<h3><span class="strongInContent">The first time in the history of &#8230;&#8230;75 that the two heroines of the pre- and post-&#8220;Morning Drama&#8221; seasons have been together.</span></h3>
<p> The season of the Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red and White Singing Contest), a tradition at New Year&#8217;s Eve, has come again this year, the 75th anniversary of the event, and all eyes are on the hostesses.</p>
<p> For the third year in a row, Kanna Hashimoto is the heroine of the ongoing morning drama &#8220;Omusubi. She is playing the role of Yoneda Yui, who struggles every day with a gal mindset, and this year she will be joined by another female hostess, Sairi Ito from the previous season&#8217;s morning drama &#8220;Tora ni Tsubasa. She plays Torako Sada, a lawyer living in the legal profession in the early Showa period when women&#8217;s rights were not yet recognized.</p>
<p> The theme song of each, &#8220;Sayonara Again Someday!&#8221; from &#8220;Tora ni Tsubasa! of &#8220;Tora ni Tsubasa&#8221; and B&#8217;z of &#8220;Omusubi&#8221; and &#8220;Illumination&#8221; were also selected to participate in the special program slot, bringing the show to life at once.</p>
<p> This is the first time in its 75-year history that two heroines from the first and second seasons have hosted &#8220;Kohaku,&#8221; and although the image of &#8220;morning drama = Kohaku host&#8221; had been attached to the drama for several years until about five years ago, until the last season of the Heisei era, it was never the case that an actor was selected as the host of &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; simply because he or she appeared in a morning drama. Until then, it was not the case.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<figure id="attachment_406664" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-406664" style="width: 3300px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="43505dbe"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/12/4f2f6b7890eb9aea6247be9033ee1189.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-406664" class="wp-caption-text"> Kanna Hashimoto (left) and Sairi Ito (right). This is the first time in the 75-year history of the show that two heroines from the first and second seasons have been chosen to host the &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; show together.</figcaption></figure>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> Michiko Hayashi, the first morning drama actress to be selected as the host of the Kohaku program.</span></h3>
<p> The first &#8220;morning drama&#8221; actress to host the Kohaku program was Michiko Hayashi in the 16th episode in 1965. Uzushio,&#8221; based on the novel by Fumiko Hayashi, whose works include &#8220;Nomadoki,&#8221; was the fourth morning drama to appear on April 6, 1964.</p>
<p> At that time, morning dramas were broadcast throughout the year, rather than being produced by the Tokyo Broadcasting Bureau and Osaka Bureau for the first half of the year (April to September) and the second half of the year (October to March) in rotation, as is the case today. It was not until 1975 that the first and second seasons were produced in rotation.</p>
<p> Until then, most of the dramas were produced by the Tokyo Bureau, but &#8220;Uzushio&#8221; was the first drama produced by the Osaka Bureau.</p>
<p> In fact, this was the same year that the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo. The festival of the century was coming for the first time 19 years after the war. It was also the arrival of a great opportunity for Japan to finally revive itself as one of the world&#8217;s great powers. While no one had any idea what to expect from the broadcast of the first Olympics, there was a feeling that the Osaka Bureau would be left to its own devices for this year. It was a new opportunity for the Osaka station as well.</p>
<p> For the past three episodes, the station had chosen a popular actress as the heroine, but from this year, it chose an unknown newcomer as the heroine. The first episode received a 23.2% rating, but the highest rating for the entire year was 47.8%, and Michiko Hayashi quickly became a nationally known actress. Hayashi&#8217;s success led to the saying that &#8220;morning dramas are the gateway to becoming a great actress.</p>
<p> Hayashi served as a judge for the 1964 Kohaku (red and white) TV drama, which was being broadcast during the same year, and when the drama ended in 1965, she was chosen as the host of Kohaku due to her popularity and the fact that she was a new face that NHK had fostered.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> I once asked Hayashi directly about this.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Well, I had never hosted anything before, but I thought, &#8220;I can handle it! I thought, &#8220;I can handle it! I was young. When the show started, my mind went blank, and even if I tried to speak properly, I would stop. Then I would get even more impatient&#8230;I was terrified for those three hours.</span></p>
<p> Indeed, until then, the hostesses of the Red Group had been accomplished performers such as Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Meiko Nakamura, and Mitsuko Mori. In the two years before Hayashi, the first attempt was made to have a singer in the red group also serve as the MC, which had never been done before. At this stage, she was a veteran singer with more than 10 years of experience. Even Eri was so worn out from hosting the event that she said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve had enough of it. &#8230;&#8230;</p>
<p> In addition to the pressure of live broadcasts, the host must be flexible and adaptable on the spot.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> It&#8217;s very unique,&#8221; he said. The singers are, of course, very serious about the song they are performing,&#8221; he said. I was caught up in the unique atmosphere. I was thinking, &#8220;This is not how it was supposed to be&#8230; &#8230;&#8230;,&#8221; and the time passed so quickly. But it&#8217;s a good memory.</span></p>
<figure id="attachment_406665" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-406665" style="width: 634px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="f18ff157"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/12/3f18922c623f0c1ede150d45fb8c438b.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-406665" class="wp-caption-text"> Michiko Hayashi told Goda, &#8220;Those three hours were terrifying. The photo was taken in 1966, the year after she hosted Kohaku.</figcaption></figure>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The first morning drama actress to be chosen to host the show in 22 years. ......"></div>
<div class="expapp-yahoo-paragraph-break"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">It was the first time in 22 years that a morning drama actress, Yuki Saito, was chosen to host the event. &#8230;&#8230;</span></h3>
<p> Because of this, from the following year, there was a period when actresses stopped hosting the festival and a host was chosen from among the singers in the red group. Still, there were those who grew up to be star actresses in the &#8220;morning dramas&#8221; and were reported in magazines and newspapers prior to the announcement as &#8220;leading hosts of the red group.</p>
<p> One such actress was Shinobu Otake, the heroine of &#8220;The Time of Light Blue&#8221; in the first half of 1975, ten years after Hayashi. In addition, Yoko Asaya, who appeared in &#8220;Carpet of Clouds&#8221; in the first half of the following year, 1951 (1976), was said to have been almost unofficially chosen for the role, but both were not cast. Naomi Sara, one of the stable members of the Kohgumi, took the role.</p>
<p> In 1980 (55), Tomoko Hoshino of &#8220;Nacchan&#8217;s Photo Studio&#8221; was marked and was first chosen to host the popular program &#8220;Memories of Melody,&#8221; which was known as the &#8220;Kohaku of Summer,&#8221; but in the end, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi became the host after 22 years. Furthermore, in 1960 (85), Yasuko Sawaguchi of &#8220;Mio Tsukushi&#8221; competed with Masako Mori until the very end, but Masako became the first host of the program when the topic of Masako&#8217;s retirement from marriage the following year was all over the news. The following year, she retired as rumored.</p>
<p> The following year, she finally became the first host since Michiko Hayashi. At last, for the first time since Michiko Hayashi, the heroine of the &#8220;morning drama&#8221; was nominated to host the &#8220;Kohaku&#8221;.</p>
<p> This was Yuki Saito, 20, who starred in &#8220;Hane-Koma&#8221; (1986). It was her first appearance as a singer, but she did not know enough to overcome the &#8220;unique atmosphere,&#8221; nor had she had much experience.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> The third time she was chosen to host a morning drama was in 1992, when she was 20 years old and starred in &#8220;Hirareki&#8221;. The finalists were Rie Miyazawa, who was engaged to Takanada (but later broke it off), Hikaru Nishida, Hiroko Moriguchi, Fuyumi Sakamoto, and Kyoko Koizumi, but the image of the Kohaku program as a male-female rivalry has weakened since the Heisei era, and she has become the host, along with veteran white team host Masaaki Sakai and general host Shizuo Yamakawa, the announcer. He hosted the show with energy and vigor. He continued to host the following year.</p>
<p> After that, Emiko Uenuma and Akiko Wada, veteran NHK announcers Junko Kubo and Yumiko Arido, and Yukie Nakama, who also appeared in the historical drama &#8220;Koumei ga Tsuji,&#8221; led the red team for several years.</p>
<figure id="attachment_406667" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-406667" style="width: 759px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="c40ff1d4"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/12/466a8769d5967a2cb03dc5c0df678219.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-406667" class="wp-caption-text"> Recently, Yuki Saito has entered a kind of &#8220;invincible mode&#8221; and is the talk of the TV world. (Photo taken on November 26, 1986, at the press conference to announce the host of the 37th show.)</figcaption></figure>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> Nao Matsushita, Mao Inoue, Maki Horikita&#8230; The image of &#8220;morning drama = host of the red group&#8221; started in 2010.</span></h3>
<p> It had been a long time since a &#8220;morning drama&#8221; had been broadcast in such a context. In 2010, it was Matsushita Nao in &#8220;Gegege no Nyobo&#8221; (Gegege&#8217;s Wife). In fact, from this point on, most of the heroines of the &#8220;morning drama&#8221; series were cast during the Heisei period, and before long, the image of &#8220;morning drama&#8221; as &#8220;host of the red team&#8221; was created.</p>
<p> In 2011, the year after Matsushita, Mao Inoue starred in &#8220;Ohisama&#8221;, followed by Maki Horikita in &#8220;Umechan Sensei&#8221; in 2012. After Haruka Ayase in the historical drama &#8220;Yae no Sakura,&#8221; Yuriko Yoshitaka in the morning drama &#8220;Hanako to Anne&#8221; in 2014 and Kasumi Arimura in the next drama &#8220;Hiyoko&#8221; in 2016 were well received and became nationally known actresses after the following year&#8217;s dramas. The following year, she became a popular actress and hosted the Kohgumi for the second year in a row. The following year, in the 30th year of the Heisei Era (2006), Suzu Hirose was chosen to appear in &#8220;Natsuzora,&#8221; which will be broadcast from the spring of 2007.</p>
<p> In the beginning, it was a case of &#8220;starring in a morning drama and becoming a star,&#8221; but now it is a popular trend!　But now that popular actors are the heroines of these dramas, the style has changed to one in which the host of the drama is the host from the year before the broadcast, and then the drama is aired in the morning.</p>
<p> Last year, Shuri from &#8220;Boogie Woogie&#8221; was said to be a strong candidate, but this is the first time since 2008, when Suzu Hirose took the role, that a heroine from a morning drama has hosted the event. In fact, this is the first time since Reiwa. The fact that the popular heroines from the latter half of the previous season will appear together means that they are well-known not only to young viewers but also to middle-aged and older viewers.</p>
<p> It will be interesting to see how bright and bouncy &#8220;Torako&#8221; Sairi Ito will be in her third year of leading a nationally popular singing show, and to what extent she will bring excitement to the festivities.</p>


 In 1979, while still in high school, she made her debut as a singer-songwriter with Watanabe Productions. Since then, in addition to composing and directing music programs, hosting TV shows, and supervising and commentating on CDs, she has also written for newspapers and magazines, composed poetry, and served as a radio DJ, demonstrating her versatility in a variety of fields. His books include "The Mystery of Doyo", "The Mystery of the Shrine", "The Mystery of Showa Songs" (Shodensha), "The Truth of the Monster Program Kohaku Uta Gassen" (Gentosha), "The Mystery of the Doyo that Sang the Seasons" (Kasama Shoin), and "Uta wa yoroshite♪ Ryuukutta de Fukeru Showa 100-nen" (Kasama Shoin), which is scheduled for release in January. In December, he won the Special Jury Prize at the Japan Poetry Grand Prize for "Koshi no Miyako" (Koshi no Miyako), a song he wrote for Hiroki Itsuki.

 Michito Goda

 Kazuhiko Nakamura (1st), Kyodo News (2nd, 3rd)

 This is the first time in its 75-year history that the two heroines from the first and second seasons have hosted the Kohaku Uta Gassen. When did the image of "morning drama = Kohaku host" first appear?　Which "morning drama actress" was selected for the first time and why?

 Michito Goda, "Kohaku Doctor," writer and president of the Singers' Association of Japan, talks about the behind-the-scenes story of the Kohaku Uta Gassen.

This year it was just the two of us!　Hosts from the Morning Drama

Access Ranking

This year it was just the two of us! Hosts from the Morning Drama

Access Ranking

This year it was just the two of us!　Hosts from the Morning Drama