Aki Amano, a high-school girl from Tokyo moves to the Sanriku Coast in the Tohoku region to become a female diver. She becomes a local idol, then returns to Tokyo to try to become a real idol, and finally returns to Tohoku to help revitalize the area after the Great East Japan earthquake.
NHK's 102nd morning drama depicts the life of a famous composer. Koyama Yuichi with his wife Oto. They meet each other through music and overcome hardships together. Yuichi composes songs that became "Yells" for people all over Japan in the Showa Era (1926-1989) in which radical changes were going on.
Amachan is the 88th 2013 NHK asadora written by Kankuro Kudo (Tiger and Dragon, Unobore Deka). It's about Amano Aki (Nounen Rena), a 16 year old girl from Tokyo who goes to her mother's former home in Sodegahama, a fishing village in Kitasanriku, Iwate prefecture for the summer break. She falls in love with the sea and its people, and decides to stay on to become an Ama (women divers who fetch clams and sea urchins for tourists) just like her grandmother, Natsu (Miyamoto Nobuko). Her decision is welcomed wholeheartedly by Natsu and the other locals. However, her mother Haruko (Koizumi Kyoko) does not like the idea at first. She has a strained relationship with Natsu, and her extreme dislike of the sea, diving and the countryside is one of the reasons why she left her hometown 24 years ago. Eventually, she decides to stay in Sodegahama with Aki, considering that she is contemplating on getting a divorce anyway and does not want to go back to her husband in Tokyo. She also notices that it might be good for Aki for she seems livelier and happier in Kitasanriku than in Tokyo. The road towards becoming a full-fledged Ama-san is tough for Aki as she encounters tests and hurdles. One day, a video of her as an Ama gets uploaded in the city's tourism website, transforming an ordinary high school girl into an overnight Internet sensation. Suddenly she is called upon to use this opportunity to attract tourists to a city suffering from depopulation.
In the end of Meiji era, Takei Chiyo was born in a poor family in Osaka, and was sent to a theatre tea room as a servant when she was 9 years old. There, she was attracted by the world of theatre comedy. She grows up to be an actor and marries to Amami Ippei , but the war broke out and she was forced to stay away from acting for a while. However, when she comes back again, her acting in a radio drama impresses many people and makes herself one of the leading actors in western Japan.
The twin girls Tajima Megumi and Ichijo Nozomi was separated at birth after their parents had divorced. Years later they meet each other. Both of them have a career within the entertainment industry. Megumi who lives in Matsue, Shimane sings in the band Shijimijiru, and Nozomi is a maiko, an apprentice geisha in Kyoto.
Suzume is a girl born to a family running a small restaurant in Gifu Prefecture. She loses her hearing in one ear from a disease. Encouraged by her loving parents and childhood friend, she lives through an eventful life with a tenacious spirit.
Uno Meiko is the daughter of parents who run a western style restaurant in Tokyo. She marries and moves to Osaka with her husband. Meiko experiences cultural differences between Tokyo and Osaka, as she lives as a mother and wife in Osaka.
Massan is based on the lives of Masataka Taketsuru and his wife Jessie Roberta "Rita" Cowan, a Scotswoman Taketsuru met while studying abroad.
Natsumi is the 23 years old daughter of a master baker in Yokohama and in training with her father to become a pastry chef. She lives with her parents and younger brother in Yokohama. One day she travels to Iwate Prefecture with her boyfriend Masaki for his grandmother Katsuno's 77th birthday. While they are there, Katsuno, head okami of a famous ryokan in Morioka City, becomes ill and asks Masaki to return to run the ryokan. Natsumi returns to Yokohama and later Masaki visits, asking her to disregard their earlier plans to get married because he will return to Morioka as requested by Katsuno. However, Natsumi surprises him with a vow to become the ryokan's okami. Is Natsumi in for clear skies as suggested by the series name?
Oshin is a Japanese serialized morning television drama, which aired on broadcaster NHK from April 4, 1983 to March 31, 1984. The series follows the life of Shin Tanokura during the Meiji period up to the early 1980s. Shin was called "Oshin", which is an archaic Japanese cognomen.
Okuhara Natsu was born in Tokyo in 1937. In 1945, she loses both parents to war and becomes an orphan, but her father’s comrade, Shibata Takeo, takes her in and moves to Tokachi in Hokkaido. In an unfamiliar land surrounded by unfamiliar people, Natsu feels lost at first, but surrounded by Tokachi’s vast nature and its strong, yet compassionate people, she grows up to be a strong girl. When Natsu enters elementary school, she meets Yamada Tenyo who draws lovely pictures of horses. Tenyo tells her that in America, animation in which pictures move is becoming popular, Natsu’s curiosity is piqued. Upon graduating high school, Natsu goes to Tokyo to look up her brother, and takes a jump into the world of animation.
A young woman Chiaki whose family runs an old miso company in Nagano Prefecture, the only daughter of old traditional family. For generations, they were making soybean paste for living. Now she needs to take over this business and rebuild it. She lives through the hardships of postwar Japan.
The 97th NHK asadora is about Ten who becomes the first female comedian.
Born in 1937 in Osaka as the eldest daughter, Kawahara Kimiko moves to Shigaraki with her family at the age of 9. She works to support her family from a young age. Eventually, she jumps into the male world of pottery and becomes a pioneer of female ceramic arts. After marrying her husband who is also involved in ceramics and owning her own kiln, she raises her two children while struggling to create unique ware.
Born in September of 1995, Momone Nagaura lived with her parents, grandfather, and sister in Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture. After failing her college entrance exams, she went to live in Tome City with an acquaintance of her grandfather's. Momone's life changes when she meets a popular weather forecaster from Tokyo, who teaches her how weather forecasts can predict the future. She decides to study to become a weather forecaster.
A story of a man and a woman who meet amid the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945.
The 12th NHK Asadora. Set in Amakusa, Kumamoto Prefecture, at the end of the Pacific War. Maki is the heroine, married to Shuichi who must go to war. She stays home and takes on the role of other war widows, managing business and a Chinese restaurant.
Rin Tachibana, nicknamed Hanekonma, grew up in Soma, Fukushima. Together with her parents, her sister and brother, and her grandparents, the story revolves around the Tachibana family and Rin's life throughout many years.
In the early Showa era, the town of Choshi in Chiba Prefecture was divided by the conflicts between the worlds of "land" and "sea". Born to Kyubei Bando, the owner of a long-established soy sauce brewery, and his mistress Rui, Kaworu was taken in by her father and raised as a prim and proper lady. As she grew up, she fell in love with Sokichi, the eldest son of an established fisherman; alas, their two families were in conflict. This is a story of pure love between two people that grew beyond the boundaries of the old customs that they were brought up with. It is a drama that depicts their turbulent journey of love and the bonds of the people from an old and established family working tirelessly to protect their naturally brewed soy sauce business through the ups and downs.
