Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako are struggling to establish ways to perform their activities under restrictions posed by the coronavirus epidemic.

The Imperial couple has appeared only at the Imperial Palace recently, with all of their key regular domestic trips, including the one to attend the annual National Sports Festival, canceled this year.

The Imperial Household Agency has uploaded on its webpage the couple’s remarks made during briefings including by a noted coronavirus expert at the Akasaka Imperial Residence, where the couple lives.

With their public exposure limited so far since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, some pundits are calling for the agency to use social media more actively to disseminate information on the couple as some foreign royal families do.

Emperor Naruhito, who ascended the throne in May last year to mark the start of the Reiwa period, “has properly performed the Imperial rituals designated by Emperor Emeritus Akihito as duties of the Emperor, the symbol of Japan,” said Takeshi Hara, professor at the Open University of Japan.

“But so far, he has not been able to perform at all any of the regional trips,” also designated as the Emperor’s duties, said Hara, who teaches the history of Japanese political thought.

Hara senses a major difference in styles between the current Emperor and his father, whose abdication ended the Heisei period in April last year.

A picture disclosed by the agency shows Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako sit side by side as they attended a briefing by experts, Hara said.

The picture “seems to portray them as complete equals, instead of showing the Empress as subordinate to the Emperor,” he also said, adding that the picture appears to have been disclosed intentionally.

“If the couple releases a video message on the novel coronavirus and the two appear side by side, the difference from Heisei would become even clearer,” Hara said.

Kanto Gakuin University professor Naotaka Kimizuka, an expert on royal families across the world, is concerned about the lack of direct messages from the couple about the pandemic, noting that foreign royal family members, including Queen Elizabeth II, have delivered speeches to their nationals.

“Governments anywhere may put their own countries first, but royal families can deal with world-scale problems, including the global environment,” Kimizuka said, stressing that the coronavirus crisis seems to be a perfect issue for the Imperial family.

“Pictures and videos are uploaded on social media almost every day by public relations officials of royal families abroad, and they are well-received,” Kimizuka said.

“Just uploading messages on the Imperial Household Agency’s webpage isn’t enough,” he continued, emphasizing that social media should be used more actively especially at this time, because messages can be sent without meeting people.

JIJI Press