My take - the emperor is well educated and knows what's coming. Continuous tensions with China, printing money for some 35 years now (correct me if I'm wrong), a demography that's unsustainable, a treasury and stock market controlled by the central bank, ...

1920s/30s all over again with first a collapse of the yen and later on a war to distract the blame from the failed monetary policy and funnel the anger into some nationalist ideology.

I certainly can't blame him for not wanting to take part in that.