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Jiji Press The Emperor, front, and Empress, center, attend a ceremony to receive New Year’s greetings at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Jiji Press
16:07 JST, January 1, 2025 (updated at 17:35 JST)
TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The Emperor and Empress received New Year’s greetings from other Imperial family members and the country’s leaders, including Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, in a ceremony at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Wednesday.
In the morning, Imperial family members, including Crown Prince Akishino, the younger brother of the Emperor, and his wife, Crown Princess Kiko, delivered statements to celebrate the start of the New Year to the Emperor and Empress, followed by similar greetings by Ishiba, his Cabinet ministers and the heads of both chambers of the Diet.
Then, the Emperor said in an address: “It is with great pleasure that we celebrate the New Year together. At the beginning of the year, I pray for the happiness of the people and the development of the country.”
In the afternoon, the Emperor and Empress received congratulatory greetings from foreign ambassadors to Japan.
Following the passing of Princess Yuriko, great-aunt of the Emperor and wife of the late Prince Mikasa, in November last year, members of the Mikasa family and the family of the late Prince Takamado, the third son of Princess Yuriko, refrained from attending the New Year’s ceremony.
On Thursday, the Imperial family will greet the public at the Imperial Palace, a New Year’s event that will be held for the first time in two years, after the 2024 event was canceled due to the powerful earthquake that hit the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture on Jan. 1 that year. With no advance registration required for this year’s event, the palace will be open to anyone who wishes to enter, just as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prince Hisahito, the son of Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko, who turned 18 to become an adult member of the Imperial family last year, is set to start attending events at the palace after a coming-of-age ceremony to be held for him following his high school graduation this spring. He therefore did not join the New Year’s ceremony Wednesday and will not appear at Thursday’s greeting event.
