It was revealed on April 7 that the weekly average Asadora(households) for the first week of "Anpan " (General TV, Monday to Saturday 8:00 am and others), the NHK morning drama starring Mio Imada in the first half of 2025, "Humans Are Lonely" (March 31 to April 4) was 15.2% (calculated from a survey by Video Research, Kanto region).
The drama began airing on March 31. The household viewer ratings were 15.4% for the first episode, 15.3% for the second episode, 15.2% for the third episode, 15.5% for the fourth episode, and 14.8% for the fifth episode. The 15.5% rating for the fourth episode was the highest for the show.
" Anpan" is based on the married couple Takashi Yanase(1919-2013) and Nobu Komatsu(1918-1993), the manga artist and picture book writer who created "Anpanman." It is a "story of love and courage" that will make you feel the joy of living, depicting how these two, who were once nobody, overcame all sorts of rough seas to become "Anpanman," the embodiment of "unreversible justice."
The first week features Nobu Asada(Nagase Yuzuna), also known as "Hachikin Onobu," a girl who runs at breakneck speed through the town of Kochi in the early Showa period. Nobu's grandfather, Kamaji (Kotaro Yoshida), has run a stonemasonry business for generations in the Asada family, but her father, Yutaro (Ryo Kase ), has no intention of taking over the business and travels around Japan and abroad for a trading company, telling Nobu, "Girls should be ambitious too."
Meanwhile, Takashi Yanai ( Kazunari Ninomiya ), who lost his father Kiyoshi (Ninomiya Kazunari) to illness when he was young, is taken by his mother Tomiko ( Nanako Matsushima) to the home of his uncle Hiroshi (Yutaka Takenouchi ), who runs the Yanai Clinic in Gomenyo-cho, and meets Nobu at the elementary school he transfers to.
Just then, Yutaro dies of a heart attack on his way home from a business trip.
Nobu didn't shed a single tear in the midst of the sadness of the Asada family. When Takashi worries about wanting to cheer her up, Hiroshi gently tells her, "That's what it means to be alive."
The next day, Nobu, who was sitting expressionlessly in the living room, suddenly stood up and ran as fast as he could to the station. Out of breath, Nobu desperately searched for his father. Takashi, who happened to be at the station, approached him and handed him a picture. When Nobu saw it... Nobu then encountered the " Anpan " (sweet bean bun) made by Kusakichi ( Sadao Abe ), which gave her the strength to live.
