Emperor & The Privy Council

Emperor

The office of the emperor is the highest authority within the Empire. The emperor himself is believed to be a descendant of the sun god Amaterasu, and the imperial line has remained unbroken for 3,000 years since the first emperor Jimmu. The emperor and the imperial family live inside the Imperial Palace in the capital @Tokyo. The effective authority of the emperor has fluctuated over time and often depends of the emperor themselves. At their most active, the emperor is very engaged in the politics and decision making of governance, and will often be the one to actually make final decisions. As is more often the case, many emperors are content, or pigeonholed into being merely a figurehead who symbolically represents the nation, but in reality rarely involves themselves in politics. In these situations it is typically the Ministerial Office that takes up the mantle of political authority.
The imperial court has existed for all of recorded Japanese history, but for many periods was overshadowed by military rulers known as shoguns. The shogunate was overthrown by the imperial court during the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s, and the modern form of political system Japan current has was formed. While the emperor regularly exercizes real power, he is content to continue the tradition of leaving lowly political affairs to those under him.

Privy Council

The Privy Council is the official name for the Emperor's board of advisors. They handle affairs of the imperial system, and will act on behalf of the emperor's authority. The council is supposed to in theory have an amount of power that balances the elected government, but its effective power has waned as politics has become the realm of the Diet and the Military. The council is largely composed of aristocrats of the The Kazoku, who have rigid and conservative viewpoints on political matters