Actor Ryusei Yokohama stars in the NHK Taiga drama "UNBOUND (Berabou)" (General TV, Sundays at 8 PM and other times). In the 46th episode, "The Soga Festival Incident," which aired on November 30th, Osaki (Kurara Emi), who had been acting as a spy for Sadanobu (Yuki Inoue) and his men, was forced to eat a poisoned manju by Harumasa Hitotsubashi (Toma Ikuta) and lost her life. Scriptwriter Yoshiko Morishita shared her thoughts on the deaths that have been depicted in the drama so far.
"UNBOUND (Berabou)" is the 64th taiga drama and depicts the life of Tsutaya Juzaburo(or "Tsutajyu" for short), who is said to have laid the foundations for Japan's media industry and pop culture. Although there is no war in this series, from the first episode onwards, many deaths have been depicted, including Asagao (played by Aiki Reika), who is stripped of all her clothing and abandoned naked.
The deaths of Fuku (Utsusemi, Karin Ono) and Shinnosuke (Inowaki Kai), who met their end in the midst of the rice riots caused by the rice shortage triggered by the eruption of Mount Asama, and their baby (Toyobou), were all the more tragic, as they had once shown viewers a glimpse of their "happy future" with their successful "escape" from Yoshiwara.
Morishita also believes that "history is a mass of countless deaths. The way in which those deaths are spoken of is only for a handful of people." In the case of Shinnosuke specifically, there is a story that there must have been a leader behind the riots that occurred in Edo, and Morishita himself created the character because he wanted to write about that leader. He then stated firmly, "To put it bluntly, whether you are loved or not, you die. I'm sorry!"
He also spoke about Utsusemi and Toyobou, saying, "The horror of famine or natural disasters can only be expressed through words or through piles of corpses. When I see it myself, it just doesn't resonate with me. That's because I don't know the people in the piles of corpses. So this time, I wanted to properly talk about that person's life and then have them sacrifice themselves. I thought it was important that they say it was 'terrible.'"
Regarding the reaction from viewers, Morishita revealed, "They say I'm a really demonic person (laughs)." Of course, the "demon" that viewers say is a compliment, but she also joked, "I've only really killed original characters (on my own initiative). I've always thought that people's anger would be directed at historical facts."
