On June 4th, screenwriter Kankuro Kudo attended the press conference held at the NHK Broadcasting Center in Shibuya, Tokyo, to announce the production and lead role of "Hon no Mokichi," the NHK Asadora drama series for the first half of 2028. He commented on the casting of the role of the husband of lead Yuumi Kawai.
"Hon no Mokichi" is the 118th installment of the NHK morning drama series. It tells the story of the "most estranged couple" in the history of Asadora, modeled after the poet Saito Mokichi and his wife Teruko. Although based on real people, it is boldly reconstructed and presented as fiction. The characters' names in the drama are Mori Teruko and Mori Mokichi. The main character, Teruko, is played by Kawai. This marks Kudo's first time writing a Asadora script in 15 years since "Amachan".
When describing the characters of Saito Mokichi and Teruko, Miyato laughs and says, "Teruko grew up in the city and is the daughter of a hospital owner, while Mokichi came from the countryside of Yamagata and his condition for marrying Teruko was to marry her, or rather, he worked hard towards that goal. I thought it would be interesting if the two of them got married and then suddenly found out they didn't get along at all."
Regarding the couple's personalities, he explained, "I read a lot of materials, and it seems that Teruko is the type of person who says everything she thinks out loud, while Mokichi doesn't talk much. And then he suddenly throws a tantrum. He's a poet, and apparently he starts writing letters in the air. I wanted to portray them as two people who are incompatible like that."
Regarding the casting of Mokichi, the director said, "I'd like to portray him as the complete opposite of Teruko. So I'd like someone like that to play the role." Production supervisor Maiko Itagaki said, "We're still developing the script, so I don't have an idea yet of who would be good for the role of Mokichi," but added, "But, as Mr. Kudo said earlier, I'll use that as a hint to search for someone."
Kawai also attended the press conference.
