Kikuko, Princess Takamatsu

Princess Takamatsu Kikuko (Japanese宣仁 亲 王妃 喜 久 子, Nobuhito - shinnōhi Kikuko or高 松 宫 妃 喜 久 子, Takamatsu -no- miya hi Kikuko; born December 26, 1911 † December 18, 2004 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese princess.

Princess Takamatsu, born as Kikuko Tokugawa (徳 川 喜 久 子) and eldest daughter of Prince Tokugawa Yoshihisa was entitled " Imperial Highness ". She was the widow of Prince Takamatsu Nobuhito, the third son of Taishō tennō Yoshihito and younger brother of the Shōwa Hirohito tennō. Her grandfather was the last Japanese shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. Princess Takamatsu was an aunt of the current Tenno of Japan, Akihito.

Their training completed Takamatsu under the name Kikuko in the girls' department of the Gakushuin in Tōkyō. She married the Prince Takamatsu on February 4, 1930 at the Imperial Palace. After the Second World War both worked for charitable organizations, their particular use was the lepers. After the death of Prince Takamatsu, the Princess was the patroness of her husband, the Princess Takamatsu Cancer Research Foundation Cancer Research Society.

1991 saw the Princess Diaries of Prince Takamatsu, which he had written 1934-1947 and was subsequently published in a magazine. Since September 1999, was ailing Princess Takamatsu. Contrary to the usual practices of the Japanese imperial family to Princess Takamatsu reported in 2002 in a Japanese women's magazine, to word and called for a change in the law in favor of a female succession to the throne. Takamatsu pointed this out to the female regency in England and Sweden. She looked good chance to push through a law change in the Japanese parliament and Princess Aiko, the first child of Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife Crown Princess Masako, to make the female Tennō.

She lived until her death in Takanawa Palace in Tokyo's Metropolitan district of Minato. The Princess died on 18 December 2004 of blood poisoning.