Actress Yukiko Kashiwagi appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi), which aired on October 20th. She spoke about the personality of her late husband, Kyu Sakamoto, who passed away 40 years ago, and her recent resumption of making bags.
Kyu was a rare type of man for his time, "good at giving compliments, good at talking, and good at listening," she says. Many men of that generation at the time didn't take their wives to leisure activities like golf or tennis, but she recalls, "(Kyu) would take me everywhere. He would take me with him, like, 'Let's go together, let's do things together.'"
Kyu also loved making things, and made things like Kasama pottery. "It seemed like he had fun, because Kasama (Ibaraki Prefecture) was where they were evacuated," she revealed. Kyu said, "Let's all make something interesting together." They once made a bag with a double-layered plastic lid, filled with blue water, and a floating doll of a woman swimming, saying it was interesting. They made a lot of them and sold them in Harajuku and other places.
Apparently, 40 years ago she tried to make a prototype bag that lights up when a light bulb is attached to it. She put the project on hold after Kyu died in a plane crash, but "now that 40 years have passed, I really wanted to make it again as it's my dream, so I bought the light bulbs myself and all the things that connect them," she says with a smile. "People from overseas are really surprised and happy when they see it," she says.
Kuroyanagi brought a bag that Kashiwagi had given her 40 years ago to the studio, to which Kashiwagi responded with delight, "I'm so happy."
