Abstract: Thailand and Japan are the two largest monarchies in Asia. Both are constitutional monarchies and democracies where their respective monarchies are “above politics.” The monarchies in these two countries are largely popular and respected. But they are different in one key way: Japan’s monarchy persists despite being perhaps the only monarchy in the world today with no lèse-majesté law. Meanwhile, Thailand, with a very-much active lèse-majesté law, finds itself amidst a continuing political crisis of which the monarchy is a part. In the run-up of World War Two, Japan hosted the richest concentration of lèse-majesté cases of the 20th century. So far, Thailand is host to the 21st century’s…