alternatehistory.com

As you all know, Hirohito, the last emperor of Japan was assassinated in 1945, only a few months after he'd signed his country's unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers.

The perpetrator of the attack was a former IJA officer who held strong militarist views. Purportedly, this officer was operating under the assumption that Hirohito wasn't the real emperor but an impostor placed to serve western interests.

Many historians see this, together the wave of terrorist attacks by right-wing groups that happaned in the following months, as the main event that radicalized both, the American occupation authorities and the fed up Japanese population, convincing them that a full break with the country's imperial past was needed. This was what led to the purging of nearly all of Japan's war time elite and to the radical liberalizing reforms that followed. In a way, I think we can very well say that the modern-day Republic of Japan was born when Hirohito died.

But what if he had lived? Could the Monarchy have survived? How would Japanese society be different?
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