What was the most captivating scene in the 94th episode (broadcast on August 7th) of the NHK Asadora drama "Anpan " (General TV, Monday-Saturday 8:00 AM and other times), starring Mio Imada ? When we looked at minute-by-minute trends in "attention level," which indicates the degree to which viewers were glued to the screen, we found that the scene with the highest attention level (surveyed by REVISIO, Kanto region, preliminary figures) was at 8:13 AM, when Kentaro ( Fumiya Takahashi) says he has seen someone who resembles "Yam-on-chan" Kusakichi (Sadao Abe), with a rating of 71.6%.
"Anpan" is based on the married Takashi Yanase(1919-2013), the manga artist and picture book writer who created "Anpanman," and his wife, Nobu (1918-1993). It is a "story of love and courage" that will fill you with the joy of living, depicting how these two, who were once nobodys, overcame all sorts of troubles to become "Anpanman," the embodiment of "unreversible justice."
◇The highest point was at 8:13 a.m. The graph shows three peaks, reaching a peak at the end.
The 94th edition's "Attention Level" graph showed three large mountain-like graphs with successively rising peaks, following the opening theme song.
The first peak was at 66.3% at 8:02 AM, right after the opening. Takashi (Takumi Kitamura) tells Nobu (Imada) that he wants to quit his job and focus on drawing manga, and Nobu replies that he will fully support him. The next morning, Takashi vows, "Next year, I'll become the manga artist Takashi Yanai," at exactly two minutes. The story immediately jumps forward five years later, where Takashi appears to still be working at Samsung Department Store.
The second peak was at 8:07 AM, at 69.4%. Although his earnings from his side job had stabilized, Takashi felt anxious about quitting. One day, he happened to meet Takuya Ise(played by Motoki Omori). This was the exact time the peak occurred. Encouraged by his conversation with Takuya, Takashi decided to focus on manga.
The highest peak was at 8:13 AM, at 71.6%. This was the scene when pregnant Meiko (Nanoka Hara) and Kentaro visited the Yanai household with their young daughter Ai. While chatting, Meiko said, "I'd like to eat Yam-onchan's Anpan again after a long time," to which Kentaro revealed, "Come to think of it, I saw someone who looks like that person the other day." Kentaro saw the person in question around Shinbashi, but was unable to call out to them because they seemed to be in a hurry.
When they told them that the person was carrying a large jar, Nobu, Ranko (Yuumi Kawai ), and Meiko all said in unison, "It's Yamu-chan!" Taka also muttered, "Yam-san, you're in Tokyo." This was just after the 13-minute mark.
Kusakichi is a wandering baker who came to Kochi out of nowhere when Nobu and Taka were children. In episode 80 (broadcast on July 18th), he appeared at the Asada household for the first time in six years and baked a funeral " Anpan imitation" for the deceased Kamaji ( Kotaro Yoshida ), but his whereabouts have been unknown since then. Viewers' interest in him suddenly increased, as they suspected he might make a reappearance, and this was reflected in the "attention level" of the show.
In fact, the popularity of "Yam-onchan" in " Anpan" is so great that when the most popular episodes from the first half of the series, from episode 1 to episode 65, were selected, episode 45, in which the Asada family is ordered by the military police to make hardtack and is in a desperate situation, but Kusakichi, who initially stubbornly refuses to make hardtack, returns and bakes it, ranked first among the "core viewing demographic" of men and women aged 13 to 49, and also ranked in the top five among individuals overall and among women.
Additionally, episode 8, in which Yamu-chan bakes Anpan at Nobu's request with the promise that it will only be once, also ranked in the top five in all four categories: "overall individuals," "male," "female," and "core audience." Yamu-chan, arguably the most popular character, left a strong impression in this episode even when he was not seen.
The data used was a proprietary index called "attention level" published by REVISIO, a company that surveys TV program and commercial viewing habits in 2,000 households in the Kanto region and 600 households in the Kansai region. A dedicated device equipped with a human body recognition sensor constantly measures whether people are looking at the TV screen, and calculates the percentage of people in front of the TV who are paying close attention to the program.
