Masako: The Empress Japan Barely Saw for Eleven Years!

For eleven years, the Crown Princess of Japan did not attend a state banquet. She had not vanished. She appeared from time to time, briefly, at selected moments. But the most formal part of her role went almost entirely unperformed, and the palace said very little about why. Her name is Masako. Before the marriage that brought her into the imperial family, she was a diplomat. Harvard, Oxford, then Japan's foreign ministry, working on the trade disputes between Tokyo and Washington. The palace first announced shingles. Later, adjustment disorder. The doctors treating that disorder have not given independent public interviews, and no medical records have been released. That limited record has attracted two decades of theories. This account stays with the dates, the official statements, and what could actually be seen.