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Kei Komuro: Arrival in Japan
Photo: KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP
For a long time it was unclear whether the wedding of the Japanese princess Mako would take place, but now it looks like the big day is imminent: Her fiancé Kei Komuro, who works in New York, has returned to his home country.
Komuro went to New York to study law in 2018 and has been back in Japan for the first time since then.
At the airport he made no comment, bowed in silence and drove away in a car.
After his two-week coronavirus quarantine, he and Mako would hold a press conference, Kyodo News and other Japanese media reported.
The couple are expected to register their marriage in October and start a new life together in New York.
The couple's marriage is controversial in Japan.
A planned wedding was unexpectedly canceled in 2018.
The reason at the time was an unresolved financial issue in the Komuro family.
In April of this year, the 29-year-old made a statement and spoke of misunderstandings regarding his mother's financial problems.
Mako is said to have offered to forego not only the official wedding rituals, but also a payment of up to 150 million yen (about 1.16 million euros).
She would actually have been entitled to this sum, which is financed from taxpayers' money, if she left the royal family.
By marrying a commoner, Japan's Princess Mako becomes a private person under current law.
This is what imperial law requires of women.
Critics consider the rule discriminatory.
Male members of the imperial family retain their status if they marry civil women; the wives are then accepted into the imperial family.
The critics are calling for a similar regulation to be created for princesses in the future - also to increase the number of potential heirs to the throne.
bbr / AP
