Ryusei Yokohama drama "UNBOUND (Berabou)" (NHK General TV, Sundays 8pm and others), starring Fuka Koshiba. Hananoi is a childhood friend of the protagonist Tsutaya Juzaburo(Yokohama), who inherited the stage name "Segawa" of the legendary courtesan and made her name known throughout Edo, but was bought by Toriyama Kengyo (Hayato Ichihara) and left Yoshiwara. We spoke to Koshiba, who embodied the elegance and sophistication of the legendary courtesan, as well as her sadness and sorrow, despite this being her first taiga drama.
◇ Role of a courtesan: "Considering my age, this may be the first and last time"
Koshiba-san will appear as Hananoi in the first episode, "Arigatayama no Kangarasu" (broadcast on January 5th). Hananoi is a representative courtesan of Matsubaya, a long-established brothel in Yoshiwara. She was sold by her parents at a young age and grew up in Yoshiwara with Tsutaya Juzaburo.
As for her relationship with Tsutajyo, she is a good confidant who can talk about anything. As they help each other and work hard to revive Yoshiwara, Tsutajyo's Yoshiwara Hosomi becomes more popular, so she requests to take on the name of a legendary courtesan that had been lost for a long time, and becomes the fifth Segawa.
Segawa V is known as a famous courtesan in historical fact, and is a legendary courtesan whose stories of being demoted for 1,400 ryo and the tragic life that followed are passed down in plays and other media.
Koshiba has long been known for her acting skills, but she suited the role of Hananoi/Segawa so well that it was hard to believe that this was her first role as a courtesan.
"In reality, courtesans are younger, in their teens or early twenties, so I thought that (at 27 years old) this might be my last time playing a courtesan. Given my age, it might be the first and last time, so I wanted to give it my all and did a lot of research."
◇I couldn’t bring myself to say that she’s sexy (laughs)
When it came to her approach to creating the character, Ko Shibasaki said, "First of all, I wanted to focus on my manners and the things that come through."
"I had to learn how to smoke a kiseru pipe, write letters to customers, walk in geta wooden clogs, and dance. There were a lot of things I had to master, but these are things (oiran) do on a daily basis, so I had to be able to do them as easily as breathing. So I practiced a lot at home to get my body used to them."
He also said, "I thought it would be uncool to choke on a kiseru, so I tried smoking non-nicotine cigarettes to get used to the smoke," revealing his wide-ranging approaches.
"We had a lot of discussions about how to unbutton the kimono, and how much to leave open, because (oiran) girls are always sleep-deprived. We really talked with the intimacy coordinator about it. There were a lot of things I had never experienced before, so I learned a lot as I went along."
She was also conscious of sex appeal. "I would never say that I'm sexy (laughs), so I was much more conscious of my little gestures and gazes than I've been in previous roles," Koshiba said. All of this was to convey to the viewers the feelings of Segawa, who, despite having feelings for Tsutae, cut off his feelings and chose to accept the offer of marriage from the Kengyo.
"The script described Segawa's emotions in a way that made them painfully clear, so I thought about how to convey them to the audience without spilling them out, while I was acting. Segawa is a character who is harboring very complicated emotions, so I wanted to act carefully so as not to miss even the slightest nuance and so that the audience could pick up on it from things like eye movements."
