Japan jubilant over royal pregnancy

Newspapers devoted pages to the story

After enduring months of gloomy economic news and a political crisis ending in leadership change, Japan has found cause to celebrate with the announcement that Crown Princess Masako is pregnant.

The media is jubilant and has devoted much coverage to the news, with major dailies splashing colour spreads of the happy couple, who married in June 1993.

The prime minister said it was the first good news for a long time, while the "feel good" factor even reached the stock market and yen, which lifted slightly.

Princess Masako

Married Prince Naruhito in 1993

Former career diplomat

Graduate of Harvard and Oxford

Grew up in Moscow and New York

Plays the flute

Share prices of Japanese companies manufacturing baby products, in particular, rose amid hope that the news might provide inspiration to women.

Politicians too, raised the subject, with one lawmaker proposing that perhaps the law should be changed to allow an Empress.

The present law stipulates that only a son can inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Indeed, that is the question on everyone's lips - will it be a boy or a girl?

It has been a 37-year-long wait for a boy, who will be the second in line to the throne after 41-year-old Crown Prince Naruhito.

Media blitz

Among the many pages of media coverage, one daily published an old photograph showing the smiling princess holding a friend's baby.

The couple were smiling when seen on Wednesday

"Smiles all round," says the liberal daily, the Asahi Shimbun, reflecting the country's general celebratory mood.

"Congratulations!" the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said in its editorial.

"This is the news we have been waiting for for so long... The princess is three months pregnant and she is in good condition and healthy. We cannot ask for more," it said.

One tabloid sports paper notes the news was carried live by all television stations, managing to push out coverage of the Sumo grand tournament.

"We pray that the princess will remain in sound health so that she would be able to hold a healthy child," the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The large-selling broadsheet says the imperial household has called for calm from the media and notes the unusual media restraint since news of the pregnancy was leaked last month.

But the paper clearly intends to make up for that now, devoting seven full pages to the story.

A media frenzy was blamed for causing the 37-year-old princess, who has been under enormous pressure to conceive, to suffer a stress-related miscarriage in 1999.

Female heir

The BBC's correspondent in Tokyo, Charles Scanlon, says there is a shadow to the celebrations - as all the papers point out, if the baby's a girl, the succession problem will not have been solved.

The princess has been under enormous pressure to conceive

One politician, from a party in the ruling coalition, said he saw no reason why a female member of the royal family should not ascend the throne.

"From a viewpoint that we aim to have a gender-free society, I personally think we can have a female emperor," Mr Takenori Kanzaki, leader of the New Komeito Party, told a news conference.

"Why don't we revise the law at the next extraordinary parliament session," he suggested.

But other lawmakers called for restraint, warning that the pregnancy could be unsettled by a heated debate on the issue.

There have been Empresses before - but not for some time. The last reigning empress, Go-Sakuramachi, abdicated in 1771.

In total, only 10 out of Japan's 125 historically-documented sovereigns have been women.