The death of the Empress Dowager Nagako marks the passing of the last Japanese royal to be closely associated with the second World War. The 97-year-old wife of the late Emperor Hirohito succumbed to old age in her residence at the strictly guarded Imperial Palace in central Tokyo.
She was the longest living of all of the empresses in the oldest hereditary monarchy in the world.
In his message of condolence, the Prime Minister, Mr Yoshiro Mori, said she "lived through a turbulent era". This is no overstatement. During the 1926-1989 reign of her husband, Japan went through remarkable changes. By the birth of her first male child and heir, Akihito, in 1933, Japan had its sights on continuing and expanding its campaign of aggression in Asia, for which many hold her husband responsible.
Within another 13 years, Nagako, along with Hirohito, who renounced his "divinity" in 1946, was touring the bombed out cities of a nation that had suffered a cataclysmic military defeat. But by her husband's death in 1989, Japan had made an amazing recovery, threatening to overtake the US as the world's most powerful economy.
Like most nobility, Nagako Kuniyoshi, the eldest daughter of a hard up prince, went to Tokyo's Gakushuin school. She married Crown Prince Hirohito in 1924. He was 22, she two years younger. That their marriage was a love match of sorts was something for which they had Hirohito's mother to thank.
For the Empress Taisho had the misfortune to marry Hirohito's father, a mental defective, without a prior meeting, something that convinced her of the folly of marrying strangers. Through tea ceremonies organised by his mother, the nearsighted Hirohito was able to meet prospective brides of noble blood.
He chose the stocky, plain 14-year-old Nagako, attracted more by her intelligence than her beauty. They got engaged and married six years later, during which they met only nine times.
As royal marriages go, the union appeared to have been a success. After marriage, the westernised Hirohito dismissed his retinue of ladies in waiting. By making Nagako the only object of his affections, he was breaking with a lengthy tradition of royal promiscuity.
Though usually in her husband's shadow, Nagako until her 80s kept a reasonably high profile. Her first trip outside Japan was a royal visit to Europe in 1971. Though the couple met with angry protests against Hirohito's role in the war, Nagako later said it was "the most enjoyable experience of her life".
This is hardly surprising, for her life in Japan was extremely tightly regulated. The imperial family "are given virtually no freedom" according to a royal watcher, Ms Yoshie Matsumoto.
But the household agency's information controls have its limits. Among the reports which have emanated from royal circles are that Nagako, known for her homely cherubic smile, was a despotic mother-in-law. In 1963, Empress Michiko, the daughter of a rich industrialist and the first commoner to marry into the imperial dynasty, reportedly had a nervous breakdown. The collapse, it is believed, was prompted by bullying by Nagako. Among the things with which Nagako apparently found fault were Michiko's failure to wear the right sort of clothes and the fact that she graduated from a Catholic college.