As the Imperial Court Office announced, the oldest member of the imperial family died in St. Luke’s Hospital in Tokyo. Yuriko was admitted there in March because of a mild cerebral infarction.
“I am deeply saddened by the news of the death of Her Imperial Highness Princess Yuriko of Mikasa,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in a statement.
Yurito was born in 1923 into a noble family. After studying at the Gakushuin Women’s Academy in Tokyo, at the age of 18 she married Prince Mikasa, the youngest brother of Emperor Hirohito, who died in 1989.
Princess Yuriko and Prince Mikasa after their wedding in 1941.
Getty Images / Bettmann
The two were married for 75 years and had five children together, three of whom have already died. Yuriko’s husband Mikasa died of heart failure in 2016 at the age of 100.
A picture from November 2015: Prince Mikasa with his wife Yuriko.
Keystone/Imperial Household Agency of Japan via AP
Yuriko lived her final years in seclusion in the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo. According to the Imperial Court Office, she is said to have regularly read magazines there, watched baseball on television and spent sunny days in the palace garden until the end. It wasn’t until spring that her health began to deteriorate.
Princess Yuriko in her residence in 2023.
Keystone
After Yuriko’s death, the Japanese imperial family only numbers 16 people, including four men. As before, only male heirs are allowed to continue the family line. Women have no place in the line of succession and are excluded from the family as soon as they marry commoners.
The exact cause of death was not disclosed by the Imperial Court Office, but according to Japanese media reports, Yuriko died as a result of pneumonia.
