With Emperor Akihito abdicating the Chrysanthemum Throne on Tuesday, three decades of Heisei — an era named in the hopes of "achieving peace" — will come to a close.
Fittingly, it was an era in which Japan enjoyed a period of continuous peace — and yet it was also marked by economic stagnation and disaster.
In such a time of both peace and tumult, one of the most indelible images that captured Emperor Akihito's role may be of him kneeling on the floor of an evacuation center with his wife, Empress Michiko, surrounded by victims — likewise kneeling — after the eruption of Mount Unzen in Nagasaki Prefecture in 1991.