Tokyo court dismisses Japanese filmmaker couple s claim to file separate surnames
April 23, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)
Kazuhiro Soda, left, and his wife Kiyoko Kashiwagi are seen at an online press conference on April 21, 2021. (Mainichi/Koji Endo) TOKYO The Tokyo District Court on April 21 dismissed a claim by filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda and his wife Kiyoko Kashiwagi demanding that the Japanese government acknowledge their marriage while letting them retain their respective surnames, as is recognized in the state of New York where they wed. Soda and Kashiwagi filed for marriage in 1997 in New York, where they lived, without changing their last names; the state allows married couples to keep their names. In June 2018, the couple submitted a marriage notification to the Chiyoda Ward Office in Tokyo while keeping separate surnames, but it was rejected based on a provision in the Japanese Civil Code that states married couples must have unified single surnames.