Takahito, Prince Mikasa (三笠宮崇仁親王, Mikasa-no-miya Takahito Shinnō; 2 December 1915 – 27 October 2016) was a Japanese prince, the youngest of the four sons of Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito) and Empress Teimei (Sadako). He was their last surviving child. His eldest brother was Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito). After serving as a junior cavalry officer in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, Takahito embarked upon a post-war career as a scholar and part-time lecturer in Middle Eastern studies and Semitic languages.
Prince Mikasa married Yuriko Takagi in 1941, and they had five children. Prince and Princess Mikasa outlived all three of their sons. With the death of his sister-in-law Kikuko, Princess Takamatsu, on 17 December 2004, Prince Mikasa became the oldest living member of the Imperial House of Japan. He remained active until a few months before his death at the age of 100. At the time of his death, Prince Mikasa was the oldest living royal.
Prince Takahito was born at the Tokyo Imperial Palace on 2 December 1915 to Emperor Taishō and Empress Teimei. He was fourteen years younger than his eldest brother, Crown Prince Hirohito (the future Emperor Shōwa). His childhood appellation was Sumi-no-miya. Prince Takahito attended the boys' elementary and secondary departments of the Gakushūin (Peers' School) from 1922 to 1932. By the time he began his secondary schooling, his eldest brother had already ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne and his next two brothers, Prince Chichibu and Prince Takamatsu, had already embarked upon careers in the Japanese Imperial Army and the Japanese Imperial Navy respectively. Takahito enrolled in the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1932 and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant and assigned to the Fifth Cavalry Regiment in June 1936. He subsequently graduated from the Army Staff College.
Upon attaining the age of majority in December 1935, Emperor Shōwa granted him the title Mikasa-no-miya (Prince Mikasa) and the authorization to form a new branch of the imperial family.
Prince Mikasa was promoted to lieutenant in 1937 and to captain in 1939, serving in China under the name of "Wakasugi". During his army career, he was harshly critical of the Japanese military's conduct in China. In a 1994 interview, he criticized the Imperial Army's invasion of and atrocities in China, and recalled having been "strongly shocked" when an officer informed him that the best way to train new recruits was to use living Chinese POWs for bayonet practice. According to Daniel Barenblatt, Prince Mikasa and his cousin Prince Tsuneyoshi Takeda received a special screening by Shirō Ishii of a film showing airplanes loading germ bombs for bubonic plague dissemination over the Chinese city of Ningbo in 1940. He also was given a film of Japanese atrocities, possibly linked to the footage used in the American propaganda film, The Battle of China, and was so moved that he made his brother Emperor Hirohito watch the film.
In one of Prince Mikasa's memoirs, he wrote that he toured Unit 731's headquarters in China and was shown films showing Chinese prisoners "made to march on the plains of Manchuria for poison gas experiments on humans."
In 1994, a newspaper revealed that after Prince Mikasa's return to Tokyo, he had written a stinging indictment of the conduct of the Imperial Japanese Army in China, where the Prince had witnessed Japanese atrocities against Chinese civilians. The Imperial Army General Staff suppressed the document, but one copy survived and surfaced in 1994. After the war, it was reported that while an officer, Prince Mikasa had taken a strict stance against lax discipline and the cruel actions of Japanese soldiers serving in China.
In an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun, Mikasa detailed the extent of Japanese military atrocities against the Chinese. He said, "I was really shocked when an officer told me that the best way to train new soldiers was to use living prisoners of war for bayonet practice because it gave them will power." "It was truly a horrible scene that can only be termed a massacre," he said. Out of a desperate desire to end the war, he wrote and delivered a speech that condemned Japanese troop aggression against the Chinese, elaborating that repeated rape, plunder and killing of civilians created strong anti-Japanese feelings in China, and that the Wang Jingwei regime in Nanjing was an attempt to cover up Japan's policy of aggression in China. He also disclosed that the Japanese served fruit contaminated with cholera germs to a team from the League of Nations that came to investigate Japan's invasion of China. They did not develop the disease. The army tried to destroy all copies of his speech, but one was discovered.
He also said he watched an army film that showed Japanese troops yelling and gassing Chinese prisoners who were tied to stakes. He stated that he did not talk about his written speech with his brother, Emperor Hirohito, but he said he once showed the emperor a Chinese-made film of Japanese atrocities.
Promoted to major in 1941, Prince Mikasa served as a staff officer in the Headquarters of the China Expeditionary Army at Nanjing, China from January 1943 to January 1944. His role was intended to bolster the legitimacy of the Wang Jingwei regime and to coordinate with Japanese Army staff towards a peace initiative, but his efforts were totally undermined by the Operation Ichi-Go campaign launched by the Imperial General Headquarters.
Prince Mikasa then served as a staff officer in the Army Section of the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo until Japan's surrender in August 1945.
On 22 October 1941, Prince Mikasa married Yuriko Takagi (1923–2024), the second daughter of Viscount Masanari Takagi. Their wedding notably occurred less than two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which led to the United States entering World War II. Prince and Princess Mikasa had five children. The couple's two daughters surrendered their imperial titles and left the imperial family upon marriage. All of their sons predeceased them. In addition to their five children, they had nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren as of 2022. Of their grandchildren, only three granddaughters remain in the imperial family as of 2024, with two other granddaughters surrendering their imperial status upon marriage.
Yasuko Konoe (近衛甯子, Konoe Yasuko), formerly Princess Yasuko of Mikasa (甯子内親王, Yasuko Naishinno), born 26 April 1944; married on 16 December 1966 to Tadateru Konoe, younger brother of former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa and adopted grandson (and heir) of former Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. Her husband fulfilled Presidency of the Japanese Red Cross Society for over a decade; has a son, Tadahiro Konoe, who has three children.
Prince Tomohito of Mikasa (寬仁親王, Tomohito Shinnō; 5 January 1946 – 6 June 2012); heir apparent; married on 7 November 1980 to Nobuko Asō (born 9 April 1955), third daughter of Takakichi Asō, chairman of Asō Cement Co., and his wife, Kazuko, the daughter of former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida; had two daughters, Princess Akiko and Princess Yōko.
Yoshihito, Prince Katsura (桂宮宜仁親王, Katsura-no-miya Yoshihito Shinnō; 11 February 1948 – 8 June 2014); created Katsura-no-miya on 1 January 1988.
Masako Sen (千容子, Sen Masako), formerly Princess Masako of Mikasa (容子内親王, Masako Naishinnō), born 23 October 1951; married on 14 October 1983 to Masayuki Sen, later Sōshitsu Sen XVI (born 7 June 1956), the elder son of Sōshitsu Sen XV, and currently the sixteenth hereditary grand master (iemoto) of the Urasenke Japanese tea ceremony School; and has two sons, Akifumi Kikuchi and Takafumi Sen, and a daughter, Makiko Sakata.
Norihito, Prince Takamado (高円宮憲仁親王, Takamado-no-miya Norihito Shinnō; 29 December 1954 – 21 November 2002); created Takamado-no-miya on 1 December 1984; married on 6 December 1984 to Hisako Tottori (born 10 July 1953), eldest daughter of Shigejiro Tottori, former President of Mitsui & Co. in France; and had three daughters, Princess Tsuguko, Noriko Senge, and Ayako Moriya.