The 25th episode of the NHK Taiga drama " UNBOUND (Berabou) " (General TV, Sunday 8pm and others), starring actor Ryusei Yokohama , titled "A Rain of Ashes Falls on Nihonbashi", was broadcast on June 29th. Viewers reacted to a certain line in the preview for the next episode, which was released after the main story.
" UNBOUND (Berabou)" is the 64th taiga drama, depicting the life of Tsutaya Juzaburo(or "Tsutajyu" for short), who is said to have built the foundations of Japan's media industry and pop culture. The script was written by Yoshiko Morishita, known for "Drama 10 'Ooku'" which was broadcast on NHK two years ago and became a big hit.
The next episode, episode 26, will be titled "Three Women" and will be broadcast on July 6th.
The price of rice has doubled from last year due to the poor rice harvest caused by the cool summer. The number of servants has increased, and at Koshodo, where comic writers gather, rice is quickly disappearing, and Tsutaju (Yokohama) is having a hard time.
Then Tsutaju's real mother, Tsuyo (Saki Takaoka), shows up at the store and tries to stay there as a hairdresser. Meanwhile, in Edo Castle, Okitsugu(Ken Watanabe) takes measures to deal with the soaring rice prices, but they do not go down. The situation escalates to the point where Tokugawa Harusada(Hideki Takahashi) of the Kishu Tokugawa clan, fed up with the shogunate's poor performance, issues a warning to the shogunate... and so the story unfolds.
At the end of episode 25, Ayase Haruka narrates, "In the autumn of the third year of Tenmei, Yoshiwara bookstore Tsutaya Koshodo expands to Nihonbashi. However, an unexpected ambush was waiting for them up ahead," and the preview for episode 26 then begins, with the words "Tenmei Rice Riots" displayed, and lines such as "There is rice," "But no rice," "There's no rice," and "How about rice from the year before last" are flying around.
On social media, viewers responded with comments such as, "Rice shortage? Rice from the year before last? Are we jumping to the Reiwa era next time?", "The rice riots are too timely," and "It's too timely." Comments such as, "If it's rice from the year before last..." Stockpiled rice!?," "Oh, rice from the year before last... This was written and filmed a long time ago," "If it's rice from the year before last... it feels like déjà vu," "It's full of words I've heard before," and "Rice riots at this time of year, is Morishita a prophet?" were also posted.
