Both of you are rereading the Japanese language textbooks you learned when you were in the fifth grade of elementary school.
At 9:00 am, together with the Empress Emerita, you will receive an explanation from the chamberlain on duty about the schedule of Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress Emerita and the movements of the entire Imperial Family.
He also talks about and receives explanations about events occurring in Japan and overseas.
Every Monday and Friday mornings, he is at the Imperial Palace Biological Research Institute, and Wednesday mornings at the Sento Imperial Palace. , I look at the specimens under a microscope, and I participate in the bimonthly online meeting of the Japanese Society for Taxonomy of Fishes as much as possible.
In the mornings on days when I don't have research, I watch recorded TV programs that introduce the history, culture, nature, etc. of Japan and other parts of the world with the Empress Emerita and Chamberlain.
In the evening, the Empress Emerita accompanies us for a 30-minute stroll through the Akasaka Imperial Grounds.
The adjacent State Guest House was once the temporary residence of the Crown Prince, and the Emperor lived there from March 1937 until May 1944, when he was evacuated to Numazu. We also took a walk around the area.
After returning from your walk, you and the Empress Emerita will have a pleasant chat with the staff who accompanied them.
Recently, the success of Japan's World Cup soccer team has become a hot topic.
In the afternoon, I also enjoyed reading books and watching sumo wrestling on television.
After dinner, the Chamberlain will come up and talk about his first visit to England in 1953 and his visits to Japan and abroad, while looking at the records of those days.
Regarding your physical condition, since around June this year, your weight has increased slightly, and your BNP level in a blood test has risen, so when you underwent a chest X-ray, findings of heart failure such as cardiomegaly and pleural effusion were observed. Therefore, on July 24, as a result of undergoing a cardiac MRI examination at the University of Tokyo Hospital, he was diagnosed with right heart failure due to tricuspid regurgitation.
Since the end of June, he has continued medical treatment, including taking medication, restricting fluid intake, and limiting exercise. As a result, his right heart failure is improving.
On September 19th, he underwent cataract surgery on his left eye, and on September 25th, he underwent surgery for cataract and glaucoma on his right eye, both at the University of Tokyo Hospital. became.
The postoperative course is good.
Her Majesty, along with her Empress Emerita, remains quietly and modestly during the imperial ceremonies.
This year, on the occasion of the Niinamesai, Their Majesties spent a period of abstinence in time with the departure of His Majesty the Emperor, and remained sober until midnight when the Dawn Ceremony ended.
On Okinawa Memorial Day, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombing Days, the anniversary of the end of the war, and the days of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the Great East Japan Earthquake, Empress Emerita and Empress Emerita have observed a moment of silence during television broadcasts.
In the story of looking back on the war, there was also a memory of the time I spent in Koganei City, Tokyo.
Since Gakushuin Junior High School, whose school building was destroyed by air raids, resumed classes in the same city, His Majesty lived there from May 1946, when he was a first year student at Gakushuin Junior High School, to December 1949, when he became a first year student at Gakushuin High School. He moved to the site of the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum at that time to move the lodgings for the servants of the Hayama Imperial Villa back then, and took up classes there. I started playing table tennis and tennis little by little.
Even now, he remembers nostalgically about those days, such as the scenery of wheat fields spreading around him, and talks to his aides.
In 1974, the Empress Emerita, who once heard from His Majesty the story of that time, wrote a story titled "Wheat Ears," which read, "Remembering Koganei no Sato, the wheat ears swaying, and the boy's day you standing." ”, he is chanting a poem.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England passed away in September, and in deep sorrow, I recalled the friendship that has spanned 69 years since Her Majesty's attendance at the coronation ceremony. I was grateful and prayed for the repose of the soul.
In particular, when he visited England in June 1976, he enjoyed horseback riding with Her Majesty the Queen together with the Empress Emerita, and went from Windsor Castle to Ascot Racecourse. In February 2012, three months after her coronary artery bypass surgery, she attended the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne. He remembered things that happened to me with deep impressions, and I had the opportunity to talk to him about them.
Regarding your research, I am currently working on two issues with the staff of the Institute for Biology.
The first is to clarify the relationship between the shapes of swimmers and movement of fins and the swimming behavior of the Chichibu and the Numachichibu, which have overlapping habitats, and to clarify the differences in the habitat environments of the two species, which live separately in the same water system. This is research to confirm.
In addition to the phenomenological observation of specimens and aquarium swimming, the research methods are being expanded, such as incorporating the results of CT scan skeletal analysis of other researchers.
The second is a taxonomic study of the Japanese spider goby genus.
In 1980, His Majesty co-authored a paper (“On the Six Species of Bathygobius Collected in Japan,” Ichthyological Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3), in which he extracted characteristic physical traits for classifying the genus. Six species were classified, but after that, it was confirmed that four new species of the genus Spider Gobies are distributed in Japan.
For this reason, we are currently conducting research to confirm whether the physical trait classification index announced at that time, including these four species, is still effective.