this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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[–] Harvey656@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The whiplash of learning japan has a royal family in modern ages is wild.

[–] wabafee@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Even more wild they call their king, emperor.

[–] Uruanna@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They call him tennou actually (heavenly king) but then when they were forced to open up, they heard of Napoleon and they thought damn that's cool, we'll tell foreigners to use that too.

Tennou has been in use for over 1350 years, and in the late 19th c. they thought their governmental subdivision (provinces) more closely matched that of France under Napoleon III I think (departments).

[–] Soulg@ani.social 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's just like the UK though, they're just figureheads

[–] Harvey656@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Still, nonetheless, quite a wild thing to learn.

[–] knowone@slrpnk.net 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There are quite a few European countries that still have monarchs. Just seems our last one before this one was "iconic" or whatever people call her. Glad the popularity of it is fading with the new one

[–] elmicha@feddit.org 12 points 2 days ago

There are also quite a few non-European countries that have a European king as head of state.

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Loads of countries have royal families. I said many times that it's not a stupid model and latest events in Poland only confirm this.

Long story short: Polish president has mostly decorative role but current far-right guy is now illegally usurping powers that are constitutionally not his and conspiring with Trump behind the government's back.

In monarchies the King/Queen have pretty much the same role but their position is so weak that they simply smile and follow the orders. They have a lot to lose and nothing to gain.

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How does that work? I heard of things like that in some countries. Venezuela is the only one that comes to mind. Idk if this is currently happening, but at least in the past there was an official and a non-official government because Maduro never accepted that he lost his ellections... but Poland seems to have a working democracy... or am I missing something? Is Poland that polarized?

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 4 points 2 days ago

It is extremely polarized but it's not about elections. Couple examples of what the president is doing now:

  • the constitution is clear that the government (so the Prime Minister and his staff) is responsible for foreign policy. When the president goes abroad he should get his instructions from the government and be accompanied by someone from the government. President ignored this before meeting Trump. He's basically trying to run parallel foreign policy which is crazy dangerous and damaging
  • new judges have to be swear in before the president. it's just a ceremony but the president decided he will not swear in judges he doesn't like
  • same with ambassadors. according to the constitution those are nominated by the gov but the president decided he will only swear in those he approves

He's basically using weak points of the constitution (which admittedly is simply badly written) to derail the government and is trying to rule in parallel where possible even though his post was designed as a purely ceremonial one.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Their government was an imperial model during WWII. Unless they killed off the royalty, why would you assume they had no descendants?

[–] Harvey656@lemmy.world -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's not that, its just not something I have heard of, like, at all. Unlike most of the rest of the worlds royalty. Though them being less in the world news makes plenty of sense.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Well, things went about as well for Japan's royalty as it did for Japan in general when they lost WWII.