“Master of Morning Drama” and Screenwriter of Currently Airing “At Least on Sunday Evening…” Okada Keiwa Revealed His Role Model

The drama “Sunday Night About…” (TV Asahi), which was newly added to the Sunday 10pm time slot this season, has been gaining attention with each episode.

The drama follows Sachi Kishida (Nana Seino), who lives with her wheelchair-bound mother in a desolate apartment complex and works at a family restaurant in the suburbs; Shoko Noda (Yukino Kishii), a cab driver who has been cut off from her family; and Wakaba Higuchi (Airu Ikumi), who lives with her grandmother in a rented house in the country and works at a chikuwabu factory.

It is an original story by screenwriter Keiwa Okada. The tagline, “Love is not a miracle, friendship is the miracle,” has become more and more poignant with each broadcast, making this one of the most popular and moving works of the season.

Speaking of female friendship dramas, “Brush Up Your Life,” which aired in the January season and depicted the friendship of four women, Sakura Ando, Kaho, Haruka Kiminami, and Asami Mizukawa, attracted a lot of attention, as did the script by Bakarhythm. However, it is no exaggeration to say that when it comes to friendship scripts, there is no one better than Okada Keiwa, who wrote the script for this film,” said a producer from a production company.

Okada Keiwa is known as a master of morning dramas, having written “Churasan,” “Ohisama,” and “Hiyoko,” three morning dramas, but he also wrote the script for “Beach Boys” (Fuji TV), a Geki 9 drama series broadcast in 1997, Takashi Sorimachi and Yutaka Takenouchi starred in this drama. The drama depicted a friendship between two men who spend a summer at Diamond Head, a guest house on the beach, and recorded an average viewer rating of 23.7% for all episodes.

The following year, the Friday drama “Rendez-Vous” (TBS) portrayed the friendship between women and ordinary housewife (Misako Tanaka) and a female pornographer (Kaori Momoi) who have forgotten about love received high acclaim.

In 1999, she wrote the award-winning drama “Koreitachi no Jidai” (Fuji TV), which depicted the friendship and love of three 26-year-old women (Eri Fukatsu, Miki Mizuno, and Shinobu Nakayama) who met by chance.

Truly, Okada is a master of the friendship genre, having spun a number of masterpieces at a time when friendship was not often depicted. This film by Okada reminds fans of the drama “Making Memories” (TBS), a masterpiece with a script by Taichi Yamada.

 

The “Memories in the Making” aired in 1981 was a drama about a man in the prime of his life (24 years old). aired in 1981, depicts a story of “friendship among women” in which three women (Masako Mori, Yuko Tanaka, and Yuko Kotegawa) who have reached the marriageable age (24) search for their own way of life under the pressure of marriage. It is said to be the pioneer of the ensemble drama with multiple protagonists and the prototype for the later popular drama series “Furozore no Ringo-tachi” (TBS).

Incidentally, Mr. Okada describes “Memories in the Making” as like a bible. I learned everything from this drama. After all, “At Least on Sunday Nights…” is probably strongly influenced by “Making Memories”, said the producer.

However, that is not the only link between screenwriter Okada Keiwa and scriptwriter Yamada Taichi.

In fact, Taichi Yamada’s eldest daughter, Rieko Miyamoto (maiden name Ishizaka), is a Fuji Television director who has worked on a number of hits, including “101 Times Proposal” and “Bare Faces” which is about friendship between women (Narumi Yasuda and Akina Nakamori). Miyamoto participated in Okada’s dramas “Beach Boys” and “The Age of Women” as a director.

Miyamoto confides, “When I was a child, we had only one TV set in the house and could not record anything, so it was my habit to sit beside my father and watch his works without talking to him. director)

Okada Keiwa, who respects Yamada Taichi, and Miyamoto Rieko, who inherits Yamada Taichi’s DNA. The two have teamed up again for the dramas “The Second Love from the End” (2012) and “The Second Love from the End” (2014).

The drama is a romantic comedy about a 45-year-old single woman (Kyoko Koizumi) and a 50-year-old single man (Kiichi Nakai) in the ancient city of Kamakura. As they confront their respective problems in a home-drama-like world, the relationship and bonds between the two main characters The development of the relationship and bond between the two leads as they confront their own problems is reminiscent of Yamada’s works of the past. The fact that Miyamoto received the Art Encouragement Prize for New Talent, which his father received for this film, also makes me feel a connection with Miyamoto.

Okada Keiwa has looked up to Yamada Taichi, who has created numerous masterpieces. Perhaps “At Least on Sunday Evening…” is a precious work that allows us to enjoy this homage to Yamada Taichi.