Her face is splashed across magazine covers. Fans flock to online stores to snap up her outfits. At official engagements, huge crowds wait in the crushing heat to catch a glimpse of a woman revered for her ‘regal dignity, beauty and aura’.
Princess Aiko, 24, is the most popular member of Japan’s imperial family, but according to law she will never be empress and, as the country runs out of royals, more and more Japanese people are asking why.