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 even though the 1885–87 Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge had not opened when Gilbert conceived of "The Mikado", European trade with Japan had increased in recent decades, and an English craze for all things Japanese had built through the 1860s and 1870s. This made the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert told a journalist, "I cannot give you a good reason for our ... piece being laid in Japan. It ... afforded scope for picturesque treatment, scenery and costume, and I think that the idea of a chief magistrate, who is ... judge and actual executioner in one,