Published on August 8, 2019. This article continues a roundtable discussion from the monthly magazine Hanada featuring Sakurai Yoshiko, Kadota Ryusho, and Abiru Rui. It discusses the meaning of male-line Imperial succession, the restoration of former Imperial branch families, Asahi Shimbun’s advocacy of female and matrilineal emperors, and the anti-Japanese reporting culture said to persist within Asahi.

2019-08-08
By means of this magnificent system, the Imperial line has been maintained for two thousand years.
It is not permissible to change it for reasons such as, “Now we live in a society of gender equality, so why not?”
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Asahi’s logical absurdity
Kadota
The male line is the only rule of the Imperial line that has continued for two thousand years.
If that rule is changed, it will no longer be the Imperial line.
The male line is the wisdom of our predecessors.
Through the rule of the male line, “authority” and “power” were separated, and even if a ruler or dictator of the time, whether Minamoto no Yoritomo or Oda Nobunaga, entered into marriage with a woman of the Imperial Family, “that child could not ascend the throne.”
By means of this magnificent system, the Imperial line has been maintained for two thousand years.
It is not permissible to change it for reasons such as, “Now we live in a society of gender equality, so why not?”
Abiru
What I find strange in the logic of Asahi and others concerns the restoration of former Imperial branch families to Imperial status.
They say that the people would not accept someone who has been a private citizen for seventy years suddenly succeeding to the Imperial throne, but if a private citizen were to marry a female emperor, then someone who has been a commoner not merely for seventy years but for generations would suddenly become a member of the Imperial Family.
Does Asahi feel no discomfort at all with the logical absurdity that former Imperial family members are unacceptable, but ordinary citizens are acceptable?
Sakurai
However, Asahi introduces comments by experts saying that if even the slightest “shadow of coercion,” such as pressure on descendants of the former Imperial branch families, is felt, the people’s respect for and trust in the Imperial Family will be damaged.
One can sense Asahi’s desire not to restore the former Imperial branch families under any circumstances.
Abiru
There has long been a friendship association of the former Imperial branch families, and when they left Imperial status, Emperor Showa also told them, “I hope that someday you will return.”
I will not say that all members of the former Imperial branch families are prepared to return to Imperial status, but I have heard that quite a few do not desire it on their own, yet would respond if there were a request.
Sakurai
I have also heard from Takeda Tsuneyasu that there are many male-line males from the former Imperial branch families who say they would like to fulfill their responsibility if it is for the sake of stable Imperial succession.
Therefore, we must value such former Imperial branch family members and stabilize Imperial succession.
Abiru
There are many members of the former Imperial branch families who carry the blood of Emperor Meiji, and even going back further than Emperor Meiji, their bloodlines are closely connected through marriage and adoption.
In Tensei Jingo, Asahi criticizes the people for revering hereditary authority, but on the other hand, it seems abnormally attached to, and reverent toward, direct descent.
Kadota
There are many examples of succession to the throne from lines that were not direct and were quite distant, are there not?
When the 25th Emperor Buretsu died without leaving an heir, a fifth-generation descendant of Emperor Ojin was invited from the province of Koshi, present-day Fukui Prefecture, and enthroned as Emperor Keitai.
Abiru
I also question the claim that the people’s understanding cannot be obtained.
In May, Sankei Shimbun and FNN conducted a joint public opinion survey on the state of the Imperial Family, and regarding the restoration to Imperial status of the former Imperial branch families that left the Imperial registry after the war in order to increase the number of male-line male Imperial family members, 42.3% said “it may be recognized,” while 39.6% said “it would be better not to recognize it,” meaning that support for the restoration of the former Imperial branch families was higher.
The people do not really dislike it, do they?
Purified “anti-Japanese ruinous ideology”
Sakurai
Why does Asahi try to denigrate Japan to this extent?
Kadota
In the Reiwa era, I published The Disease Called Newspapers from Sankei Shimbun Publications, and it truly is a disease.
I call it narcissistic shutter syndrome.
Asahi reporters are intoxicated with the idea that “Japan is trying to rush down the road to war, and we are stopping it with the power of our pens.”
However, when it comes to the “inconvenient facts” we have just pointed out, they close the shutter and refuse to listen.
Abiru
They are the kind of people often found in large companies.
Their human relationships are completed entirely within the company, their salaries and treatment are good, and the place is comfortable, so they lose sight of the outside world.
Former reporter Uemura Takashi also said that only after leaving Asahi did he first learn how strong the public backlash against Asahi was.
Kadota
Recently, there have been quite a few cases of young Asahi reporters quitting and moving to online media.
When they go out reporting, they are shocked by how strong the opposition and backlash against Asahi is, and so they quit and move to another media outlet.
Because it was long ago, memories may have faded, but in the 1960s and 1970s, student movements became active, and extremist groups were born one after another.
Their essence was “anti-Japanese ruinous theory.”
During the Vietnam War, U.S. military aircraft that took off from Japan bombed North Vietnam.
This was the so-called “bombing of North Vietnam.”
The extremists advanced with the idea that Japan, which should have restarted from the deep remorse of World War II, was now doing terrible things to Asia, and that such a Japan could perish.
People who had experienced the student movements, and their sympathizers, joined mass media such as Asahi and wrote articles.
In Asahi’s case, the ideology of “anti-Japanese ruin” is purified to an extraordinary degree.
Inside Asahi, a coded expression, “add an angle,” is used, and if an article does not reflect Asahi-style principles and claims, the manuscript is sent back with the instruction, “Add more angle!”
That angle originally comes from anti-Japanese ruinous theory, and only reporters who can add such an angle can get ahead at Asahi.
That is why this kind of reporter continues to be reproduced.
Abiru
An acquaintance of mine who used to be a magazine writer joined Asahi because he could not make a living as things were.
He said that he understood why Asahi reporters become so biased.
“People who have just joined are not necessarily like that, but everyone is watching the faces of the desk editors and department heads. They think, ‘If I write this kind of article, they will like it.’”
Most such articles are apparently left-leaning.
Sakurai
In other words, articles with an angle.
Abiru
While writing articles with an angle, they themselves probably become dyed in Asahi’s colors.
This article continues.