ONE works for a television company. His brother is a freelance writer. Two of their cousins work in finance and another is a salaryman at an insurance company.

On the face of it, they are a perfectly ordinary group of young single men in their twenties. But if a plan being put before the Government is realised, one will take on an awesome and historic responsibility — fathering an heir to Japan’s dying Imperial family.

The young men are all descendants of aristocratic families who were stripped of their imperial titles after the Second World War. Now a campaign is under way to restore their status to solve the crisis facing the Imperial Family: its lack of a viable heir.

The sons of Emperor Akihito have only daughters and no boy has been born into the family for 40 years.

Until now attention has focused on a popular proposal — changing the law so that three-year old Princess Aiko, the daughter of Crown Prince Naruhito, can succeed as a reigning Empress. But members of the former imperial clans, collateral branches of Akihito’s family, are discreetly pressing for an alternative.

“It is not a question of whether we want to do it or not,” one said. “Becoming a member of the imperial family is like becoming a priest — your personal dreams and private life end at that moment. But if we could maintain the royal blood line which has lasted for thousands of years then it will be a pleasure to play such a role.”

Japan has had reigning empresses before, but only on an ad hoc basis when there was no male heir. They were always succeeded by emperors descended from the male line — to traditionalists, descent through a reigning Empress would represent an unacceptable break with tradition.

“It would be one thing having Aiko as Empress but if the succession then passed to the female line, it would ruin 2,600 years of imperial blood since Emperor Jimmu ’s mythical founding emperor,” the member of one of the former imperial families said. “This is something that should never change.” A government panel has been convened to suggest solutions to the succession crisis. Members of the former imperial clans will say nothing publicly, but conservative academics have argued the case before the panel.

It will present a preliminary report at the end of this month. As well as a change in the law to allow an empress, it is expected to set out several possibilities involving scions of the collateral branches.

One option is for Akihito’s childless brother, Prince Hitachi, to adopt as his son a member of a collateral branch whose son would then become the Imperial heir. The second is for one of these boys to marry one of the daughters of the Emperor’s cousin, Prince Tomohito of Mikasa.

Under the present law, princesses who marry commoners relinquish their imperial status. The prince-to-be would therefore have to be adopted by the Mikasa family so that he had imperial status before getting married.

Three times — in the 6th, 15th and 18th centuries — distant relatives from collateral branches of the imperial family ascended the throne after the main line ran out of male heirs. Eight Empresses have reigned, but all yielded to the male line after death or abdication.

Eleven noble families lost their imperial status in 1947 as a result of reforms introduced the post-war US occupation. Barred from public life and deprived of their titles, they struggled and were forced to sell off their imperial estates.

Seven of the families survive, and five have sons of marriage- able age. The eight bachelors include Asatoshi Kuni, 33, who works for the trading house Itochu Corporation, and Mutsuhiko Higashikuni, 24, who works for a car-sales company. Among the favourites is the writer Tsuneyasu Takeda, 29, who will publish two books about the imperial family this year, one of them concerning the last serious succession crisis in the late 18th Century. “I’m not in a position to answer questions,” he said when contacted by The Times.

But men such as Mr Takeda would have a hard time winning over the public. Opinion polls show that 80 per cent of Japanese, including the Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, support a future Empress Aiko.

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