20 years ago, Her family would ve put her in a mental asylum for daring to be a bit “different”, which is not a compliment in the Japanese language.

What role do the royal families in these consitutional monarchies have? They have conventional parliaments and elected politicians. Much of the serious stuff of governing is taken care of in perfectly ordinary ways.

No, we need the royals to be flakey, weird, and up to nonsense so that we have things to talk about at the proverbial water cooler! We need Prince Charles to sing to a patch of rutabagas at midnight like a Druid! Let’s have the young ones marrying and divorcing and carrying on like Britney!

Think of the publishing industry. Who will fill the pages of the Weekly World News and the National Enquirer? Who will give TMZ, Access Hollywood and E! a reason to exist? It’s really an economic development portfolio when you think about it.

Oh no he di-ent! Oh yes she di-ed! Snap!

Yeah, that’s called a dream.

The Hatoyama’s seem very devoted to each other, and both seem to really relish their partner’s character quirks. I suspect myself that they’re actually encouraging each other to be different; He is serious-minded and logical, which frees her to fully be the off-the-wall “look at all the happy colors” cheerful.. He’s her rational half, and she’s his flaky nutball half. Best of both worlds.

For instance, some time ago they appeared in public, with him wearing a white shirt with big, very red hearts all over it. (here’s a shot: http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/news4vip2/imgs/1/1/1168b925.jpg). She chose the shirt because “Hatoyama” sounds like “Heart – oyama”. Which he cheerfully went along with, laughing along with her. He could never have picked a shirt after a corny pun himself, but she can, and he enjoys it.