Parts I and II traced how the pillars the Meiji state erected as “tradition since time immemorial” \u2014 an unbroken imperial line, strict male succession, the three sacred regalia, State Shinto \u2014 were each, in fact, modern constructions. But this is not merely a matter of historical interest. These pillars remain load-bearing structures in Japanese conservative politics today. This chapter looks at the major conservative forces that hold up Meiji-style “tradition” as an ideal \u2014 openly or implicitly \u2014 and examines exactly which fictions each of them leans on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Founded in 1997, Nippon Kaigi is Japan’s largest conservative political-religious organization. The first article of its basic platform calls for “a beautiful traditional national character for tomorrow’s Japan,” centered on honoring the imperial house as the core of national unity. Among its concrete policy goals is revising the Imperial House Law to secure stable male-line succession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notably, its education policy calls for correcting textbook descriptions it considers “self-flagellating” or “anti-prewar.” In other words, the very kind of evidence-based historical claim made in Parts I and II \u2014 that bansei ikkei<\/em> is a modern political theory, and that strict male succession does not match the historical record \u2014 is precisely what Nippon Kaigi frames as “masochistic historiography” (jigyaku shikan<\/em>) to be corrected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What it relies on<\/strong>: Nippon Kaigi’s “beautiful tradition” is, in substance, Pillar 1 (the modern political origin of the term bansei ikkei<\/em>) and Pillar 2 (the mismatch between strict male-line absolutism and historical fact) from Part I. What it actually defends is not ancient continuity itself, but a modern governing theory manufactured by the Meiji state \u2014 plus a rhetorical strategy that labels any questioning of it as national self-abasement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Conservative Party of Japan was founded on October 17, 2023 by novelist Hyakuta Naoki and journalist Arimoto Kaori under the banner “protecting Japan’s national polity (kokutai<\/em>) and traditional culture.” It gained official party status after the 2024 Lower House election. Its policy platform calls for revising the Imperial House Law to permit adoption between the current imperial family and former princely branch houses, specifically to preserve male-line succession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is striking is that the party’s own founding declaration has drawn scrutiny from commentators for its historical inconsistency. One critique notes that the declaration’s account of the imperial line’s origins places it at a period when no imperial house yet existed, and points out that the term bansei ikkei<\/em> is itself a modern coinage, with mainstream historiography treating Emperor Keitai’s accession as a genuine genealogical rupture rather than a seamless continuation. In other words, the “unbroken line” the party idealizes runs into trouble not only from outside critics, but within the very historical narrative it invokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What it relies on<\/strong>: The Conservative Party leans on Pillar 1 (the modern origin of bansei ikkei<\/em>), Pillar 2 (male-line absolutism), and Pillar 5 from Part II \u2014 the treatment of the Kojiki\/Nihon Shoki myths as literal history. Its proposed solution of adoption from former princely houses is, structurally, identical to Pillar 4 from Part I: the 18th-century creation of the Kan’in-no-miya house as an artificial insurance policy for succession. In trying to preserve “the natural continuity of blood,” the party ends up proposing yet another artificial graft \u2014 unknowingly repeating the very kind of “invented tradition” it claims to be defending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current standard-bearer of the LDP’s conservative wing is Takaichi Sanae, who became Japan’s 104th prime minister in October 2025. Takaichi belongs to Nippon Kaigi as one of its affiliated conservative politicians, and as Imperial House Law reform emerged as a major policy issue for her administration, she staked out a clear position in Diet questioning in February 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prime Minister Takaichi stated that she respects the conclusion of a 2021 expert panel report on stable imperial succession, which held that limiting eligibility to male-line male descendants was appropriate. At the same time, while acknowledging that female emperors within the male line have historically existed \u2014 and that denying this would be disrespectful \u2014 she emphasized that succession has never once passed through the female line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is an important slippage here. As shown in Part I, Emperor Keitai was brought to the throne from a branch five generations removed from Emperor \u014cjin \u2014 a genealogically distant connection even by the standards of the time \u2014 and scholarship suggests that this “unbroken male line” itself may have been a retrospective political legitimation. The claim that “succession has never passed through the female line” may hold as a technical genealogical classification, but it sidesteps the central question raised in Part I: at what point does the pedigree stop being a natural bloodline and start being a politically stitched-together narrative? It is also worth noting that the 2021 report Takaichi cited was, by the government’s own later clarification, intended to address the shrinking number of imperial family members rather than succession eligibility itself \u2014 a reinterpretation that required an official walk-back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What it relies on<\/strong>: Pillar 2 (male-line absolutism) itself \u2014 reinforced by reinterpreting a report written for a different purpose as though it settled succession eligibility. This is structurally the same maneuver Inoue Kowashi performed in the Meiji era: splicing existing texts together to manufacture a governing theory. The same procedure is being repeated in Diet debate in the Reiwa era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond Nippon Kaigi, the Conservative Party, and the LDP’s conservative wing, newer “ultra-conservative” political forces echo the same framework. Sanseito, for instance, lists “the wisdom of our ancestors,” “national unity centered on the emperor,” and “Japan’s spirit and traditions” among its founding principles. Here too, the very idea of national unity centered on the emperor reproduces the Meiji governing theory examined as Pillar 1 in Part I \u2014 with its origins left entirely unexamined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What it relies on<\/strong>: What these forces share is a reproduction of the Meiji-era frame \u2014 “a traditional national character centered on the emperor” \u2014 as an unquestioned given, without ever subjecting the pillar itself to scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What Nippon Kaigi, the Conservative Party of Japan, the LDP’s conservative wing, and the adjacent far right all share is treating the pillars the Meiji state constructed \u2014 the term bansei ikkei<\/em>, absolute male-line succession, the historicization of the Kojiki\/Nihon Shoki myths \u2014 not as historical artifacts open to examination, but as self-evident premises where questioning itself is foreclosed as “self-abasement” or “disrespect.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is equally striking is that every time these forces try to defend a “natural tradition,” they end up needing a new artificial patch \u2014 whether the Kan’in-no-miya house in the 18th century or the reinterpretation of a 2021 report today. What they are actually protecting is not a tradition that has stood still since antiquity, but a dynamic political construction that has been stitched back together every time it has threatened to come apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet they continue to insist on this construction as ancient tradition, cultivating an atmosphere in which questioning it at all is foreclosed. What, in the end, are they truly trying to convince the public of, through this insistence? If bloodline, regalia, ritual, and even the calendar itself all turn out, once traced back, to be contrivances assembled out of specific political necessity \u2014 then seen from the outside, what stands there may not be a solemn tradition at all, but a story that is, at its core, hollow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sources: Nippon Kaigi official platform; Conservative Party of Japan party charter and platform; February 2026 Diet reporting (Jiji Press and others).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parts I and II traced how the pillars the Meiji state erected as “tradition since time immemorial” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n\n\n2. The Conservative Party of Japan \u2014 “Founded Together with Myth”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n3. The LDP’s Conservative Wing \u2014 Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s Insistence on Male-Only Succession<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n4. The Far Right and Adjacent Forces \u2014 The Same Pattern in Parties Like Sanseito<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nConclusion: The Pillars Are Not Relics \u2014 They Are Load-Bearing Materials in Active Use<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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