Japan’s Princess Mako to move to New York after marrying commoner

TOKYO — Japanese Princess Mako is expected to relocate to New York after marrying her college sweetheart, Kei Komuro, without any of the usual fanfare Tuesday, according to multiple reports.

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Photos: Japan's Princess Mako marries commoner, loses royal status Japan's Princess Mako waves from a car as she leaves her home in Akasaka Estate in Tokyo Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021. Mako and her commoner boyfriend Kei Komuro tied the knot Tuesday without wedding celebration in a marriage that has split the public opinion over her would-be mother-in-law's financial controversy. (Chika Oshima/Kyodo News via AP)

Sitting next to one another at a hotel in Tokyo on Tuesday, the couple announced that they had registered their marriage earlier in the day, The Washington Post reported. The pair, who met while they were students at International Christian University in Tokyo, announced their engagement in 2017, but their nuptials were delayed for three years amid criticism related to a financial dispute involving Komuro’s mother, according to the Post and The Associated Press.

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Critics accused Komuro of being a gold digger after reports surfaced that his mother received 4 million yen, or about $36,000, from an ex-boyfriend whom she had not paid back, The New York Times reported. Komuro and his mother, who is widowed, said they thought the money was supposed to be a gift, according to the newspaper.

On Tuesday, Mako called her husband “an irreplaceable person for me,” and added that “for the two of us, marriage was a necessary decision in our lives to protect our hearts,” the Post reported.

“I love Mako,” Komuro said, according to the newspaper. “I would like to spend my one and only life with the person I love.”

Komuro, 30, left Japan for New York in 2018 to pursue a law degree, according to the AP. He returned to the country in late September to quarantine ahead of his marriage to Mako, drawing media criticism for wearing his hair in a ponytail, the Times reported.

The couple plans to move to New York, where Komuro works at a law firm, according to NPR.

The couple’s engagement splintered public opinion, with some polls showing as many as 80% of respondents opposing the marriage, the Times reported.

Mako, 30, is a niece of Emperor Naruhito and daughter to Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko. Under Imperial Household Law, Mako is required to relinquish her royal title to marry Komuro, a law not applicable to male imperial household members who marry commoners, according to the AP. The law also bars women from taking the throne in Japan.

“Criticism has always been centered on women imperial family members who don’t even have the right to succession,” Hideya Kawanishi, an associate professor at Nagoya University who specializes in Japanese history and the imperial family system, told the Times. “Unfortunately, I think there is a certain misogynistic aspect to the Japanese imperial family.”

Palace doctors said Mako is recovering from traumatic stress disorder caused by seeing negative media coverage about her marriage, the AP reported. Other Japanese women in the imperial family have also reported mental health struggles related to loud public criticism and news coverage over the years. Mako’s grandmother, Empress Emerita Michiko, collapsed and temporarily lost her voice in 1993 amid continuous negative coverage while Empress Masako, the wife of Emperor Naruhito, has suffered a stress-induced mental condition for nearly two decades, in part because of criticism over not producing a male heir.

Mako’s marriage left just three people eligible to take the throne after Emperor Naruhito, according to the Times: the emperor’s 85-year-old uncle; the emperor’s brother and Mako’s father, Akishino; and the emperor’s nephew and Mako’s brother 15-year-old Prince Hisahito.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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