Actor Baku Owada and his daughter, actress Miho Owada, appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on April 14th. They talked about the activities of "Bakumiho," a group they formed two years ago.
Between "Baku" and "Miho" is "Kumi" (Kumiko Okae, an actress who passed away in 2020). "We are a unit of two people, but we feel like we are three people," says Miho.
They visited many places, including kindergartens, facilities for children battling childhood cancer, and facilities for children with severe disabilities. "We go there to make the people happy, but rather, we receive a lot of different things and come home feeling warm and fuzzy."
"After my mother's death, I was in the midst of a great deal of grief, and maybe it was just an escape from reality, but I started talking to my father about how losing a wife or a mother is hard, but losing a child is even harder, and then I got an offer from an acquaintance of mine to stream music to hospitalized children." During the COVID-19 pandemic, I heard that children only had five or ten minutes a day to see their parents, and when I decided to do something, "I thought there was no way I wouldn't invite my father."
Looking back on that time, the two said, "I would sing and my father would read picture books to us. At that time, it was hard for us to work hard just for ourselves, and I think we were at a time when we would find the energy to do something for someone else." "I think that was what supported us." "I invited him." "We were very grateful."
"My mother always said that everything has a meaning. I thought to myself on the morning of the day she passed away that even my mother's death must have had a meaning. I feel that this belief that there must be a meaning has gradually led to my current activities. There are so many children that I was able to meet because my mother passed away. Before COVID, I never imagined that I would be so active with 'Bakumiho', so I sometimes feel that I am motivated by my mother."
