"Anpan"Fumiya Takahashi interview: Lost 5kg in one week through thorough role preparation

Fumiya Takahashi Takahashi, who appears in the NHK morning drama " Anpan " (General Asadora , Monday to Saturday 8:00 a.m. and others) starring Mio Imada . Takahashi, who plays Kentaro Karashima Karashima, a classmate of Takashi ( Takumi Kitamura ) from Tokyo Higher School of the Arts, talked about how he prepared for the war scenes.

" Anpan" is based on the married couple Takashi Yanase(1919-2013) and Noriyuki Yanase (1918-1993). It is a "story of love and courage" that will make you feel the joy of living, depicting how the two met, overcame all sorts of rough seas, and arrived at "Anpanman", the embodiment of "unreversible justice."

Kentaro, played by Takahashi, is a classmate of Takashi at Tokyo Higher School of the Arts and hails from Fukuoka. He is a true friend to Takashi, who had no friends when he was young. He went to war before Takashi, but they meet again at the Kokura Regiment.

Looking back on the scene in the 10th week where Kentaro received the red paper, he said, "The scene where Taka and I are eating curry together and I tell him that the red paper has arrived, I thought that it was the first time I'd ever seen Kentaro."

"Because of all the memories I had made with Takashi, it was very difficult for me to say the word 'red paper' to him, and I still remember that the curry tasted bad. I think this will be a very memorable day in Kentaro's life."

The brutal war scenes depicted in weeks 11 and 12 also became a hot topic, but he revealed, "Even while filming the war scenes, I just couldn't feel it was real that this was actually happening. But still, I have to experience it and act it out, so I feel a great responsibility."

"In advance of the performance, I was given a book about the war from the supervisor. When there were things I couldn't understand from the text alone, I asked questions or looked into them myself. Apparently, there were many times when people in higher positions hit me, so even in the play, I was tense and prepared when interacting with people of higher rank. During the war scenes, I always felt like I was standing up straight."

Takahashi also worked on losing weight to prepare for the war scenes.

"Originally, in order to play the role of Kentaro, I wanted to convey the vibe of a boy who had come to Tokyo from Fukuoka, so I gained about five kilos, but in preparation for the war scenes I lost five kilos in a week. I had heard that during the war, you could only eat one sweet potato a day, so I also ate one dried sweet potato a day for about three days. I also tried eating hardtack, and I wanted to do as much as I could."