It has been about a month and a half since the NHK Asadora drama "Anpan " (General TV, Monday to Saturday 8:00 AM and others) starring Mio Imada started airing. Production director Kurasaki Ken spoke about the current response and the unexpected reaction.
◇ The reaction from viewers "gives me the push I need"
" Anpan" is based on the married couple Takashi Yanase(1919-2013) and Nobuyuki (1918-1993), the manga artist and picture book writer who created "Anpanman." It is a "story of love and courage" that will make you feel the joy of living, depicting how these two, who were once nobody, overcame all sorts of rough seas and arrived at "Anpanman," the embodiment of "unreversible justice."
Looking back on the broadcasts so far, Kurazaki commented, "The first episode had the highest viewership ever for any drama on NHK Plus, including taiga dramas and Asadora, and the overall viewership rating in the show's local Kochi prefecture was 41.6%, so I think we're off to a good start, including in terms of numbers."
"We often hear comments like, "My kids watch the recorded show at night because it overlaps with their commute to school," or, "I can't watch it in real time because I'm at work, so I watch it via streaming. With more and more different lifestyles becoming available every year and more diverse ways of watching, the real-time viewer rating of the 8 a.m. terrestrial broadcast is only one indicator, especially for Asadora that are broadcast multiple times a day. What's more important is the overall viewer rating and the total number of viewers. I've been thinking for the past few years that it would be great if this became the norm."
This is Kurazaki's third Asadora, following "Yell" in the first half of 2020 and "Okaeri Mone" in the first half of 2021. "I felt that Asadora are something that are created every day together with the viewers," she said.
"I look up different words on X and other sites almost every morning, and I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone's reactions. In the first and second weeks, we depicted Nobu and Taku's childhood. Just like in real life, both Nobu and Taku lost their fathers when they were young, but I wanted to create a universal drama that shows that it is precisely because of this sense of loss that there is joy in life beyond. I really felt that the audience empathized with the child actors' acting, and received various comments, and that my thoughts reached them."
He said that such feedback from viewers is encouraging, saying, "Every word you say inspires the staff and cast. I truly feel that they are giving us the push we need to head to the studio and post-production more than any other Asadora ."
◇ Delighted at the unexpected reaction: "It shows how much people empathize with me"
On the other hand, the audience reaction to Tomiko, the mother of Takashi (played by Takumi Kitamura ), played by Nanako Matsushima , exceeded Kurazaki and others' expectations.
As in historical fact, Tomiko remarried, leaving her young son Taku behind at the Yanai family, making her a so-called "villain" character, but she revealed, "I think that unlike today, there were a lot of people like that back then, and she had no choice but to do so; Tomiko had no other way to survive. A lot of viewers thought of Tomiko as a 'toxic parent,' which was a reaction that exceeded our expectations."
"On the other hand, it makes me happy because it shows how much people are empathizing with the story. I think the fact that viewers are genuinely angry is proof that they are immersed in the story and feel helpless towards Tomiko."
She and Matsushima, who plays Tomiko, had been discussing the role since before filming began, and they shared the same understanding that "at her core, she is a person who truly loves her sons, Takashi and Chihiro ( Motoki Nakazawa ). There's no doubt that she has a hole in her heart after losing someone so important to her, (her husband) Kiyoshi (Ninomiya Kazunari)."
"I want to portray the character of Tomiko properly, including her true reconciliation with Takashi. I hope you'll keep an eye on how the relationship between Tomiko and Takashi, or Tomiko and Nobu, develops in the future."
