Introduction

Empress Michiko of Japan (皇后美智子 Kōgō Michiko, formerly Michiko Shōda (正田 美智子 Shōda Michiko); born 20 October 1934) is the wife and consort of Emperor Akihito, the current monarch of Japan. She was the first commoner to marry into the Japanese Imperial Family. As crown princess and later as empress consort, she has become the most visible and widely-travelled imperial consort in Japanese history. Her full title is Her Imperial Majesty The Empress of Japan.

Empress Michiko was born in Tokyo, the eldest daughter of Hidesaburo Shōda (1904–1999), president and later honorary chairman of Nisshin Flour Milling Company, and his wife, Fumiko Soejima (1910–1988). She attended Futaba Elementary School in Tokyo, but was obliged to leave during the fourth grade because of the American bombing during World War II. She returned to school after the war ended and attended the Seishin (Sacred Heart) High School in Tokyo. She earned a bachelor of arts in English literature from the Faculty of Literature at the University of the Sacred Heart, Tokyo in 1957.

In August 1957, she met then-Crown Prince Akihito on a tennis court at Karuizawa. The Imperial Household Council (a body composed of the Prime Minister of Japan, the presiding officers of the two houses of the Diet of Japan, or Parliament, the Chief Justice of Japan, and two members of the Imperial Family) formally approved the engagement of the Crown Prince to Michiko Shōda on 27 November 1958. Soon after, a nation-wide sensation and mass media fever (the Michie boom) erupted.

Although the future Crown Princess was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, she was a commoner. During the 1950s, the media and most persons familiar with the Japanese monarchy had assumed the powerful Imperial Household Agency (Kunaicho) would select a bride for Crown Prince Akihito from among the daughters of the former court nobility (Kazoku) or from one of the former branches of the Imperial Family.

Some traditionalists opposed the engagement, and it was widely rumored that Empress Kōjun also was against her son's engagement that she had bullied her effervescent new daughter-in-law into a rumored nervous breakdown in the early 1960s. The young couple, nonetheless, proved widely popular among the Japanese public.

The couple married on 10 April 1959.
Three children were born to the couple:

   1. HIH Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan, b. 23 February 1960
   2. HIH Prince Akishino (Fumihito), b. 30 November 1965
   3. The former HIH Princess Nori (Sayako), b. 18 April 1969

Crown Prince Akihito and Crown Princess Michiko again broke precedent by preferring to raise their children instead of entrusting them to the care of Court chamberlains; the Crown Princess even breastfed. Her efforts to break free of suffocating court etiquette regarding childrearing may have been even more serious than is popularly known.

Upon the death of Emperor Hirohito on 7 January 1989, her husband became Japan's 125th Emperor and she became Empress Consort. The new Emperor and Empress were enthroned (Sokui Rei Seiden no Gi) at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on 12 November 1990.


Empress Michiko - From Wikipedia