CHAPTER SIX The ((Monarchy of the Masses" IN AN ANALYSIS of the postwar development of the monarchy published at the time of Crown Prince Akihito' s engagement in 1958, the political scien­ tist Matsushita Keiichi (1929- ) employed the term "emperor system of the masses" (taishu tennosei; or simply the "monarchy of the masses") to describe the imperial house's active efforts to reach out to the people, to win, not command, the hearts of the Japanese.1 This change in the monarchy's opera­ tional style was associated first and foremost with Akihito, although it ma­ tured under Hirohito. The effort to remake Emperor Hirohito, symbol of wartime Japan, into a symbol of Postwar Japan was never as successful as the grooming of Akihito to suit the "New Japan." So long as Emperor Hirohito remained on the throne, the monarchy of the masses was constrained. One of the greatest changes faced by the monarchy under the Postwar Constitution was that the throne became fair game for unfettered press cov­ erage. The palace endeavors to transmit a certain image of the imperial house, and the media play a seminal role in presenting that image to the people. Virtually every public act by a member of the imperial family is cho­ reographed, and the media are instrumental in disseminating information about the emperor and other imperial family members. At the same time, the imperial house uses the media to gauge the public's evaluation of its per­ formance; public opinion of the throne flows upward through the media to the keenly interested imperial family members and their handlers.2 And, in addition to being a transmission belt for information to and from the palace, the mass media are themselves independent actors in shaping the imperial house's image. u u THE MONARCHY OF THE MASSES 203 The severe criticism that intellectuals publicly leveled at the monarchy, or the emperor system as distinguished from the monarchy itsel£ in the imme~ diate postwar years was indicative of the changed environment. In a Febru~ ary 1946 essay, JCP leader Miyamoto Kenji forcefully called for the abolition of the emperor system, which he attacked from a variety of angles: The perspective of separating the militarists, a central element in the structure of the emperor system, from the emperor system and making them solely responsible for the aggression not only is a fallacy but ... has left room for the beautification of the emperor system. Yesterday's pure militarists and aggressors say things today such as Japan's emperor system is basically democratic in nature, that the imperial house is the embodiment of democracy . things about which one cannot stop laughing.3 After the war, by no means were Marxists alone in criticizing the monarchy and its societal role. The liberal Maruyama Masao (1914-95) and other "modernists" diagnosed the Japanese people, in part because of their mental~ ity toward the throne, as underdeveloped. 4 Yokota Kisaburo, who would become chief justice of Japan in 1960, adopted a "modernist" line in a 1949 monograph about the emperor system: The reason that until now the Japanese made themselves passive and served the em­ peror was that they were inured to feudalism and despotism under the emperor sys~ rem and did not have a consciousness of individuality or an awareness of self or un­ derstand the value of liberty or the significance of equality. Westerners discovered individuality and became aware of the self as a result of the Renaissance. Based on the enlightened ideas of the eighteenth century, they learned the value ofliberty and discerned the significance of equality. As a result, they rejected despotic monarchism and established democracy. In Japan, since there was no Renaissance or enlightened ideas, the value and significance of individuality, self, liberty, and equality were not understood. [The people] were taught, under extreme statism and feudal ideas, only loyalty to the emperor and service to the stare. The reason there was no opposition between the people and the emperor ... was because of the ignorance of the J apa­ nese people .... Once liberated from feudal ideas and the despotic system, the Japa­ nese will discover as a matter of course the self, discern individuality, realize the value ofliberty, and learn the principle of equaliry.5 Yokota saw the people's loyalty to the throne as a sign of their backwardness and championed the Enlightenment values featured in the Postwar Consti~ tution. British critics of the royal house had long been insisting that as Brit~ ain modernized, the monarchy would lose its role.6 Yet as modern and as .