Asia | The sun, the moon and the ponytail

A long-delayed royal wedding reveals awkward truths about Japan

Women are still badly treated, politics is out of sync with the people and the monarchy is dwindling

Starry eyed
|TOKYO

PRINCESS MAKO and Komuro Kei were undergraduates when they first met in Tokyo back in 2012. Mako was drawn to Kei’s “smile that is like the sun”. Kei saw Mako as “the moon watching over me tranquilly”. The couple began dating and kept in touch while Mako studied abroad; in 2017, they got engaged.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “The sun, the moon and the ponytail”

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