Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on Wednesday met and talked with survivors of the earthquake and tsunami last month, offering comfort and consolation in a role that has helped the monarchy to stay relevant in the modern era. While other royals from around the world would travel to London for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Japanese imperial family had obligations bleaker after the March 11 disaster, which left 28,000 dead or missing, devastated the region Northeast of the country and triggered a nuclear crisis.
Akihito, 77, and Michiko, 76, traveled on Wednesday by train and helicopter to an evacuation center in Fukushima, northeastern Japan, where people are refugees fleeing natural disasters and nuclear accidents in plant of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), 240 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.
Then they had planned to visit the city of Sendai, further north, and in early May travel to other devastated areas. Emperor Akihito, wearing a raincoat, and Michiko, a beige jacket with a belt and blue pants, knelt to talk to the evacuees in a school gymnasium that has become their temporary home.
"No survivors have been smiling like that in over a month and a half. That's how shocked people were. The biggest crying, "Jin told reporters Sato, Minamisanriku mayor, a town devastated by the tsunami. It was the kind of scene at the Japanese public has become accustomed since the emperors visited the port city of Kobe, shaken by an earthquake in 1995, but in contrast to the distant image that the imperial family had before the defeat in World War II, when Hirohito, Akihito's father, was considered a living god.
"Until 1945, the Imperial House would have done some type donation. But this kind of paper that literally come out, embrace and comfort to people's specific Akihito and Michiko in particular, "said Kenneth Ruoff, a professor at Portland State University and author of several books on Japanese royalty. 
Akihito, 77, and Michiko, 76, traveled on Wednesday by train and helicopter to an evacuation center in Fukushima, northeastern Japan, where people are refugees fleeing natural disasters and nuclear accidents in plant of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), 240 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.
Then they had planned to visit the city of Sendai, further north, and in early May travel to other devastated areas. Emperor Akihito, wearing a raincoat, and Michiko, a beige jacket with a belt and blue pants, knelt to talk to the evacuees in a school gymnasium that has become their temporary home.
"No survivors have been smiling like that in over a month and a half. That's how shocked people were. The biggest crying, "Jin told reporters Sato, Minamisanriku mayor, a town devastated by the tsunami. It was the kind of scene at the Japanese public has become accustomed since the emperors visited the port city of Kobe, shaken by an earthquake in 1995, but in contrast to the distant image that the imperial family had before the defeat in World War II, when Hirohito, Akihito's father, was considered a living god.
"Until 1945, the Imperial House would have done some type donation. But this kind of paper that literally come out, embrace and comfort to people's specific Akihito and Michiko in particular, "said Kenneth Ruoff, a professor at Portland State University and author of several books on Japanese royalty.
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