Akari Takaishi plays the heroine in the NHK Asadora"Bakebake" (Monday to Saturday, 8:00 AM and other times). At the end of the 30th episode (broadcast on November 7th), Toki (Takaishi) decides to become Heaven's (Tommy Bastow) maid. Toki is paid a salary of 20 yen, which was considered an extraordinary amount at the time, but we asked Hashizume Kuniomi, the production manager, what the intention was behind depicting the theme of money in the sixth week.
In the sixth week, Heaven gets into a fight with Heita (Namase Katsuhisa) of the Hanada Inn and tells Nishikori (Ryo Yoshizawa) that she wants to leave the inn and live on her own. Nishikori asks Toki to become a maid at Heaven, but she refuses. However, after learning about the situation of Tae (Keiko Kitagawa) and Sannojo(Rihito Itagaki), who have become beggars, Toki decides to become a maid at Heaven.
That same week, many episodes related to money appeared, such as discovering that 1 go of clams costs 2 sen, that Ume (Nouchi Maru) at Hanada Inn earns 90 sen, and that Toki's childhood friend Sawa (Wan Marui), who has successfully become a teacher, earns 4 yen.
Hashizume explained, "I portrayed them at a time when they were in the greatest poverty, so that it would be clear that they were in dire straits. I think there are some people who don't really understand what 20 yen means, so I made it so that people could understand its value by comparing it. I thought that this would convey more realistically that they were living in a story, and that even though they worked this much, they only got this much. I also used records to determine the prices and incorporated them into the dialogue."
How much would the 20 yen that Toki receives be worth in modern terms?
Hashizume explained, "It's not as simple as just multiplying, but roughly speaking, 1 yen is equivalent to 30,000 to 40,000 yen. 20 yen is equivalent to about 700,000 to 800,000 yen. In terms of annual salary, that's nearly 10 million yen. Women had a low status at the time, so naturally there weren't many jobs that paid that much. I think it was an extraordinary salary."
Will the Matsuno family be able to repay the debt owed by the newly introduced debt collector, Moriyama Zentaro (Maehara Mizuki)? And what will Tae's life be like? It will be interesting to see how Toki, who will become the family's breadwinner, will handle her job as a maid for the sake of her family.
