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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;satootoko, post: 171110, member: 669&quot;]Actually I did know everything in the post <b>except</b>:This year is Heisei 18.&nbsp; 1989 was both Showa 64 <u>and</u> Heisei Gan (First), since Akihito&nbsp; became Emperor immediately upon the death of his father in January.&nbsp; To determine the Heisei year you must subtract 1988 (the last year he wasn&#039;t Emperor) from the current year.</p><p><br /></p><p>During and since the occupation of Japan following World War II &quot;Dai Nihon&quot; was dropped from the coinage, currency and other places. &quot;Nihon Koku&quot; (loosely translated as Country of Japan) is the current legend.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t know where that came from. <img src="http://bestsmileys.com/bunny/25.gif" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />&nbsp; As of this morning&#039;s Japanese newscast on Los Angeles TV Channel 18, Akihito was alive and well.&nbsp; There wiill be no new ruler while he&nbsp; lives.&nbsp; The Emperor has been a symboll of the country, but not the head of government since Japan&#039;s surrender to end WW II.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The recent change in Prime Ministers <u>did not</u> affect the Tenno Nengo (Emperor&#039;s Era).&nbsp;&nbsp; Although hHistorically a new&nbsp; Nengo has sometimes been proclaimed during an Emperor&#039;s lifetime, based on some fundamental change in government, this has&nbsp; not occurred since the 1867 Meiji Restoration, nor,&nbsp; to the best of my recollection, for several centuries before that.</p><p><br /></p><p>A couple of additional bits of interesting trivia related to Clinker&#039;s post:</p><p><br /></p><p>1.&nbsp; Hirohito became Regent in 1921 due to his father&#039;s ultimately fatal illness, so in effect he reigned for 68 years (still less than Victoria).</p><p><br /></p><p>2.&nbsp; The recent birth of a son to Akihito&#039;s younger son has prevented a constitutional crisis over whether or not to eliminate&nbsp; the prohibition of a reigning Empress;.&nbsp; There had been a movement springing up to return to the ancient law under which there actually were multiple reigning Empresses, so that the daughter of Akihito&#039;s elder son would be in the line of succession.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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