Hanasaku Ashita

Official Website
www.nhk.or.jp/drama/hanasaku

Broadcast
Sundays, 10.00 – 10.50 p.m. from 5 January 2014

Station
NHK BS Premium

Story
The Hanasakus live in the historic town of Kamakura. They are a family of five siblings starting with 35-year-old Asa who is the eldest girl. Each of them are facing challenges in their lives. They have finished the memorial service for their late father’s second death anniversary and are welcoming the new year. With the exception of their second sister Kana, who is married, the four of them live peacefully under the same roof. However, a big problem flares up on the day the eldest brother Masaru brings his fiancee Saotome Jun, the daughter of his company president, and her family home for an introduction. His siblings have got together for the occasion too. But in the middle of this tense first meeting, their profligate 60-year-old mother Fuuko unexpectedly turns up after disappearing without a trace 20 years ago. She boasts to the two families who are talking quietly that she has come back from Italy. Her merry, hearty manner stuns Jun’s parents. An uproar results. Asa tears her hair out dealing with her mother and the anger that she has repressed all these years explodes. On the other hand, Fuuko may be unconventional and a braggart, but she expertly uncovers the problems of her children with a mother’s intuition and starts to guide them toward new lives.

Characters
Koike Eiko as Hanasaku Asa
The eldest daughter of the Hanasaku family. She looked after her younger siblings in place of their mother who eloped. A single career woman who works for a stockings company, she now starts feeling like an old timer as she faces a crucial phase. She is hopeless when it comes to love possibly because of the negative example set by her mother. There is a huge void due to her mother’s betrayal but she starts to realise the power of her mother’s unconventionality.

Natsuki Mari as Imakita Fuuko
The mother of the Hanasaku siblings. 20 years ago, she fell in love with an artist and went to Europe. She has not been in touch with the Hanasaku family since then. Although her love ended in the intervening period, she lived a wandering, unconventional life and also drifted from job to job. She returns to Japan and uses the connections she had from the period of time she was in private investigation work, to secretly look into her children’s private lives.

Yamada Yu as Hanasaku Michi
The third daughter of the Hanasaku family. She works as a nurse at a hospital. She is a popular plaything with men, but despairs that the person her heart desire’s will not pay attention to her. Although she feels grateful to her older sister Asa, she gets irritated with her obtuseness to love.

Hoshino Mari as Niijima Kana
The second daughter of the Hanasaku family and the only sibling who is married. A housewife with two children. She is a vain person who tries to play the successful person who associates with celebrities and knows how to get ahead. She resents her older sister Asa for her condescending attitude towards her.

Mashima Hidekazu as Hanasaku Masaru
The eldest son of the Hanasaku family. He lives alone in an apartment away from his siblings because he works for a home builder in Tokyo. Although he is genial, he keeps changing his mind about whether he should marry his ex-girlfriend or the company president’s daughter because of his indecisiveness.

Takeda Kohei as Hanasaku Hikaru
The second son of the Hanasaku family. He is studying for the certified tax accountant exam, and is working part-time at an accounting firm. He loves star gazing and often hangs out with Miyazaki Kazuki who has the same interest. He is kind at heart but a part of him is still naively childlike.

Kunihiro Tomiyuki as Hanasaku Seiji
The father of the Hanasaku siblings. He was a driver of the local Enoshima Electric Railway. After his wife Fuuko ran off, he brought up their five children admirably, but died of illness two years ago.

Suruga Taro as Miyazaki Kazuki
The son of a monk at a temple near the Hanasaku home, and an office worker at the same hospital as Hanasaku Michi. He is Asa’s childhood friend and has a crush on her although he has not been able to confess his feelings.

Yanagishita Tomo as Mori Yuta
A designer at the same stockings company as Hanasaku Asa. He supports Asa’s work as he makes a move on her despite her being 10 years his senior.

Sato Megumi as Saotome Jun
Hanasaku Masaru’s fiancee. The daughter of Masaru’s company president and a career woman in the same company. She views the seemingly impeccable Masaru as her marriage partner if she is to become the company president in the future.

Miura Rieko as Takeshita Shizuka
Hanasaku Masaru’s colleague at work, and a former girlfriend. She had dumped him on a sudden impulse, but as his engagement with another woman progresses, the lingering feelings she still has for him grows and she creates a commotion.

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