Suppose you're the emperor of Japan in 1514. How meny servants do you have attending you and your needs in your day to day life? And how does that compare to what a European monarch's (particularly the king of England if you want to be specific) household would have had in the same time?

by grapp
Kallipolan

I cannot give many specific details about the Emperor at the time (Emperor Go-Kashiwabara), but 1514 was during the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period), when the country was consumed by civil war. The Shogun (the official head of government) was virtually powerless, and the Emperor was even less relevant. Because feudal contributions and taxes essentially stopped, the Imperial Household was reduced to near-poverty, with the Emperor being unable to even perform the offical coronation ceremony. I've even seen reports (no evidence as far as I know) that at some points during this period, the Emperor was forced to sell works of calligraphy (essentially autographs) in order to provide for himself. At this point, the welfare of the Emperor depended on voluntary contributions made by Samurai clans hoping to enhance their prestige by receiving Imperial approval. Naturally, this made the Emperor's lifestyle quite volatile.

None of this directly answers your question (as far as I know, there are no Imperial Court records that detail things like numbers of servants), but I hope it gives you some idea of the state that the Imperial Court was in at this time.

Source: Jinnou Shoutouki - H. Paul Varley

Shrouger

/u/Kallipolan already spoke to the condition of the emperor of Japan, but I would like to address the second part of this question.

The household of the King of France (at this time Louis XII, and in 1515 Francis I) consisted of the personal servants of the king as well as those of his wife and other relatives. Under Louis XII, the numbers were considered "relatively modest", with 366 officers (ranging from personal attendants to honorary members of the household to members of government) in service to the king and 343 within the queen's household. This figure, dating to 1495-6, expanded to over 600 in the king's household later in the reign of Francis I (which lasted until 1547).

It should be noted that this scale is not analogous to the size of the French court, which also included many petitioners, emissaries and political clients of the king not formally or permanently incorporated into the royal household. The size of the court itself is better approximated by the scale of the royal progress (an originally medieval custom whereby the king and his retinue toured his demesne and the holdings of certain vassals in order to present himself to his subjects and project his personal authority); in several cases, the progress was larger than the population of the towns it visited and put a considerable strain on the available lodgings and food even in the sizeable "grandes villes".

Sources:

A History of France, 1460-1560: The Emergence of a Nation - David Potter

Francis I - R.J. Knecht