NHK Morning Drama “Soar!” and Reason Why Poet Machi Tawara Enthusiastically Support Eiji Akachu’s Tanka Poems

Haruka Fukuhara plays the heroine in the morning drama “Soar!” (NHK). In the 17th week “Toward a Big Dream”, Mai and her childhood friend Takashi (Eiji Akachu) suddenly get closer. Mai’s attitude toward him on the live TV show “Asa Ichi,” which was broadcast live on NHK’s “Morning Drama” program, drew some criticism from Hanamaru Hakata, who commented, “You’re making me think I’m in love with you,” and “You’re making me fall in love with you.”

Kiji, who lives next door to Mai, is the only son of the okonomiyaki restaurant “Umezu.” He is a young man of literature by nature, but he is unable to fit in with the “normal” world, so he quits his job and travels around, working in different places and searching for his own place in the world. His hope for life is a tanka poem, a magic wand of “5757” that has been handed down for 1,300 years.

After quitting his job, Takashi visits the Osezaki Lighthouse on the Goto Islands in Nagasaki Prefecture, relying on a postcard that Mai gave him a long time ago. The tanka poem he composed while spending the night there, “Hoshi tachi no hikari wo kumite mitekita kono michi no iru boku wa” (The stars are gathering their light, I see this road, tomorrow I will go this way),” was written by poet Machi Tawara, known for “Salad Anniversary,” who wrote on Twitter, “I like the inversion of the concluding phrase. When it ends with “I am,” I can feel the infinite future in it.

Tawara’s first tanka poem appeared in “Soar!” Tawara was quick to comment when the tanka poem appeared for the first time in “Soar!

It was a morning when the importance of putting things into words really struck a chord. Takashi, let’s write tanka poems!

Since then, every time Takashi composes a new tanka, I have sent him a comment.

He sent a tanka poem, “I asked a thousand billion stars to illuminate the new road you are taking,” to Mai, who is struggling to rebuild her family’s factory, and said, “The distance between the verb ‘I asked…’ and ‘I asked…’ is exquisite. The distance of the verb “asked you to do…” is exquisite. It is so light that you are not really doing anything, but it conveys that you are concerned about him.

When Takashi’s tanka poem was selected as the newspaper’s “New Poet of the Month,” he exclaimed with joy as if it were his own, “Takashi, that’s great! He tweeted, “They are all very good poems which one touched your heart the most? (A wide show insider).”

In “Soar!” The person who composes Takashi’s tanka poems in the “Mai-Age! She is also a poet who was selected as one of the 10 poets selected for the “Kaikai Hajime no Gigi” in 2011.

When she was about to give up her dream of becoming a lawyer, she encountered poetry and children’s stories, which eventually led her to compose tanka poems. He quit his job at a company because he could not get used to the “normal” way of life, and embarked on a wandering journey.

In 2008, Mr. Kuwabara attracted a great deal of attention when he wrote the script for “Healing Heartache” (NHK), an original fiction drama based on his experience of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, which he himself suffered from. In the final episode of the drama, the main character, psychiatrist Yasunaga Takashi (Tasuku Emoto), who faces the cries of the victims, says, “I know what mental care is. No one should be left alone.” This line struck a chord with many viewers.

Mr. Kuwabara is a great writer when it comes to writing dramas that bring a ray of hope to people facing adversity. It is no exaggeration to say that Takashi’s tanka poems are a guidepost for this work.

Tanka poems are about what is reflected in our hearts, even though we cannot see it with our eyes. Tawara Machi, who gives encouragement to Kiji’s poem in this film, is one of the tanka poets who are facing the headwinds.

After “Salad Anniversary” came out, Tawara continued as a poet after his teacher, Yukitsuna Sasaki, encouraged him, saying, “You are a person who can listen to the music of the heart, so you will be fine no matter what happens. However, Tawara’s image as an honors student was overturned when, at the age of 40, she became a controversial single mother, not even disclosing her father’s name.

She also took her child to Okinawa amidst the chaos of information after the Great East Japan Earthquake. At that time, she wrote a poem entitled “If you want to say that I am a foolish mother who runs away to the west with her child, say it” and was inundated with criticism on Twitter. I have faced headwinds many times. That may be why he has special feelings for this work.

On the January 20 broadcast, Takashi won the Nagayama Tanka Award, known as the Akutagawa Prize in the tanka world. The future of the poet Takashi Umezu, as well as his relationship with Mai, is becoming more and more interesting.