Japan's Prince Hisahito is the first male royal to reach adulthood in 40 years. He may be the last

40 years to reach adulthood is a bit long, no?

I mean, unless this 19 year old dude stated that he will not have kids, period, I don't see how "he may be the last".

The fundamental question is not whether to allow male or female succession line but how to save the monarchy

The answer is "don't". Monarchies' only use nowadays are as living relics of worse types of government and social structure.

Meh, they're basically living tourist attractions these days with no more political power than a movie star.
- Royalty have long memories.
  While you're right, I think they're more "biding their time" than content with this tbh.
  The emperor of Japan was largely a symbolic position during the Tokugawa shogunate until the Meiji restoration restored him back to power, remember.

This headline reads like a threat

This is confusing. The article doesn't mention why he may be the last, just that there is a debate over changing the succession rules to allow women to be Emperor. The succession line currently ends with Prince Hisahito but he is only 19, so why can't he have children of his own?

He may be the last if he is unable to produce a son.
If they won't allow women to be emperor, I wonder if sex-selective IVF will be the answer.
- It was about six hundred years before we had a queen in England too. I'm sure they'll just go "fuck it, guess we're doing empresses now"
  It's not like they actually run anything. It could honestly be a fucking cat and be more popular.
- You could say that about any dynasty that uses male-only inheritance of the title.
Right? Without any specifics, it seems like a pointless thing to write since if the guy does end up having a boy, they could say the same about him, and about anybody else that came before.
- I think it’s a statement of how short the line of succession actually is. In a robust royal family there is a whole chain of people who are in line for the throne should something happen. But it seems like the succession rules preclude everyone else living right now. And that’s precarious. Yes he could someday have children, hence the “may” in “may be the last.” The kicker is he could also not and then there would be no contingency.

Wow. Definitely sounds like this is fs the most pressing issue facing Japanese society.

Who cares about this?

Did you know that China forcibly disappeared a 6 year old back in 1995 and they're still holding him captive to this day?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedhun_Choekyi_Nyima

Sure, but you could post this about anything. What does this have to do with Japan?
I care an equal amount about this.
I don't think "disappear" is a transitive verb. You can't "disappear someone", as far as I know. I'm getting grammar squiggles for that already while typing this comment.
Edit: I guess I'm wrong, but it sure sounds stupid. Sounds like one of those TikTok censor words you put in place of the real word.
Edit 2: wow, the down votes. In my defense I'm not an English native, and the grammar squiggles damnit, they lied!!1
- and the grammar squiggles damnit, they lied!!1
  It's just a colloquial thing, a grammar book will tell you it's wrong, but people make up new words and meanings for long enough and things become commonly accepted and understood. It's also a cynical use of the word, and the fact that it feels off is also effective in telling you that the meaning should make you feel uneasy - for this word we are talking about a fascist government abducting people and actually everybody knows what happened, after all. It's perfectly cromulent, it doesn't have to be Tiktok lingo (but words like unalive may very well become acceptable too).
- It has long been used as a transitive verb. The Oxford English Dictionary has collected examples going as far back as 1897 using it generically to make something disappear, but this particular meaning, of government officials forcibly abducting a person and not explaining where the person went, really started to pick up by the 1960's. The novel Catch-22, published in 1961, had a character use it in the transitive way, with the protagonist complaining that it wasn't even proper grammar. And that novel was popular enough that it started to appear a lot shortly afterwards, in magazines and newspapers and books.

That's crazy. How

The whiplash of learning japan has a royal family in modern ages is wild.

Even more wild they call their king, emperor.
- They call him tennou actually (heavenly king) but then when they were forced to open up, they heard of Napoleon and they thought damn that's cool, we'll tell foreigners to use that too.
  Tennou has been in use for over 1350 years, and in the late 19th c. they thought their governmental subdivision (provinces) more closely matched that of France under Napoleon III I think (departments).
It's just like the UK though, they're just figureheads
- Still, nonetheless, quite a wild thing to learn.
Loads of countries have royal families. I said many times that it's not a stupid model and latest events in Poland only confirm this.
Long story short: Polish president has mostly decorative role but current far-right guy is now illegally usurping powers that are constitutionally not his and conspiring with Trump behind the government's back.
In monarchies the King/Queen have pretty much the same role but their position is so weak that they simply smile and follow the orders. They have a lot to lose and nothing to gain.
- How does that work? I heard of things like that in some countries. Venezuela is the only one that comes to mind. Idk if this is currently happening, but at least in the past there was an official and a non-official government because Maduro never accepted that he lost his ellections... but Poland seems to have a working democracy... or am I missing something? Is Poland that polarized?
Their government was an imperial model during WWII. Unless they killed off the royalty, why would you assume they had no descendants?
- It's not that, its just not something I have heard of, like, at all. Unlike most of the rest of the worlds royalty. Though them being less in the world news makes plenty of sense.

Sorry, mister Robespierre. We've failed you again

He failed himself and "his" people with the Reign of Terror paving the way for their greatest dictator.
- Reign of terror is such a dramatic name but for some reason there is no name for the millions of people killed by the casual brutality of the ruling class during the previous centuries of noble rule.