The much talked about NHK evening drama "Hira Yasumi" (General TV, Monday to Thursday 10:45pm) starring actor Okayama Amane and co-starring Mori Nana is a live-action adaptation of the manga of the same name by Shinzo Keigo, which has been serialized in Weekly Big Comic Spirits since 2021, and will enter its final week on December 1st. Producer Otsuka Yasuki shared her impression of Okayama, who plays the main character Hiroto, along with some anecdotes from filming.
The drama tells the story of 29-year-old part-time worker Hiroto Ikuta (Okayama) who inherits a single-story house from his neighbor Hanae Wada (Negishi Tokie) and begins living with his 18-year-old cousin Natsumi Kobayashi (Mori), who has moved to Tokyo from Yamagata. People with difficult life problems gather around them...
Motorcycles often appear in the drama as an important item for Hiroto.
"It depends on the production system, but on public roads near the Tokyo metropolitan area, we often avoid filming with actors actually driving motorcycles in order to ensure safety," says Otsuka.
"When we offered him the role, Okayama-san did not have a motorcycle license. In any case, we wanted to avoid him driving on public roads, so we didn't think that not having a license was such a big issue, and we told him that...but Okayama-san managed to find time in his busy schedule to get his motorcycle license just before filming began," he said.
This is because there are "short driving scenes that are not shot on public roads," such as the scene in episode 1 where Hiroto comes to his grandmother's house, the scene in episode 11 where he returns to the apartment where Hiroto used to live, and the scene in the final week (week 5) where he leaves his grandmother's house.
Otsuka said, "I think he wanted to make the motorcycle riding scenes, which are less than five seconds each and total about 15 seconds in all episodes, seem a little more realistic, by playing Hiroto himself for even one second longer, rather than using a stand-in."
