The Mikado of the title character as a disrespectful representation of the revered Meiji Emperor; Japanese theatre was prohibited from depicting the emperor on stage. Japanese Prince Komatsu Akihito, who saw an 1886 production in London, took no offence. When Prince Fushimi Sadanaru made a state visit in 1907, the British government banned performances of "The Mikado" from London for six weeks, fearing that the play might offend him – a manoeuvre that backfired when the prince complained that he had hoped to see "The Mikado" during his stay. A Japanese journalist covering the prince's stay attended a proscribed performance and confessed
The Mikado with their one-act piece "Trial by Jury" (1875), played at the Savoy while Carte and their audiences awaited their next work. Gilbert eventually found a place for his "lozenge plot" in "The Mountebanks", written with Alfred Cellier in 1892. In 1914, Cellier and Bridgeman first recorded the familiar story of how Gilbert found his inspiration: The story is an appealing one, but it is largely fictional. Gilbert was interviewed twice about his inspiration for "The Mikado". In both interviews the sword was mentioned, and in one of them he said it was the inspiration for the opera, although he never