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Official Website
www.nhk.or.jp/drama/castella
Broadcast
Sundays, 10.00 – 10.48 p.m. from 7 July 2013
Station
NHK BS Premium
Story
It is 1963 in Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture. Sano Masashi is a fifth grade elementary school student. The Sanos are a family of five. There is father Masato, a timber merchant, mother Kiyoko, Masashi, younger brother Shigemasa and sister Reiko as well as grandmother En. The family lives in a big house in a prime district of the city. Masato announces that he will throw a party for the first time for Masashi’s birthday this year. Masashi is ecstatic while Masato and Kiyoko think it is the last birthday party they can have in this house … … Their fortunes have suddenly changed because of the floods. The kindhearted Masato is shouldering an overdraft and the Sano family is in dire financial straits. Masashi is delighted by the grand birthday party that his friends have been invited to, but gets angry with his grandmother’s usual present of rice balls. That night, he is informed by his father that the family is moving house. The Sanos move from their luxurious mansion to a tenement house. Masashi’s life also undergoes significant changes and he worries that he may no longer be able go for his favourite violin classes. However, his father Masato, mother Kiyoko and grandmother En stay surprisingly positive despite this fall into poverty. Masashi learns from the hardiness of the adults and struggles on in the pursuit of music while surrounded by the love of his family.
Characters
Endo Kenichi as Sano Masato
The Sano family’s breadwinner. Born in Vladivostok in 1920. His father died when he was a child, and he lived with his mother. They settled in Manchuria when he was in junior high school. In Manchuria, he was drafted into the army and sent to the Chinese front. However, he dodged fierce fighting and the end of the war found him in inland China. He headed off for the hometown of his mother whom he had lost contact with and was repatriated to Nagasaki. He was reunited with his mother at Mogi Port in Nagasaki. After that, he worked like a workhorse at a timber dealer and eventually set up his own business. He made his fortune as a timber merchant. Because he came from the army, he is able to transport anything that travels on land. Although he is arrogant and quick-tempered, he is compassionate and is undaunted even if he is made to shoulder someone else’s debt.
Nishida Naomi as Sano (Okazaki) Kiyoko
Sano Masato’s wife. The granddaughter of the manager of dock operations in Nagasaki, but this was on the decline during her father’s generation. She was caught in the maelstrom of war in her youth and thought that it would not end even to the day she dies, but she graduated from a girls’ school and immigrated to China where relatives lived. She came in touch with Western culture in the cosmopolitan city of Hankou at an impressionable time of her life. She was in Hankou at the end of the war and was repatriated to Nagasaki. This is where she met Masato who was working hard and had completely nothing to do with Western culture. Although cover up the blunders made by the reckless Masato, she loves the Sano family wholeheartedly and is a strict but loving mother.
Oyagi Kaito as Sano Masashi
The eldest son of the Sanos. He started to learn the violin at the age of 3 in accordance with the wishes of his mother. The favourite of his parents and grandmother, he was raised with great care. He does not express his feelings very much and has delicate sensibilities.
Sakaguchi Waku as Sano Shigemasa
The second son of the Sanos. He is more active than his older brother and the liveliest of the siblings. He takes after his father in his go-getting nature.
Arai Miu as Sano Reiko
The eldest daughter of the Sanos. She is the youngest child and a toddler but there are times when she is more steadfast than anyone in the Sano family. She takes after her mother in her unusually sensitive nature.
Sasaki Sumie as Sano En
During her earlier years, she journeyed into the Siberian interior with her husband as a peddler of medicine. They struck gold and made a vast fortune. After her husband’s death, she set up a Japanese restaurant in Vladivostok and became a well-known proprietress. She lived overseas for 50 years. Her son Masato was drafted for war. With the end of the war and the pullout from Manchuria, she headed for her hometown of Amakusa. On her way there, she was miraculously reunited with Masato in Nagasaki. The stories of her adventures in Siberia took the place of lullabies for Masato during his childhood.
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Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
