[worrycue]

Ignoring whether anti-monarchy is a western idea or not, monarchy has quite a lot of deficiencies.

Japan itself I would argue has highlighted said deficiencies. Emperor Taishō had various neurological problems. His son Emperor Shōwa (AKA Hirohito) seem alright physically but just wasn’t that good a statesman, in the eyes of some like the British who did not see him as malicious (https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2017/07/758307910564-hiro...) anyway, in that he couldn’t rein in the military and the rest is history.

It’s the luck of the drawn if you have a good leader and if you end up with a bad one it is nigh impossible to replace him without major social upheaval.