Ecchan

Official Website
www.nhk.or.jp/jidaigeki/etchan

Broadcast
From 6.05 p.m., Saturdays, 15 July 2017

Station
NHK

Story
It is Tokyo in 1935. 10-year-old Yanagi Etsuko is a young girl who loves songs. Her father Kantaro, a struggling lyricist, still cannot forget her late mother Akiko who died three years ago, and wastes his life away. Seeing him like this, Etsuko begins a search for her father’s second bride and new partner who will be her mother. Her first target is her form teacher Muraoka Masako whom she eggs on to land a date with her father. And so, Masako shows up in front of Kantaro one day. Although Kantaro is bewildered, he is gradually attracted to Masako who is in the same situation as he is. Her husband passed away and she lives with their young son. Then one day, he learns that it was his daughter who instigated Masako … … The next person who catches Etsuko’s attention is a salesgirl Ikebe Kyoko whom she met at a department store. She is drawn to Kyoko’s simplicity and gradually begins to love her as if she were her own mother. However, at that moment, Kantaro’s elder sister Tsuruyo pursues the subject of an arranged introduction with Kusakabe Kaoru, the incredibly beautiful daughter of a bank owner who is a shareholder of her husband’s company … …

Characters
Santamaria Yusuke as Yanagi Kantaro
A struggling lyricist before the war. He goes in and out of a recording company that has just been established at that time but life is hard because he has no exclusive contract. His wife Akiko died of illness three years ago and he now lives in poverty with their 10-year-old daughter Etsuko, and female servant Ume.

Hirao Nanaka as Yanagi Etsuko
Yanagi Kantaro’s only daughter with his late wife. A lively and active child. After her mother’s death, she plots to get her father remarried after seeing the miserable state he is in and shedding silent tears.

Kadowaki Mugi as Ikebe Kyoko
A salesgirl at Ginza Omatsu Department Store. She lives in a tenement house in Koishikawa with her father Kyuzo and his second wife Fujiko. Like many girls of that time, she believed that her marriage was for her father to decide.

Ishida Nicole as Kusakabe Kaoru
Yanagi Kantaro’s first prospective marriage partner. 一念発起した碌太郎の最初の見合い相手にして. The daughter of the family which controls the Kusakabe conglomerate. His heart is captivated after he sees a photo of her.

Minemura Rie as Obayashi Tsuruyo
Yanagi Kantaro’s older sister. She wants to get her brother and Kusakabe Kaoru married somehow or other so that they can have connections to Kusakabe Bank.

Aijima Kazuyuki as Obayashi Shingo
Obayashi Tsuruyo’s husband. Yanagi Kantaro’s brother-in-law. He values the relationship with Kusakabe Bank which is Toho Trading’s largest shareholder.

Horiuchi Keiko as Ikebe Fujiko
Ikebe Kyuzo’s second wife and Kyoko’s step mother. She has a decent relationship with Kyoko.

Nishimura Masahiko as Ikebe Kyuzo
Ikebe Kyoko’s father and a cabinet maker in Koishikawa. He is obstinate and old-fashioned, and firmly believes that a father arranges his daughter’s marriage.

Murakawa Eri as Muraoka Masako
Yanagi Etsuko’s elementary school form teacher and the first person whom Yanagi Kantaro is conscious of as a partner to remarry. She ends up on a date with Kantaro because of Etsuko’s trick. Like Kantaro, her husband died of illness and she has a young son.

Scriptwriter
Sakurai Tsuyoshi (Bakumatsu Gurume Bushimeshi, Omotesando Koukou Gasshoubu!)

Original Work
Ecchan by Shishi Bunroku

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