A press conference announcing the production and lead actor of the 2028 Taiga drama was held on Getsuku at the NHK Broadcasting Center in Shibuya, Tokyo. It was announced that the title would be "John Man" and that Kento Yamazaki would play the lead role. Yamazaki, who will play the protagonist John Manjiro, also known as Nakahama Manjiro, attended the press conference and spoke about his feelings and enthusiasm upon receiving the offer.
Yamazaki, who heard about the offer to appear in the historical drama from his manager more than six months ago, recalled, "I was surprised." Regarding playing John Manjiro, he revealed, "There is pressure, and I am nervous and scared about being given the opportunity to appear in a historical drama," but added, "More than that, I was excited to get on this ship and sail. John Manjiro is a fascinating character, and I thought, 'I want to play him.' I'm excited and feel like, 'Let's do it!'"
Regarding John Manjiro, she said, "I studied him in school, and I had the image of him as a truly amazing person who was the first Japanese person to go to America during the period of national isolation." Now that she is actually going to play the role, she said, "There are parts of him that I don't know in depth, so I'm wondering how he drifted ashore, how he got to America, how he returned to Japan, and how he connected Japan and America afterward and changed Japan. I'm still in the process of learning, but as I've been studying, I've come to find him fascinating, so I hope to be able to portray him in a fascinating way."
"John Manjiro" is the 67th NHK Taiga drama, depicting the life of John Manjiro, who was active from the late Edo period to the Meiji era. The script is written by Yuki Fujimoto. Set in 19th-century Japan, America, and the Pacific Ocean, it is a grand and moving epic about ordinary people who become "castaways," depicting a series of life-or-death survival struggles and the romance of a long-awaited reunion.
