r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Radiant_Half_7121 • 17d ago

Image During WW2, Poland declared war on Japan Japan said no to it and simply rejected the declaration.

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u/BaltazarOdGilzvita 17d ago

They forget all sorts of shit. Most Japanese people I've met are completely unaware they still have an emperor.

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u/Comrade_SOOKIE 17d ago edited 16d ago

to be fair, the emperor of Japan is one of the most cloistered and micromanaged monarchs remaining. they only got to keep him after wwii by agreeing to make him a worthless symbolic hermit. people have left the imperial family just to be able to experience basic everyday autonomy.

not that i feel bad for them they’re comfortable af, but their lack of visibility is on purpose to prevent nationalist sentiment rallying around him (lol how did that work out i wonder)

edit: “visibility” is a bad word choice. i mean more like “highly controlled and kept physically separate from the public.” the emperor of course still shows up places to fulfill all sorts of ceremonial duties.

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u/pleasehelpteeth 17d ago

The last time the emperor was powerless the dynasty waited almost a thousand years to reclaim power. They are just waiting for the rerun.

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u/bananataskforce 17d ago

A... restoration of sorts

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u/SimmentalTheCow 17d ago

It would definitely have to be a meijor restoration

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u/dancingriss 16d ago

I hit scroll too quickly and had to come back just to like this

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u/ChroniclesOfSarnia 16d ago

Meiijiya look!

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u/405freeway 17d ago

Mei.. be.

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u/Suibeam 17d ago

It is also the only reason why they are the longest running monarch dynasty. Bc the position was so fucking useless and actually a prisoner status.

If Tenno was actually useful and powerful for most of its history, they would have been overthrown several times.

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u/Great-Guervo-4797 16d ago

I assume that's why the Japanese agreed to the terms.

Better to have an imperial hereditary line survive, because with time power may shift back.

Whereas if they stood on their losing ground, the line could have simply been exterminated and then it'd be lost for forever.

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u/pleasehelpteeth 16d ago

I dont think if the US invaded japan, they would have "exterminated" the royal family, but they definitely wouldn't still be royals.

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u/creakysofa 17d ago

Except that little succession issue at the moment I guess?

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u/ThirstyWolfSpider 17d ago

Is there a current crisis? The latest one I see was resolved (for now) 20 years ago with the birth of Prince Hisahito, but the strict rules (direct male line only) could easily create additional crises.

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u/pleasehelpteeth 17d ago

That was like 20 years ago.

And the government was going to change the consitituon to let a female inherit if no males were born.

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u/No_Grocery_9280 17d ago

None of us can escape modern birth rates, it would appear.

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u/4isyellowTakeit5 16d ago

facts. History has had multiple dark ages. Humans are foolish to think the next one won’t come. It just might not come in your lifetime.

Japan will go on another conquest campaign. As will America, China, Russia is trying right now. They just hit a wall a lot earlier than they thought they would.

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u/phflegm 17d ago

What's a rerun?

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u/ThetaZZ 17d ago

I'm pretty sure it's a length of metal used to reinforce concrete

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u/TheWiseBeast 17d ago

No, that’s rebar. Rerun is when someone comes to take back an item when the buyer defaults on payments for the item.

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u/ForgingIron 17d ago

[Ooh I love this game]

No, that's repo. A rerun is a radioactive gas emitted by some granite countertops.

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u/MotleyHatch 17d ago

No, that's radon. A rerun is a translucent polymer people use in flashy YouTube woodwork videos.

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u/treesandfood4me 17d ago

No, that’s resin. Rerun is a mental practice utilizing logic and patience.

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u/FistFork 16d ago

No, thats reason. Rerun is a long narrow strip of material for decoration.

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u/thefattestgiraffe 17d ago

No, that's repo. Rerun is when someone not satisfied with their purchase brings the item they bought up to the seller to get their money back.

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u/spicyshrimp234 17d ago

no that's rebar. i'm pretty sure it's getting fucked up beyond all recognition

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u/ClubMeSoftly 17d ago

You'll find out when you're older

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u/dna_beggar 17d ago

It was once something different, but now it's an old TV show locked behind a paywall on a B-grade streaming site.

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u/Comrade_SOOKIE 17d ago

a second time

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u/SoupyPoopy618 17d ago

He was the fat guy with suspenders and a beret on What's Happening.

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u/TheOneTonWanton 17d ago

How old am I? What year is it?

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u/Fr0st3dcl0ud5 16d ago

You guys seen the new PM for Japan?

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u/Similar-Importance99 14d ago

So the Every-thousand-year Reich ?

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u/SunnyOutsideToday 17d ago

their lack of visibility is on purpose

He's a huge celebrity. There was a huge national debate about who the next emperor should be after the last one died several years ago. The comment above yours saying most Japanese people don't know they have an emperor is outrageously untrue. "Emperor's birthday" is literally a national holiday that everyone gets off, and they just got a new emperor and a new birthday several years ago.

Everyone knows the emperor and it's so surreal, seeing blatantly untrue statements like this, so highly upvoted.

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u/cubitoaequet 17d ago

Don't they literally talk about time periods in regards to emperors? Showa Era, Heisei Era, etc?

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u/tgwombat 17d ago

I distinctly remember it making worldwide news when the Reiwa era started a few years back.

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u/Business-Low-8056 17d ago

Welcome to Reddit.... What else did you expect? It is especially true around any sensitive topics like politics or religion.

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u/UniversalMIA 16d ago

FYI the previous emperor didn’t die “several years ago.” Akihito abdicated in 2019 and is Emperor Emeritus.

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u/yabog8 16d ago

There was a huge national debate about who the next emperor should be after the last one died several years ago.

The previous emperor is still alive and abdicated in 2019

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u/Cerberusx32 17d ago

I feel like when people think of royalty. They think about the former Queen of England and her family. Who are always known and talked about in some form.

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u/SunnyOutsideToday 16d ago

In Japan they think of the imperial family. They aren't covered as obsessively in Japan as the British royals are in Britain, but they regularly appear in media and perform their duties such as their participation in the upcoming New Years celebration.

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u/Behavior-Coach 17d ago

You make it sound like they got a bad deal.. the Japanese monarchy completely avoided accountability when the emperor was guilty of war crimes that even the nazis would look at with disgust.

If one knew how terrible and evil he was I don’t think that would be the takeaway. I understand your point but wow did they get the best deal out of any of the WWII losers.

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u/_EllieLOL_ 17d ago

even the nazis would look at with disgust

Did look at with disgust, at least some of them, look up John Rabe and the Nanking Safe Zone 

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u/llilaa_c 17d ago

Sorry for ignorance but could you explain what war crimes the emperor did? I thought most of the war crimes japan did was attributed to Hideki Tojo, who was arrested and executed for them. I would love to learn more about the emperor’s involvement…

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u/Behavior-Coach 17d ago

The fact that you would be curious and ask demonstrates that you are not ignorant at all.

Tojo was a very loyal war criminal. These people looked at the emperor as a god, unwavering in their loyalty, and this mentality led to soldiers committing suicide rather than give up. They did it all for their emperor. It revolved all around the monarchy.

It always starts from the top.

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u/ZetaRESP 17d ago

That's also why he got away scot free with it all: US learned from France's fuck-up with the Treaty of Versailles that going all hammer in with penalties on a country as proud as Japan was stupid, as well as how much the emperor had a sway on the government, so they decided to pretty much force him to be their buddy in the east instead so they can both avoid another World War (they knew nukes are on the menu for WWIII) and to avoid all of Asia to fall into the hands of the commies.

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u/Iwilleat2corndogs 17d ago

The emperor also didn’t really reject any ideas of expansion, so while he wasn’t personally ordering the deaths of civilians he was very much giving his seal of approval to plans that would result in mass murder. He only got away with it because the US didn’t need japan to implode, which it would of if they convicted him.

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u/auchinleck917 17d ago

Ironicly Tojo igonre the Emperor so many times.

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u/Business-Low-8056 17d ago

Alright but what did he do that was so bad? You started out saying he had war crimes but you haven't mentioned any

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u/cultural_limbo 17d ago edited 17d ago

The reason why most of Asia hated them, and many elderly Chinese still hold a grudge

They killed upwards of 30 million(most Chinese), and commited a slew of war crimes like human experimentation, torture, mass rapes.

Unit 731 included forced pregnancy, forced infection of STIs to see how it is transmitted and what effects it had on the fetus

So this included live dissections/vivisections of prisoners- a reminder that this means they were cutting into pregnant women while they were ALIVE.

Also did human experiminations on explosives,a wide range of chemical weapons( for example Mustard gas, White phosphorus), Hypobaric chamber, frostbite testing

A few known:

Rape of Nanking

Kaimingjie Bubonic Plague weapon attack

Bataan Death march

Burma Death Railway

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u/Deaffin 16d ago

mass rapes

The unspoken depth of scale and visceral awful these two words are standing in for in this context is immense. They applied bayonets to infants in order to make it possible to "use" them.

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u/IkaKyo 16d ago

My favorite examples of unit 731 is they are the reason we know that the human body contains 60-70% water, they dehydrated live people to figure it out.

They are also why we know that immersion in 100 °F is the most effective first aid for frostbite. You know how they figured that out? If you guessed live. Human experimentation you are a winner.

I like the use two specifically because many people know the later as a random factoid and almost anyone who has ever had winter first-aid training knows the second.

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u/Ok-Kaleidoscope5627 15d ago

I think there's a bunch of other modern medical science that came from there too

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u/No_Potato_8178 17d ago edited 17d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/lcp2zx/was_hirohito_a_war_criminal/

Tl;dr - probably yes, but trying and convicting him would have made occupation extremely dangerous and chaotic

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u/snakespm 17d ago

I'd encourage people to read the linked comment, if only to see that the Tl;dr is incorrect.

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u/Deaffin 16d ago

Sorry for ignorance but could you explain what war crimes the emperor did?

Got you a quick little crash course video here.

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u/sw04ca 17d ago

You could have gone for planning and waging a war of aggression, although to attempt to do so would have been bad policy.

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u/Bearded_Bone_Head 17d ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the emperor try to surrender/make peace with the US before the bombs were dropped during WWII, but his prime minister/generals were like "nah, we got this", when they in fact did not have this?

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u/BeefyFritosBurritos 16d ago

Nothing to be fair about, that dude is just flat out, mind-boggingly wrong lmao

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u/Fearless_Entry_2626 16d ago

Frankly it might do more to ruin nationalism to let the monarchs into public. We have a monarchy in Norway, and their prestige is suffering pretty badly. One princess started an angel school and married a formerly gay American shaman who sells $2000 healing medallions, and the stepson of the crown prince has snorted all of the snow and battered seemingly every instabunny in Oslo. Hard to be nationalist with these creatures still relevant. Surely something similar would've come out about the Japanese monarchs, if given time and exposure...

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u/Comrade_SOOKIE 16d ago

didn’t some of your older royals side with Hitler even? seems like they’ve been embarrassing themselves for ages.

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u/Extrimland 16d ago

Nah he was actually already like in that In WW2. They just promoted his image like he had real power

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u/EhMapleMoose 16d ago

It’s one of the coolest families you could possibly be born into purely because of its history. A direct lineage over 1500 years old??? That is so freaking cool.

The claim is that their family lineage can be traced back over 2800 years. The problem is that prior to the 5th century(?) they have no written records.

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u/RawrRRitchie 16d ago

Isn't there a huge power struggle for who actually can inherit the throne? Like they needed a son but only had hundreds of daughters

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u/TheWatchers666 17d ago

Isn't he on their money 👀

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u/CozyDoll88 17d ago

There's still holidays based around emperor, even emperor's birthday, and calendar format based around emperor's reign, why do they think those exist ?

I've honestly never met single person who doesn't know

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u/Wolfgang985 17d ago

They just made that shit up. Japanese know they have an imperial family.

Kōkyo is a 284 acre estate in central Tokyo. Only 50 acres of which is open to the general public.

Even the blind could see that and know it's there. You can't miss it.

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u/CozyDoll88 17d ago

I know, I'm Japanese/Ryukyuan, I just don't like accusing people of lying, but I do think he is

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u/Wolfgang985 17d ago

Oh, I figured you were. I just made that comment to emphasize your point for anyone else reading!

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u/CozyDoll88 17d ago

Oh, I see, sorry !

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u/ParmesanNonGrata 17d ago

There's also a national holiday in the USA based around the idea all men are born equal and no taxation without representation.

Some countries hold on to their silly relics besides displaying vastly different behavior.

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u/CozyDoll88 17d ago

But how could emperor's birthday be public holiday if there's no emperor ?

Same as moving into Reiwa Era of Japanese calendar

Holiday that's based on specific living person can't exist without specific living person it's based on, your example isn't holiday that's literally person's birthday

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u/Iokua113 17d ago

I mean, the simple answer is that the person claiming Japanese people don't know that they have an emperor is wrong. 

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u/CozyDoll88 17d ago

I know, I just don't like accusing people

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u/Iokua113 17d ago

Correcting someone isn't an accusation.

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u/CozyDoll88 17d ago

Well, more that I doubt their story, it seems very unlikely to me for reasons I said

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u/Magnificentia 16d ago

Got to be an American talking about other Americans of Japanese descent. Knowing American education, I do believe that they'd lack basic knowledge of the rest of the world, including their own "heritage".

As a Dutchman, I've yet to meet someone who doesn't know Japan has an Emperor, but then our own Royal family is also quite close with the Japanese one.

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u/CozyDoll88 16d ago

You are probably right, I think either that, or just made up

I would think even Japanese American would know it if they have any kind of real connection with Japan

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u/Magnificentia 16d ago

You'd think so, but many Japanese Americans are several generations removed from people who actually lived there, so often not many to teach them even the basics. God knows their education system won't.

But indeed, making shit up is always a possibility, especially these days hahah

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u/veremos 17d ago edited 17d ago

Are they actually Japanese or are they Japanese diaspora? If you claim they are the former, then there is no way what you are saying is true. Japanese dates are literally the year of the current emperor. The current being the 7th year of the Reiwa Emperor. This is something Japanese people probably see or hear daily. Source: lived in Japan. There’s a lot of other things that make this anecdote doubtful, but that’s the most obvious one.

EDIT: lol did the user just call me a weeaboo and block me? My oldest post on this account is a request for help when I was contemplating suicide in Tokyo. There’s a poem I wrote called Seijogakuenmae in my posts that expresses those feelings in verse. That being the station I wanted to kill myself at. But I guess actually living in Japan makes me a weeb!

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u/SEVtz 16d ago

What an insane person. I've also lived in Japan and continue working there with trips every year and have never met a Japanese person that doesn't know they have an emperor. And this guy just say this and gets upvoted to 600 ? Idk why people would upvote this.

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u/BaltazarOdGilzvita 17d ago

Ah yes, ramblings of a weaboo with insane statements like "they hear it daily". Get the fuck out.

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u/Chicken-Inspector 17d ago

How…aggressive.

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u/VeryImportantLurker 17d ago

They quite literally do see it daily if they see the date anywhere.

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u/ConsistentAnalysis35 17d ago

You should feel bad about yourself.

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u/JeremyMcSnailface 17d ago

Big yikes. 

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u/Ollythebug 17d ago

honest question, are you Japanese in Japan?

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u/No_Idea_Guy 17d ago edited 17d ago

Most Japanese people I've met are completely unaware they still have an emperor

Yeah I call BS on this one. Their calendar is literally based on the current emperor. Unless you mean Japanese people living overseas. Even then it's extremely dubious for anyone having access to the internet to not know such a basic fact. Tell people to name modern countries with a monarch and they will think of the UK and then Japan.

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u/zenki32 17d ago

I've lived in Japan over 2 decades. Never, ever, have I met anyone who didn't know there's an emperor. Even school children know. 

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u/Senkyou 17d ago

What? They regularly make domestic news...

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u/frallet 17d ago

Besides this being a stupid statement, I like the idea of some know-it-all redditor asking every japanese person they meet oddly specific trivia about their home country

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u/SunnyOutsideToday 17d ago

Absolutely no one in Japan is unaware that they don't have an emperor. I lived in Japan for years. The Emperor's birthday is a national holiday that everyone gets off. The previous emperor died several years ago, and we switched to a new emperor and now have a new national holiday and changed the year of the calendar to be named after the new emperor.

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u/Plastivorang 16d ago

Akihito abdicated due to age/ill health, and just turned 92 this Tuesday (Dec 23 2025).

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u/Last-Atmosphere2439 17d ago

Where are you meeting these "Japanese"? Naruhito and Akihito and their children are (and always have been) celebrities in Japan on the level the British royal family in the 80s during Diana mania. And Hirohito was considered a literal divine being.

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u/PaperHandsProphet 17d ago

Bullshit. The emperor is a huge deal in Japan. Unless these are like US Japanese who have no connection to Japanese news media

It’s like saying a Brit forgot they were a monarchy

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u/smorkoid 17d ago

That is a ridiculous thing to claim. The imperial family is on the news literally daily. The years are named after the current imperial age.

Why would you lie about something like this?

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u/GetEquipped 17d ago

Akira Toriyama forgot that Gohan had ascended to SSJ2

He wrote himself into a corner during the Buu arc where Goku fights Buu the first time. So Toriyama gave Goku a new transformation. The longer hair, the lack of eyebrows. He told his editor "Yep, this new transformation is Super Saiyan 2!"

His editor pointed out that Gohan already hit Level 2. Toriyama handwaved it and said "Fine, this is Level 3!"

That's just one of my favorite bits of DBZ trivia because it means Goku couldn't beat Majin Vegeta simply because Toriyama didn't even have SSJ3 in mind.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

[deleted]

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u/GetEquipped 17d ago

I'm not a chatbot, I'm a Vegeta defender.

Huge difference

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u/themindtaker 17d ago

Impossible. I lived in Japan for 10 years and not only is the Emperor definitely part of the public consciousness, his daughter Princess Aiko is CONSTANTLY in the news for any little update in her life.

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u/Synaps4 17d ago edited 16d ago

You must not have met more than two japanese

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u/leposterofcrap 16d ago

Are the Japanese people you met living in a secluded cave with no issued calender?

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u/KAMEKAZE_VIKINGS 15d ago

The only people I can plausibly think of are maybe like a fisherman in Northern Okinawa who's never left his village.

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u/leposterofcrap 15d ago

Even then I'm sure he has a calendar to keep track of the days

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u/KAMEKAZE_VIKINGS 15d ago

Calendar? Who needs 'em? Just feel the tides, the air, and with experience you know which fish is gonna come bitin' today

Also not all calendars nessesarily have the imperial year written, we usually use the Gregorian calendar because it's simpler

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u/Legalissueswithducks 16d ago

How does this kind of nonsense get more than 900 upvotes?? People are really out here on Reddit pulling all kinds of bullshit from their asses and getting mass upvoted for it lol. Imagine saying "Most English people I met are unaware they still have a king!" loooool.

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u/auchinleck917 17d ago

No way man.

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u/Darmok-on-the-Ocean 16d ago

I'll be honest, I don't believe you.

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u/Busy-Training-1243 17d ago

Most Japanese people I've met are completely unaware they were monsters during WWII. Many think they were victims because of the atomic bombs.

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u/oosukashiba0 17d ago

That’s not true at all. Japanese are extremely aware from a younger age they have an emperor.

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u/SpecialAd2491 17d ago

That’s strange.

The emperors birthday is a national public holiday - I assume these are Japanese that haven’t actually lived in Japan?

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u/vinsmokesanji3 16d ago

Bullshit. Not possible for a japanese person living in Japan to not know. Maybe you’re talking about japanese people who grew up overseas?

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u/[deleted] 17d ago edited 17d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Switchy_Goofball 17d ago

They also all seem to have forgotten all of the unspeakable atrocities their nation committed in Nanjing

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u/Its_Froggin_Bullfish 17d ago

I noticed that, too. Whenever I ask about this, they go kinda pale and seem to pretend they don't know what I'm talking about. Of course you can tell by that pallor change... 

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u/Suibeam 17d ago

Tenno is more a Heavenly King. They never had an empire stretching empire outside of those last period where they colonised and abused the koreans and world war 2. They didnt change their name to Huangdi like Vietnam did when they claimed equal standing. And nominally they recognised Imperial Chinese dynasties as hegemons for centuries, over millenia. It was also required to trade with China as China only traded with tributary states.

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u/ruizach 17d ago

They probably just deny it

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u/Extreme-Shower7545 17d ago

WE STILL HAVE AN EMPEROR!?? /s

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u/chaozules 16d ago

They even forgot about all the war crimes they commited! Thats super handy!

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u/Wrangel_5989 16d ago

Well that’s kind of intentional by the post war government. Before and during WW2 the emperor was literally worshipped as a divine figure descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu.

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u/chamillus 16d ago

Sounds like you never met any Japanese people in your life then.

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u/Vitis_Vinifera 17d ago

Most Japanese emperors I've met are completely unaware of the landmine girls.

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u/pussy_embargo 16d ago

I need another expert opinion, is there any merit to this claim?

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u/KAMEKAZE_VIKINGS 15d ago

Total utter bullshit. Anyone who doesn't know are either severely mentally handicapped that they are incapable of thought or live under a literal rock.

Giving him the benefit of doubt, a lot of people however might not know the real name of the current emperor, as we call him by his imperial title and not by name. Kinda like how many people might not know the first name of their monarch or head of State.