Kiko, Crown Princess of Japan

She is the eldest daughter of Tatsuhiko Kawashima (1940–2021) and his wife, Kazuyo Sugimoto (1942).

Kiko, Crown Princess Akishino (皇嗣文仁親王妃紀子) (born Kiko Kawashima (川嶋紀子); 11 September 1966), is the wife of Fumihito, Crown Prince Akishino.

Her husband is the younger brother and heir presumptive of Emperor Naruhito of Japan and the second son of Emperor emeritus Akihito and Empress emerita Michiko.

Kiko earned a PhD in humanities from Ochanomizu University.

The family moved to Philadelphia in 1967 while her father attended the University of Pennsylvania.

He earned a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971 in regional science and later taught there.

Kiko attended elementary and high school in Vienna, Austria, when her father became the chief researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, where he studied spatial science and NGO activities.

The future princess became fluent in English and German.

In 1972, they moved back to Japan, where her father taught economics at Gakushuin University in Tokyo.

She lived with her parents and brother in a small on-campus apartment in Tokyo.

Prince Fumihito first proposed marriage to Kiko Kawashima on 26 June 1986 while they were both undergraduates at Gakushuin.

She participated in the Ship for Southeast Asian and Japanese Youth Program (SSEAYP) in 1987 and continues to be a supporter of the program.

She graduated from the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Letters of Gakushuin University with a Bachelor of Letters degree in Psychology in 1989 and received a Master of Humanities degree in Social Psychology from the Graduate School of Gakushuin University in 1995.

She received a PhD degree in Humanities from Ochanomizu University.

Three years later, the Imperial Household Council announced the engagement on 12 September 1989 and the engagement ceremony was held on 12 January 1990.

No marriage date would be set until the official one-year mourning period ended for Fumihito's grandfather, Emperor Hirohito, who had died in January 1989.

Her marriage to Fumihito in 1990 furthered the trend of Japanese imperial males marrying middle class commoners of academic prominence in earlier and current generations.

The couple has three children: Mako, Kako, and Hisahito.

Preceding Fumihito and Kiko's investiture as Crown Prince and Princess, the ongoing Japanese imperial succession debate had resulted in some politicians holding a favorable view on rescinding agnatic primogeniture imposed by World War II allies on the constitution of Japan.

The wedding took place at an exclusive shrine at the Tokyo Imperial Palace on 29 June 1990.

The Imperial Household Council had previously granted the prince permission to establish a new branch of the Imperial Family and the Emperor granted him the title Akishino-no-miya (Prince Akishino) on his wedding day.

Upon marriage, his bride became Her Imperial Highness The Princess Akishino, known informally as Princess Kiko.

As tradition dictates, upon her entry into the imperial family and like other members, she received a personal emblem (o-shirushi (お印)): the blossom of the bristle-pointed beachhead iris Iris setosa (hiougi-ayame, cypress fan iris (檜扇菖蒲)) which blooms in intense shades of dark lavender to blue.

The engagement and marriage of Prince Akishino to the former Kiko Kawashima broke precedent in several respects.

At the time, the groom was still a graduate student at Gakushuin and he would be married before his older brother, Crown Prince Naruhito.

Officials at the Imperial Household Agency were opposed to the marriage, and so was Prince Akishino's paternal grandmother Empress Dowager Nagako.

As the second woman from a middle-class and academician background to marry into the imperial family after her husband Akishino's mother Empress Michiko, she was given the nickname "the apartment princess" by the media.

Although Empress Michiko was also born a commoner, she was from a very wealthy family; her father was the president of a large flour-milling company.

The Princess had said repeatedly that she wanted to finish her master's degree if circumstances permitted.

She completed her post-graduate studies in psychology between her official duties and received her master's degree in psychology in 1995.

She is known for her continuing interest in deaf culture and the Deaf in Japan.

She learned Japanese sign language and she is a skilled sign language interpreter.

She attends the "Sign Language Speech Contest for High School Students" held every August, and "Praising Mothers Raising Children with Hearing Impairments" every December.

However, once Kiko and Fumihito had their son Hisahito in September 2006 he became next in the line of succession following his father.

Hisahito's cousin and Emperor Naruhito's only child Princess Aiko remains at present legally ineligible to inherit the throne, while debate about the possibility of having future empresses regnant continues.

As active working members of the imperial family, Kiko and Fumihito's schedule includes attending summits, and organizational and global event meetings.

The couple has particularly represented the Japanese imperial house in ceremonies involving heads of state and VIPs abroad.

Kiko's imperial patronages cluster around medical, science and children's causes.

Kiko was born at Shizuoka Saiseikai General Hospital in Suruga-ku, Shizuoka, Japan.

In October 2008, she participated in the "38th National Deaf Women's Conference."