"The House in the Middle of Nowhere" (ABC TV/TV Asahi, Sunday 7:58 p.m.) is a variety show that uses satellite photos to search for a secluded house. In the January 19 episode, the search team visits a 92-year-old man who continues to visit a beech forest in Niigata Prefecture.
The satellite photos the search team obtained showed a building with an eye-catching blue roof in the mountains of the Chuetsu region of Niigata Prefecture. When the search team showed the satellite photos to a 74-year-old woman they met in a village along the way, she said she recognized the building. Furthermore, it seems that the woman's brother is the owner of the land on which the building stands. The search team drove off with the woman's guidance.
The route was a rough mountain road with a steep slope that continued to twist and turn along the mountainside. After passing a mountain road that curved almost 180 degrees and proceeding along a rough unpaved road, a building that looked like a villa came into view on a hill overlooking the rice fields. No one was there that day, but the woman who had guided us got in touch with us, and the search team returned to the villa the next day.
The 92-year-old man and his wife, the eldest son, greeted the search party with smiles. The man said, "I love beech forests, that's why I came to this place," and when he was 70, he rented land and built a villa on his own. He had been a bus driver for a long time, but "when I watched craftsmen build houses, I understood (how to build)," the man said with a smile. The preview also shows the man raising koi fish near his villa.
"I enjoy taking deep breaths while looking at the beech forest," said the smiling man, to which MC Tokoro George, who was watching from the studio, responded, "Coming here is the secret to your vitality, isn't it?" Panelist Hayashi Osamu expressed his respect, saying, "You can find happiness in the scenery of the beech forest... I feel that this is the 'ultimate happiness' that we will never be able to obtain."
The guests were actor Yuki Matsushita and singer Leon Shinhama. Shinhama's song "Subete Ageyou" won Tokoro the composition award at the 66th The Japan Record Awards, and Shinhama said, "I'd like to build a music studio in the suburbs, far from the town, and create songs with Tokoro." Matsushita revealed, "I'm gradually drawn to the outlook on life (of people who live in isolated houses)."
