Well, the second bakufu didn’t restore the Kamakura shogunate, why would the third restore the Tokugawa?
The National Diet is de facto the bakufu. Think about it: the Tenno exists and is given great honour, but he doesn’t hold any real power.
Or to put it another way: the Diet still lets the Emperor dress like an Emperor, and have very nice things. But don’t get confused.
Oh, the Emperor has very rarely been the actual figure of power. For a while it was the retired Emperor.
Again, I’m unclear how much this is historical consensus, but that’s what I was taught in the program to train the American apparatus of postwar vassalage.
Much like the Pope, the Emperor has sometimes exercised territorial control and secular governance but a lot of that was really “The Vatican” or “The Imperial Court” acting through him, a lot of his functions involve religious institutions or just straight performance of ritual.
