NHK’s morning serial began “Hanako and Anne” from the March 31 broadcast. Average ratings for the first week (March 31–April 5) were 21.6 percent (Kanto, Video Research). That beat the first week of the high-rated previous series “Gochisosan” (21.1 percent). From “Amachan” onward, the NHK morning drama remains a ratings earner.
The drama follows the turbulent life, through Meiji, Taisho and Showa, of Hanako Muraoka (born Hana Annaka), translator of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series. The source is “Anne’s Cradle” by her granddaughter Eri Muraoka. Born to a poor family in Yamanashi, Hanako studied English at a girls’ school in Tokyo, taught in her hometown and became a translator. From this week Yuriko Yoshitaka plays the heroine from her teens to her 50s; the child actress in weeks 1 and 2 was Mochika Yamada, born August 2004 and still nine, and very good. Though left-handed herself, she played right-handed because Hanako was right-handed.
In 1919 (Taisho 8), at 26, Hanako left her English-teaching post at home, returned to Tokyo and, at what became Kyobunkan, translated and edited books for women and children. That year she met Keizo Muraoka, head of Fukuin Printing, fell intensely in love and, it is said, exchanged about 70 love letters in six months. In autumn they married at Tsukiji Church and set up house in Omori. Almost all of Hanako’s afterwords are signed “at Omori” — this place. The Omori house has been rebuilt, but it now includes the Anne of Green Gables Memorial and Hanako Muraoka Library (photo above). It is near Ota Bunka no Mori (the old Ota Ward Office),
so I went the other day. The study, books and other exhibits of the “memorial” are on loan to shows around the country and the hall is closed this year, but an NHK drama poster was up at a restaurant at the entrance to the residential street (photo below). Nearby is also Omori Megumi Church of the United Church of Christ in Japan, which Hanako attended.
Hanako Muraoka’s chronology notes “1955: interpreter on Helen Keller’s visit to Japan.” The Japan Helen Keller Foundation and the Tokyo Helen Keller Association are friendly bodies with ties to The Mainichi Newspapers at Palaceside Building. The foundation’s website says it was “established to commemorate Helen Keller’s visit to Japan in August 1948 (invited by The Mainichi Newspapers).” The 1955 visit Hanako interpreted was Keller’s third. Whether NHK’s “Hanako and Anne” will show this episode is something to look forward to.