Japan Know How archive
Japanese Eras
Hirohito, Emperor Showa, Naruhito, and Emperor Emeritus Akihito are not interchangeable labels. The correct choice depends on whether the emperor is reigning, retired, or deceased—and whether you are writing in English or Japanese.
Japanese Eras
Japan has used around 250 era names since 645, several of them under a year because a fire or a comet forced a reset. Showa is the long outlier.
Japanese Eras
Two characters, easy to write, never used before, no clash with a famous name, and no repeat of the initials M, T, S, H or R. The shortlist Reiwa beat.
Japanese Eras
Every earlier era name traced back to a Chinese classic. Reiwa was pulled from an eighth-century Japanese poetry preface, and that was the whole point.
Japanese Eras
Scholars submit candidates, a cabinet picks one, and a country repaints its forms. The rules a new era name must pass and who actually signs off.
