Kinjirō Ashiwara (Japanese: 葦原 金次郎, Hepburn: Ashiwara Kinjirō, IPA: [a̠ɕiɰᵝa̠ɾa̠ kʲĩɴʑiɾoː]; November 3, 1850[2][3][a] – February 2, 1937) was a self-proclaimed "emperor" of Japan who rose to a celebrity status with his grandiose delusions and theatrical antics that were covered by the Japanese press for decades, beginning in the Meiji era.

[8] On June 12, Tokyo Jiyu Shimbun reported that Ashiwara had come into a telegraph bureau office [ja] in Tokyo and declared that he was "Shogun Ashiwara, Senior Third-Rank Imperial Appointee [ja] and First-Class Minister of the Left"[b] and that he needed to send an urgent telegram to Li Hongzhang, a well-known diplomat of the Qing dynasty in China, over "a matter of great concern".

[...] he thinks of the hospital as his own domain, and walks about arrogantly and brazenly, blabbing big lies out of his mouth about how the emperor of France has come to see him, or how he had a sumo match with the president of the United States.

[12] Being a celebrity whose comments on controversial topics of the world politics and the current affairs—such as occasions of lèse-majesté or alleged tyranny of the military[17]—were delusional, yet uninhibited[17] and often amusing,[18] he was an easy source of news stories for them.

[12] Some of the reporters even asked Count Nogi Maresuke and Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi to have a meeting with Ashiwara, much to their chagrin.

[18] Soon after the Shōwa era began in 1926, Ashiwara started to call himself "emperor" and sold papers with his chokugo [ja] (Imperial edict) written on them to visitors.