re: #424 HappyWarrior

That’s correct.

Looking at Japan’s history, it seems that the Emperor has never really been much more than a figurehead for hundreds of years.

The strongest Emperor in relatively recent terms (since, say 1750), the Meiji Emperor, ended up having less power than the oligarchs who ended up with power. The Meiji Constitution was in theory, a democratic document. But it didn’t quite work out in reality.