She was a caged wife with an insatiable thirst for love and freedom. She was a famed beauty and fitness freak. She defied royal protocol and was often at odds with conservatives around her, including her mother-in-law.
No, we're not talking about the late Princess Diana here, or making a pitch for a (quasi-fictional) novel inspired by Japan's current Crown Princess Masako.
However, Austria's Empress Elizabeth (1837-1898) — popularly known during her lifetime as Sisi — strikingly shares more than mere royalty with those other two aristocratic female icons. And more than a century after her assassination by an Italian anarchist, Elizabeth — like the late lamented Diana — still attracts hordes of admirers in Japan, especially among women.