Japanese dare to ask: Do we really need an emperor?

As easy as it is to paint this as a battle between good and evil, modernists and traditionalists, the imperial family versus the IHA, the story is more complex, says Shinji Yamashita, an IHA employee for 23 years and now publisher of a quarterly magazine about the royals.

First, says Mr. Yamashita, many IHA employees have worked in other divisions of the government for years. They are not, he says, a uniformly traditional bunch.

Yamashita says the real battle is within each organization, not between them. "Both the IHA and the imperial family are trapped between the constitutional role of the imperial family and the sentiments of the people," he says. 

Yet many Japanese, says Yamashita, want the emperor to continue the long tradition of leading Shinto rituals, encouraging age-old cultural practices, and inspiring the nation. But all the emperor's statements have to be approved by the prime minister's office. Not surprisingly, most of what he says is bland.

Before he assumed the throne, then-Crown Prince Akihito complained that being emperor meant becoming a robot. He pledged to transform the Chrysanthemum throne. 

By some measures, he has succeeded. He was the first royal to marry a commoner, and he allowed the empress to raise their children herself instead of packing them off to nursemaids.

His schedule includes stops at facilities for the elderly and he often spoke of issues related to the graying of Japan, a pet topic. 

When earthquakes hit Japan, he and the empress visit victims. The couple once touched their countrymen's hearts by getting down on the ground to bow to those made homeless by a disaster. The emperor has tried to make amends with Japan's neighbors during his visits in Asia by speaking openly of the suffering inflicted by Japanese troops during World War II. He has also tried to heal wounds within the country, visiting every prefecture in the nation during his reign.

But his day-to-day schedule is hardly the stuff of headlines – signing documents, accrediting senior officials, welcoming foreign ambassadors, and the like.

Now, Japanese are looking to his eldest son for further change.

The Oxford University-educated prince has indicated he would like to transform the institution. He has moved in that direction, first by marrying a career woman and more recently by complaining that his wife, Princess Masako, had no meaningful work.

The majority of Japanese, according to most polls, support changing the Constitution to allow Naruhito and Masako's daughter to ascend the throne – a view that was gaining momentum until Naruhito's brother and his wife had a son in 2006.

Support is still broad for the royal family, says Yamashita. "Old people, in particular, would feel a sense of loss if the institution was abolished," he says. "But in 30 years' time, maybe people wouldn't feel that way."

Tokyo resident Shizuka Coats remembers going with her grandfather to the Imperial Palace every year on the emperor's birthday to be among the throng of well-wishers waving Japanese flags and hoping for a glimpse of the emperor. She hasn't been since her grandfather passed away. Neither does she plan to start the same ritual with her children.

"I feel very distant from the royal family," says Ms. Coates. "I think the crown prince must change things to make the family more relevant."

• Yukiko Abe and Naoto Okamura contributed to this report.

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