NHK's night drama "Hirayasumimi" (General TV, Monday to Thursday 10:45 pm) starring actor Okayama Amane. The third installment of the production diary by producer Otsuka Yasuki has been published on the official website's "Hirayasumimi Blog," revealing behind-the-scenes stories from the "Asagaya location shoot."
The drama is based on the manga of the same name by Shinzo Keigo, which has been serialized in Weekly Big Comic Spirits since 2021. The story follows 29-year-old part-time worker Ikuta Hiroto (Okayama) who inherits a single-story house from his neighbor, Wada Hanae (Negishi Tokie), and begins living with his 18-year-old cousin Kobayashi Natsumi (Mori Nana), who moved to Tokyo from Yamagata. People with difficult life problems gather around them...
"The original story of 'Hira Yasumi' is set in the town of Asagaya in Tokyo, and we actually visited Asagaya many times during the filming of the drama," Otsuka revealed. As he said, the Asagaya streetscape is often shown in the drama, and he said, "The location hunting was a daily job of figuring out which part of Asagaya it was based on the background of the original story, and then heading to negotiate the location," he recalled, "The first job was to get a feel for the land of Asagaya."
The fishing pond where Hiroto works part-time is also located in Asagaya. "Asagaya Station is about a 10-minute train ride from Shinjuku Station, and it's quite busy with people, but a fishing pond suddenly appears about a 3-minute walk from the station. It's a place where you can forget the hustle and bustle of the city, relax by yourself, or chat with someone, and enjoy some leisurely fishing. It's the perfect place for those looking for a relaxing day off."
Otsuka, who said he "went to this fishing pond many times to scout locations with the director," also revealed, "When we saw people fishing, there was one who looked a bit like Saiki (Shigeru)... so we actually had Saiki appear in the film (as a regular customer). We also secretly observed people fishing and imitated them when it came to costumes and props. We received a lot of hints for the film from the real locations depicted in the original work."
For Otsuka and others, the Asagaya Tanabata Festival, depicted in episode 10 (broadcast on November 18th), was particularly memorable. Held every August, it is one of the nation's leading Tanabata festivals, and Otsuka confessed, "I've been to the Asagaya Tanabata Festival several times before, but the atmosphere and decorations of the shopping district were so grand that I thought it was impossible to capture that atmosphere in the art for a drama...! So I asked the actors' schedules to adjust, and we were able to shoot in the real festival scenery during the actual Asagaya Tanabata Festival."
As the Asagaya Tanabata Festival is a hugely popular festival that can attract up to one million visitors in some years, the scenes were shot "during the late night hours of a limited number of days before the festival when the decorations were almost complete." Naturally, this would not have been possible without the cooperation of the local shopping district, and in his words of gratitude he wrote, "I am truly grateful to everyone in the shopping district who cooperated with the filming during an already busy time with the festival. And not only the shopping district, but the cooperation of everyone in Asagaya was essential to the filming of 'Hira Yasumi.' I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who readily accepted our filming and to everyone who watched over us."
