Tonbi

Official Website
www.nhk.or.jp/dodra/dodrasp/index.html#d5

Broadcast
Saturdays, 9.00 – 10.10 p.m. from 7 January 2012

Station
NHK

Story
It is the year 1962 in the bustling Seto Inland Sea port town of Bingo in the prefecture of Hiroshima. Ichikawa Yasuo, who goes by the name Yasu, is a truck driver with a transportation company. He has fathered a baby boy called Akira with his wife, Misako, and is over the moon. But one day, Misako suddenly dies in place of Akira in an accident. Yasu, who had been abandoned by his father when he was a child, asks himself over and over again what he should do as Akira’s father even as he struggles with work and child raising. His childhood friends Taeko, the proprietress of his favourite small restaurant ‘Yunagi’; Shoun, a worldly head priest; Shoun’s wife Yukie; Shoun’s father Kaiun; and the young employee Kuzuhara watch over Yasu, the awkward father, and Akira as if he is their own child. Akira grows into a strapping youth devoted to baseball. However, just before his elementary school graduation, Akira asks Taeko to tell him the truth about his mother’s death … …

Characters
Tsutsumi Shinichi as Ichikawa Yasuo
A truck driver with Setouchi Transportation who is nickname is Yasu. He loves alcohol, tobacco and brawling, but he has earned praise for his work. He is a devoted husband and indulgent father, but on the other hand, is an awkward man. When he was young, his mother died and because he was subsequently abandoned by his father young, his behaviour as a father is frequently bewildering.

Ikematsu Sosuke/Imai Yuki/Tanaka Kanai as Ichikawa Akira
The only son born between Ichikawa Yasuo and his wife Misako. His mother died in an accident involving a collapse of parcels when he was a child. In elementary school, he was completely absorbed in baseball and became an ace player in high school. Because he excels at studies, he is adored as a genius child born to ordinary parents by Yasu’s good friends.

Nishida Naomi as Ichikawa Misako
Ichikawa Yasuo’s wife. As a child, she lost her parents in the Hiroshima nuclear bombing, and grew up in an orphanage. She worked as a worker at a textile factory where she met Yasu who frequented the factory, and they got married. She had a son, Akira, with Yasu and was leading a happy life, but died in an unexpected accident.

Koizumi Kyoko as Taeko
Ichikawa Yasuo’s childhood friend who runs the small restaurant ‘Yunagi’ near Setouchi Transportation. Yasu calls her “Older Sister Taeko” and she is always there for him. She was driven out of her home because of her mother-in-law’s bullying when she was young, and has stayed single ever since she was separated from her little daughter. She is Akira’s confidant.

Furuta Arata as Shoun
The heir to an ancient temple in the port town where his childhood friend Ichikawa Yasuo lives. He finds his vocation stifling and his behaviour is frequently unheard of. He is also often jeered at by Yasu who calls him a worldly priest. He and his wife, Yukie, are a happy couple, but they do not have children and watch over Akira as if he were their own child.

Tsukaji Muga as Kuzuhara
A young man who is Ichikawa Yasuo’s subordinate at Setouchi Transportation. He loves carps and pop music, and has a tendency of crying when drunk. He is earnest but tactless which is why he always gets yelled at by Yasu. Because his father died when he was young, he finds a father figure in the stern Yasu.

Hirata Mitsuru as Yasu’s father
He has extensive operations in Hiroshima, but when his wife passed away, he abandoned his young son and went up to Tokyo. In Tokyo, he remarried a woman with a child, but he cannot forget Yasu and always worries about him.

Tokui Yu as Section Chief Hagimoto
A section chief who is Ichikawa Yasuo’s boss at Setouchi Transportation. He always gets teased by Yasu and is a good-natured boss who even loans his precious, high-end camera. However, he is also a worldly man who has built a network of contacts in the world of the black market after his repatriation.

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