"Anpan" Interview with Takumi Kitamura: Looking back on his farewell to Chihiro

Actor Takumi Kitamura plays Mio Imada Takashi in the Asadora drama series "Anpan" (NHK General TV, Monday to Saturday 8:00 a.m. and others), starring Takashi Yanai In the 62nd episode (broadcast on June 24th), Takashi returns from the battlefield and is overcome with grief upon learning that his younger brother Chihiro ( Motoki Nakazawa), who has become a naval officer, has been killed in battle. We asked Kitamura how he felt about this scene.

"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."

In episode 62, Taka, a demobilized soldier, returns to the Yanai family home in Gomenyo-cho. Upon learning that Chihiro had been killed in battle, Taka despairs, saying, "Dad, you should have protected Chihiro, who was much better than me. I wish it had been Chihiro who returned alive, not me."

Looking back on this scene, Kitamura said, "I felt such a sense of loss that I had no memory of it. I can't even remember what kind of acting I was doing."

"I remember crying in scenes that I really wasn't meant to cry in, and I just felt empty. Rather than something being born from Chihiro's death, I felt like everything was gone."

Having experienced the brutality of war and the death of loved ones, Takashi has grown from his previous "tassui-gaa" (a weak, unreliable word in Tosa dialect) personality, and will show a more philosophical side in future developments.

"I think the death of his brother was the final piece of the puzzle that allowed Takashi to reach philosophical insight. Even though he held on to a very faint hope somewhere, he knew Chihiro would surely be killed in battle, and he himself thought he would die as well. I knew that, but when I was actually faced with Chihiro's death, I was left speechless."

How will Takashi, who has lost his only and most precious little brother, Chihiro, move forward and what fate will he face? We can't take our eyes off the future developments.