Tennō III: Forest and Constitution - The Capacity for Self-Renewal
Planting trees is not the same as making a forest.
Writing articles is not the same as making a constitution.
And perhaps the difference between the two only becomes fully visible in what remains, a hundred years on.
Tennō II: Two Basins - The Imagination of Governance
If the question is how the Emperor came to occupy the position he did — not as the strongest ruler, but as the center of an order that outlasted every ruler — the entrance to that question is not Kyoto. It is Nara.
Tennō I: Stone Walls and Clay Walls: What Two Palaces Say About Japan
The stone walls of the Tokyo Kōkyo say: there is force here that protects what lies within.
The clay walls of the Kyoto Gosho say: there are people who want to protect this place.
The first is protected by power. The second is protected by relationship.