4 ms·

I seem to remember there was something a while back about what the next Japanese era would be named. Is it normal for them to prepare for that so that they're n

I seem to remember there was something a while back about what the next Japanese era would be named. Is it normal for them to prepare for that so that they're not scrabbling to find a new one when the emperor dies, or was there a general awareness that Akihito would be abdicating in the near future?

cubecul 8y ago
Akihito had announced in 2016 that he wanted to abdicate[1] so I think that's how they put together that process to name the new era. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36784045 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36784045
ghostly_s 8y ago
As covered in the article, he announced his intentions a few years ago. This is the first transfer of the throne in the digital era, so there was understandably quite a bit more consternation around the naming issues -- I imagine in the past, naming the new era when the new emperor ascended wasn't a big deal for anyone outside perhaps the stationery industry.
delecti 8y ago
He announced back in late 2017 that he was abdicating. It's normal for the new era's name to be a bit of a secret, it just hasn't happened since 1989, so it's not normal for it to matter that computers need to be updated with the new name.
jcranmer 8y ago
This was a preplanned abdication, so there was a lot of planning involved. For example, Unicode reserved the era name code point, but couldn't actually announce the code point because it wasn't announced until April 1. Similarly, people who have to support the Japanese calendar (such as Microsoft) had dry runs to plan for the name change with placeholders so they could update quickly. This is the first time that the era has changed when computers were in widespread use, so there already had to be changes from the traditional "we're not going to announce the new era until it starts" (much to the chagrin of the ultra-nationalists).

cubecul 8y ago

Akihito had announced in 2016 that he wanted to abdicate[1] so I think that's how they put together that process to name the new era. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36784045 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36784045

ghostly_s 8y ago

As covered in the article, he announced his intentions a few years ago. This is the first transfer of the throne in the digital era, so there was understandably quite a bit more consternation around the naming issues -- I imagine in the past, naming the new era when the new emperor ascended wasn't a big deal for anyone outside perhaps the stationery industry.

delecti 8y ago

He announced back in late 2017 that he was abdicating. It's normal for the new era's name to be a bit of a secret, it just hasn't happened since 1989, so it's not normal for it to matter that computers need to be updated with the new name.

jcranmer 8y ago

This was a preplanned abdication, so there was a lot of planning involved. For example, Unicode reserved the era name code point, but couldn't actually announce the code point because it wasn't announced until April 1. Similarly, people who have to support the Japanese calendar (such as Microsoft) had dry runs to plan for the name change with placeholders so they could update quickly. This is the first time that the era has changed when computers were in widespread use, so there already had to be changes from the traditional "we're not going to announce the new era until it starts" (much to the chagrin of the ultra-nationalists).