Western League (Japanese baseball) League contains the minor league affiliates of five Japanese professional teams (minor league homefield shown in parentheses): Western League (Japanese baseball) The is one of the two minor leagues ("ni-gun") of Japanese professional baseball. The league is owned and managed by the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). Teams in the Western League generally play an 80-game schedule every year. The league was created in 1952 as the Kansai Farm League, and was initially completely separate from the workings of the Nippon Professional Baseball. It featured the minor league teams of the six professional teams that had their homefields
Line of succession to the Japanese throne debate about amending the Imperial House Law to allow female descendants of an emperor and their descendants to succeed to the throne. In January 2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appointed a special panel of judges, university professors, and civil servants to study changes to the Imperial House Law and to make recommendations to the government. On January 24, 2005, the Japanese government announced that it would consider allowing the Crown Prince and Crown Princess to adopt a male child, in order to avoid a possible succession disputes. Adoption from other male-line branches of the Imperial Line is an age-old imperial