Is Japanese Empress Michiko of Korean origin and the daughter of organized crime figure, Kakuji Inagawa? No, that's not true: Empress Michiko is Japanese and the daughter of Hidesaburo Shouda, who was a Japanese businessman.
The claim originated from TikTok video (archived here) on March 7th, 2023.
At 0:29 seconds in the video, the speaker says:
The person who does the most typical Korean etiquette is Michiko, because she is Korean.Empress Michiko is a daughter of the founder of Inagawa yakuza syndicate.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon May 8 13:50:01 2023 UTC)
According to her webpage on The Imperial Household Agency, Empress Michiko was born on October 20, 1934, as the eldest daughter of Hidesaburo and Fumiko Shoda. She graduated from the University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo in 1957, and she married Emperor Crown Prince Akihito in 1959 who became the 125th Emperor of Japan in 1989.
According to the Historical information for Japanese studies JINJIKOSHINROKU (who's who) Database:
Empress Michiko's paternal grandfather was Teiichiro Shoda, an Executive Director of Nisshin Flour Milling Co., Ltd, and her maternal grandfather was Bunemon Shoda, a soy sauce manufacturer.
There is no evidence to show that Empress Michiko is related to Kakuji Inagawa, also known as Seijo Inagawa (November 13, 1914 - December 22, 2007) a member of the Japanese yakuza crime syndicate.
