ABSTRACT
During the Heisei era, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko put their enduring stamp on Japan. This chapter analyzes the symbolic essence of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, who formed a close partnership. This symbolic essence was characterized by five themes which sometimes overlap: (1) an unabashed support of the postwar system; (2) efforts to compress the margins of society by reaching out to the most vulnerable members of society, and also by extending a hand to others marginalized by geography and other factors; (3) efforts to bring closure to the postwar era by trying to heal the festering wounds of the war and of the imperial era in a more general sense; (4) demonstrations of pride in the best that Japan has to offer, but a pride in Japan tempered with a cosmopolitanism that clashed with simplistic nationalism, including in reference to views of Japan's history; and (5) the unusually active and important role played by Michiko. Throughout the modern era, Japanese have debated the national identity, what it means to be Japanese, through the monarchy, making it a useful window to understanding ever-evolving Japan.
