The long-running variety show "Shinkonsan Irasshai!" (ABC TV/TV Asahi, Sunday 12:55 pm) hosted by Takashi Fujii and Sakura Inoue will feature a couple from Ota Ward, Tokyo, who overcame the barrier between their families' values through ballroom dancing.
The couple appeared in gorgeous dance outfits. First, a video clip of their wedding ceremony, which took place at the Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo in January this year, was shown. It was a lavish wedding that cost 8 million yen. Next, the program staff headed to a dance school in Yokohama. The husband, who performs elegant ballroom dancing, is a medical consultant, and the wife is a systems engineer at an IT company. The two met at the dance school and soon became a couple.
The apartment where the couple lives is filled with practice clothes and dresses, all in ballroom dancing. They have several fully custom-made dresses that cost 500,000 yen each. Since their marriage, they have apparently spent a total of 3 million yen on ballroom dancing.
Although the two are very close, there was a big obstacle to getting married. The wife is the only child of a family whose eldest son has inherited the family name for generations. She wanted to keep the prestigious family name that had been passed down since before Perry's arrival, and her paternal grandmother had told her from an early age, "Don't date the eldest son," and "Make sure you marry a husband." When her husband proposed marriage, she agreed to take her wife's surname. Although her husband is the eldest son, her father was the second son and there was no talk of him inheriting the family name. She thought her husband's parents would readily agree, but when she told them over a video call, they said, "You don't need to be bound by such old-fashioned thinking."
"I don't want to be unable to marry because of my surname," said the wife, almost to the point of giving up, but one night, while she was sleeping, she was tied up with money and her grandmother, who was supposed to be dead, appeared at her feet, furious and with a demonic expression. Terrified, the wife went to her husband's parents' house. She persuaded him, saying, "I will definitely make your husband happy," and he reluctantly agreed, saying, "If you insist."
However, the difference in values between the two families was also evident at the wedding. The wife is from the main family, so she believes that the wedding ceremony should be done properly. When the husband's parents were informed that the total cost of the wedding would be 8 million yen, they were surprised, saying, "We have different ways of thinking," and a big wall was created. In order to let the parents know how well the two got along, a special dance floor was set up in one corner of the venue and they performed a ballroom dance with all their might. We will also deliver the excitement of the moment, with cheers erupting.
The husband's parents were so moved that they cried. After the ceremony, they apologized to the wife's father for initially opposing the marriage. They finally reconciled and the confusion cleared up. The wife and her father-in-law are now close enough to have drinking contests on New Year's Day. At the end, the husband's parents showed the couple a letter, and the wife was surprised and said, "I didn't even listen to that!", causing the husband to burst into tears.
