Tokyo: Japan’s new Emperor Naruhito (left) and Empress Masako attend an event to celebrate the accession to the throne at the Imperial Palace on Wednesday.—AFP
“I’m very moved to watch this traditional event,” said Yasutaka Okamoto, a 67-year-old office worker from western Tokyo.
The change of era is a huge event in Japan and several couples chose to get married on the stroke of midnight.
There were also long queues at post offices to get stamps bearing the first day of the Reiwa era and crowds scrambled to get rare special editions of papers commemorating the events outside mainline stations. Some people went to extraordinary lengths to ring in the new era.
With early-morning clouds casting a shadow over the first sunrise, around 80 people paid for a specially chartered plane to soar above them to capture dawn breaking over the Japanese Alps.
“Although passengers could not see Mt. Fuji due to bad weather, they were able to enjoy the first sunrise of Reiwa,” Sho Inoue, an airline company spokesman, said.
Around 370 early birds travelled to Nemuro on the island of Hokkaido, one of the easternmost points of Japan, in a bid to be the first to see the sunrise but clouds cast a shadow on proceedings there.
Others went to watch the formal ceremony and Naruhito’s first speech on massive screens outside Shinjuku, the world’s busiest train station.
Gazing up at the screen, 21-year-old law student Mito Okuno said she had come from Himeji, some 600 kilometres to the west of Tokyo, to savour the historic moment.
Dressed in a striped orange, red and black kimono, Okuno said: “I am someone who loves history and what we are experiencing now will be talked about for a long time.” “That’s why I wanted to come in person.” In the Tokyo neighbourhood of Nakanobu, large crowds in traditional “hanten” dress paraded through the streets carrying an ornate golden shrine on their shoulders.
Naruhito officially became emperor at midnight and several hundred braved torrential rain to cram into the famous “scramble” crossing at Shibuya to count down to the new era.
Tamae Moriyama, a 48-year-old restaurant worker, said she hoped the historic events would spark a debate about women ascending the throne, which is currently forbidden.
“I hope that women will one day be able to take the throne like in Britain.
I am happy that the subject is being debated. Times have changed but the imperial system has not changed with them,” she said.
Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2019