Princess Aiko home video released
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-25 08:54

In a rare move, palace officials released a home video Friday of Princess Aiko offering an unusually intimate glimpse into the daily lives of Japan's cloistered royals.

Japan's Crown Princess Masako plays with her daughter Princess Aiko at their residence, Togu Palace.

The video, taken by her father, Crown Prince Naruhito, features Aiko poking at a harp, hopping up stairs and in simple conversation with her parents.

"Papa, you too," the 2-year-old princess says to Naruhito as she sing-songs a popular children's rhyme and points at drawings in a picture book.

The private lives of Japan's royal family has traditionally been guarded closely by the Imperial Household Agency, the powerful government bureaucracy that oversees palace affairs.

Such openness breaks with tradition, and the video was shown on all of Japan's major TV networks.

Naruhito and his wife, Crown Princess Masako, decided to release the video in response to strong media and public interest, the networks quoted palace officials as saying.

The video also showed Masako dancing in circles with Aiko to the music of a harp and laughing.

Masako, 40, has been out of public view since December when she withdrew from official duties due to illness. Under pressure, palace officials later announced she had a stress-related disorder and was receiving counseling and medication.

Naruhito said at a news conference in May that a decade of palace life and pressure to produce an heir have left her exhausted.

Aiko is the couple's only child, but under Japanese succession laws only males are eligible to assume the throne.

He also slammed unidentified palace officials for questioning the character of his wife, a Harvard and Oxford-educated former diplomat.

Masako's plight has generated calls for palace reform.

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