Princess Akiko of Mikasa

Princess Akiko of Mikasa (三笠宮彬子女王, Mikasa-no-miya Akiko Joō; born 20 December 1981) is a member of the Imperial House of Japan, a paternal second cousin of Emperor Naruhito, and the elder daughter of Prince Tomohito of Mikasa and Princess Tomohito of Mikasa (Nobuko). She is also a niece of Japan's 92nd prime minister Tarō Asō (who is the older brother of her mother), a great-niece of author and literary critic Ken'ichi Yoshida, and a great-granddaughter of Japan's 45th prime minister Shigeru Yoshida.

In September 2025, Princess Akiko became the head of the Mikasa-no-miya branch of the imperial family. She is the first woman who was a princess by birth to succeed as head of a branch of the imperial family since Princess Sumiko.

Biography

Education

Princess Akiko graduated from Gakushuin University in Tokyo with a BA degree in History. During her studies, she spent the 2001–2002 academic year abroad at Merton College, Oxford, where she studied Japanese art history with Steven Gunn, a professor of Early Modern History, who served as her academic tutor.

In 2004, she returned to the University of Oxford as a doctoral student at the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Her research focused on the William Anderson Collection at the British Museum and Western interest in Japanese art in the nineteenth century. William Anderson (1842–1900) was an English surgeon who taught anatomy and surgery in Japan and became an important scholar and collector of Japanese art. She was affiliated with Merton College, Oxford from October 2004 until she completed her final examination in January 2010.