The former Japanese Princess Mako has left her homeland to start a new life in the United States. She boarded a flight to New York with her new husband Kei Komuro, who works for a law firm in Tokyo under heavy police surveillance.
30-year-old Mako gave up her titles so she could marry Kei Komuro, a non-noble classmate from the University last month. She’s been called Mako Komuro ever since.
The Princess’s relationship was delicate in Japan. Media wrote about alleged financial problems within her in-laws and there was a demonstration on the day of the wedding. There was also much criticism from conservative quarters that the princess would not fulfill her imperial duty by marrying a citizen. There were also protests on the streets against the marriage.
Princess Mako lost a government allowance of 1.1 million euros. Female members of the imperial family lose their title when they marry a commoner. They do receive a one-off allowance of 150 million yen (1.1 million euro) in return. Mako let that allowance go because there was too much fuss about it. “A necessary choice”, Mako called it earlier at a press conference.
The couple are moving to New York. That’s where Komuro lived. He studied law there until last May. Princess Mako said earlier about it: “there will be several difficulties when we start our new life, but we will go through it together as we have done in the past.”
A senior member of the Cabinet said the Cabinet would have the best relations with Japan’s premier, Yoshihide Suga. However, he said his party leader, Taro Aso, would not attend the gathering.
“We have not met any minister since he resigned. He has made several decisions. I thought that he had to attend that gathering. It is not normal that we have not met anyone even before the last Cabinet session,” the cabinet minister said.
Japan is planning on a major military drills this summer and this year, in particular, it will send Japan’s 1.3 billion troops to North Korea.
“But there is a problem in Japan: this will be the first time that the country has made such an announcement since its founding. It doesn’t sit well with our people,” the prime minister and opposition lawmaker from the conservative Republican Party, Taro Aso, told reporters.
“I can say that it’s not quite the same to us,” he added.
It is an “absolute success” in North Korea, he said. The prime minister was at a meeting where former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visited as he met senior members of the ruling Labor Party in Seoul.
