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Crown Princess Masako . As the wife of the heir apparent she is next in line to become the Empress of Japan.

Her Imperial Highness (born Owada Masako 小和田 雅子 and known in Japan as Masako-samaCrown Princess Masako is the eldest daughter of Hisashi Owada, a senior diplomat. She famously gave up a promising professional career when she married, and has struggled to adapt to life in the Imperial Household and the pressures to produce a male heir.

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Masako traveled the world with her parents from early childhood. She attended kindergarten in Moscow, Russia, Denenchofu Futaba Elementary School in Tokyo, Japan and graduated Valedictorian of Belmont High School in Belmont, Massachusetts, near Boston, where she achieved a perfect 4.0 grade point average and was also President of the National Honor Society.

In 1985, she graduated from Harvard University with a degree in economics, following she spent the years between 1988 and 1990 reading for a postgraduate degree in International Relations at Balliol College, Oxford University.

Besides Japanese, the Crown Princess is fluent in English. She was hired by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she met many world leaders such as U.S. president Bill Clinton and Russian president Boris Yeltsin. She also took part as a translator in negotiations with the United States concerning superconductors.

Masako famously refused the marriage proposal of His Imperial Highness Crown Prince Naruhito, the Heir Apparent to the throne of Japan, on two occasions; she agreed on his third proposal.

Prior to the wedding she was required to undergo an intense fertility examination to ensure that she could safely deliver an heir to the throne. She also signed a prenuptial agreement, that limited her claims to the royal family assets as well as her own children in the event of a divorce.

The wedding took place on June 9, 1991, and Masako, who by virtue of her marriage became Her Imperial Highness The Crown Princess of Japan, was instructed to give up her career and take on the responsibilities of Imperial Court life, which is dominated by the powerful and highly conservative Imperial Household Agency.

After a highly publicized miscarriage (which was blamed on intense media pressure and the neglect and mistreatment she received from members of the Imperial Household Agency), the Crown Princess gave birth to a baby girl, Her Imperial Highness Princess Aiko, on December 1, 2001. Princess Aiko's birth stimulated intense and ongoing public debate on changing Japan's Imperial Household Law so that females can ascend to the throne. The current lack of a male heir has created a great deal of anxiety in the Imperial household and Imperial Household Agency, as well as among some Japanese people.

On December 9, 2004, the Crown Princess announced that she hoped to return to her official duties, from which she had been absent for more than two years due to what doctors have called "stress-induced illness." The Prince has made pointed and controversial comments about discourtesies addressed to and other pressures placed upon his wife by the Imperial Household Agency; observers have claimed that the Crown Princess suffered a nervous breakdown. It was announced that the Crown Princess experienced a bout of shingles, and she herself released a rare statement that she was suffering from "fatigue."

It has been widely speculated that the immense pressure to produce a male heir has put great stress on the Crown Princess. This had led to ongoing discussion of the Japanese Imperial succession controversy.

International media coverage of Masako's difficulties has tended to frame her as a symbol of challenges faced by Japanese women in a patriarchial society. Within Japan, Masako's decision to marry the heir to the throne is seen as an informed one that also included a decision to forego her career, as the orthodoxy of life inside the Japanese Imperial household is widely known. It is understood to be extremely unlikely that she actually expected to continue working at all, let alone as a diplomat, given that members of the Imperial family must steer clear of politics and policy. While public perception of the Crown Princess has tended towards the sympathetic, if heedless of her privacy, it has taken a downturn with revelations such as her reported protests on not being able to travel abroad as much as she used to as a single professional woman. The steady performance of Princess Akishino who came to her Imperial role without Masako's privileged upbringing or brilliant accomplishments has also drawn less than flattering comparisons.