BEIJING – I’m old, I’m afraid I can’t be an emperor anymore. Akihito officially told the Japanese today what everyone had feared for weeks: the first Japanese ruler ascended the throne from being human and not from God, he no longer feels like reigning and representing the nation, he asks the democratic state to be excused from his offices and to hand over the scepter to his son Naruhito. Akihito, in a recorded video message, spoke publicly for the second time in 27 years at 15 local time.

On Friday the royal house announced that the emperor would appear today for an “important message”, without disclosing the contents of the speech. The media, however, had already given for sure that the 82-year-old Tenno would have anticipated his intention to leave the throne to the fifty-six year old Naruhito, firstborn and crown prince. “I fear that it will be increasingly difficult for me to carry out my duties as a symbolic emperor,” said Akihito in a ten-minute message in which he renewed the invitation to national unity. “I am worried that my many limitations will prevent me from continuing to take on important responsibilities, as I have done so far “. The current imperial law does not provide for the abdication: the last to exercise this right directly was Kokaku, in 1882.

Even the Japanese Constitution prohibits the emperor from making political gestures, but also from making verbal references to the political life of the nation. For this reason, speaking for the first time of his personal future, Akihito had to resort to a balancing act of allusions, limiting himself to making the Japanese understand his desire to leave the institutional commitments and entrusting to parliament the last word. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe immediately responded, in his turn making it clear that the government and the Tokyo chambers will not oppose the imperial wishes. “We seriously accept the words of his majesty the emperor – said Abe – and we will have to think deeply about it”. So it is a matter of months, at most a few years, but the road to goodbye is now cleared. The problem – admitted the sovereign – is age, added to a precarious health. In 2003 Akihito was operated on for prostate cancer and four years ago he underwent heart surgery for a coronary bypass. Then the Japanese thought that Hirohito’s son was another victim of the tsunami earthquake of March 2011, which hit him deeply with his nearly 20 thousand deaths.

ust after the catastrophe, surprisingly, the old emperor appeared on television for what until a few hours ago was his first and only public speech, expressing condolences to the families of the victims and encouraging the survivors. He then recovered and in recent years has also traveled, representing Tokyo in South Korea, China and the Philippines. Not only because of his strength, courage and mild appearance, he is much loved by his fellow countrymen. Respect stems from his having accepted, the first ruler to do so from the first day, to go up in 1989 to the Throne of Chrysanthemum from a simple person, not from a “living god”. Father Hirohito had been forced to renounce his divine origin after the end of World War II.

The center-right hawks, starting with the new Minister in Defense, have always opposed his farewell to the throne, fearing that it could be interpreted as an act of protest against the center-right majority, to the point of transforming the old sovereign in an icon of environmentalism, reformism and pacifism, appreciated by 54% of the Japanese. These, paralyzed today in front of the TV, until the last they hoped that Akihito did not announce a de facto leave. The heir Naruhito, the next emperor, has a life marked by depression, which has also affected his wife Masako, a former diplomat forced to give up his career and nicknamed “the sad princess”. Their daughter, Aiko, is 15 years old and is already famous for reporting being bullied at school. To many this appears as a fragile royal family, not well suited to face the challenges posed by the economic crisis, but also the increasingly harsh confrontation with China and North Korea. So everyone, for different reasons, finally hoped that Akihito, though old and sick, would remain on the throne until he died with a scepter in his hand: only he is tired, he dreams of retirement and has chosen to talk about it to the world’s most aged people , even more human than the father forced to acknowledge that he is a man.