Still taboo after all these years: Japan's new imperial heir and the media

In late August, just over a week before Princess Kiko gave birth, Newsweek Japan commissioned this freelance journalist to contribute an article on the succession issue. With most of the country expecting a baby boy, the remit was to write a 'very outspoken, opinionated' piece on how 'foreign experts' viewed the latest developments in Japan's imperial drama, with the emphasis on a single rhetorical question: wouldn't a girl be better?