The battle over whether or not to pass legislation giving the de facto national anthem "Kimigayo" and the Hinomaru flag official status has been a black-and- white, yes-or-no affair. There have been some legalistic, even occasionally Clintonesque, arguments presented in the Diet on the definition of the word "kimi," as lawmakers attempted to skew it into a more democratic interpretation and thus lubricate its legalization.

One interpretation that has received little mention is that, in the second person, kimi could mean a lover, and since "yo" in the anthem context is often translated as "reign," but can be understood as something like era, "ga" is a possessive, equivalent to "no." On this interpretation, "kimi ga yo" could be understood as "You (my sweetheart) will always be." Or, in a more contemporary idiom, "Baby, you're forever!" One researcher told me that he found the poem in an ancient anthology of love poems, but I don't think the Diet is talking about that.

The de facto status of "Kimigayo" was good enough for the editors of the Guinness Book of Records, who entered it as the national anthem with the world's oldest lyrics, dating as they do to the ninth century. At the very end of the same century, Sugawara Michizane, now known as the patron spirit of education, used the term to address his teenage Emperor in a poem: "You, through coming springs and autumns, will become enriched . . . (Kimi wa, shunju ni tomitamai)." If the Diet wishes to overturn the interpretation of the nation's symbol of education, that's an internal matter, but I don't think any meaning other than "Emperor" would be accepted. Those Japanese who oppose legalizing the anthem apparently feel the same way.