| Umechan Sensei | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Drama |
| Written by | Masaya Ozaki |
| Directed by | Takafumi Kimura |
| Starring | Maki Horikita Mimura Keisuke Koide Tori Matsuzaka Shingo Tsurumi Kaho Minami Tsurutarō Kataoka Katsumi Takahashi Mitsuko Baisho |
| Narrated by | Shozo Hayashiya |
| Opening theme | "Sakasama no Sora" by SMAP |
| Country of origin | Japan |
| Original language | Japanese |
| No. of episodes | 156 |
| Production | |
| Producer | Kanako Iwatani |
| Running time | 15 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | NHK |
| Release | April 2 – September 29, 2012 |
Umechan Sensei (梅ちゃん先生) is a Japanese television drama series. It debuted on April 2, 2012. [1] It is about a girl named Umeko Shimomura who, despite being overshadowed by her talented older brother and sister, and despite being thought of as a clumsy child, decides to follow in her father's footsteps and become a doctor. [2] It is the 86th NHK Asadora.
Umeko is the third child of Kenzō Shimomura, a stern and strict doctor at a university hospital, who lives in the Kamata area of Tokyo. Her older siblings are far more talented than her: Takeo is studying to be a doctor and Matsuko, a well-known beauty, is engaged to one of Kenzō's students. At school, Umeko seems to fumble any task given to her, a problem that is made worse by the fact that this is 1945 and the war is in progress. When the war ends and she helps Kenzō save an orphaned boy who got sick, Umeko decides to become a doctor. Almost no one believes she can succeed, but when Takeo suddenly decides to quit his studies and go into business with Yōzō, Kenzo's brother, and when Matsuko finds out her fiance had been killed at the front, Umeko becomes the last chance for a family member to follow in Kenzō's footsteps.
With the help of Nobuo, her next-door neighbor whose father runs a small screw manufacturing shop, she studies furiously and just manages to enter a women's medical school. There she suffers from her lack of talent, but her bright personality and ability to help others make her a respected member of the community. At school she meets Toshio Matsuoka, a talented medical student who admires her father but who is so devoted to research he does not know the first thing about dating women. Upon graduating, she becomes an intern at Kenzō's hospital and starts dating Toshio. While working there she encounters Dr. Sakata, who operates a run-down clinic in the same building as Takeo's business office. She begins to respect his selfless dedication to helping those in the neighborhood and decides to leave the hospital to start her own clinic in Kamata, especially after Sakata dies in an accident. Her ideas about medical practice cause Toshio to accept an offer to do research in America and break up with Umeko. Meanwhile, Matsuko has married Masakazu Katō, a somewhat shy but hardworking salesman who knew her fiance. Takeo has become friendly with Shizuko, Sakata's former nurse. Just when both Umeko's and Nobuo's families begin trying to find arranged marriages for them, the two decide that the only people they really love are each other and decide to get married.
After Umeko and Nobuo marry, it takes them a while to figure out how to balance work and family obligations, especially after Umeko gives birth to their first son. When Nobuo's factory takes in Mitsuo, a young man from northern Japan, as a live-in worker, the young couple have to move back to Umeko's house for lack of space. Takeo's business continues to grow, but when a risky trade fails, it goes bankrupt. Takeo declares he is leaving Shizuko to start out again on his own. After seeing the support he gets, he learns the error of his ways and decides to marry Shizuko and start again from scratch. Yōzō also finally settles down and starts a toy store nearby. Umeko continues to help people beyond just her patients but faces a crisis when a large hospital is built nearby.
Hiroshi, the orphaned boy she helped save, reappears as a pharmaceutical salesman and tries to convince her to close her clinic and join the hospital. Feeling her kind of personal care is better, Umeko refuses and experiences a severe drop in patients at first, but they eventually return wanting her special care. Kenzō retires from the university hospital, only to take up another position in Chiba Prefecture, and Toshio returns from America, still more concerned with research than women. As the era enters the 1960s, Umeko has another child and Nobuo, who has now taken over the factory, gets a prestigious contract to provide parts for the new shinkansen. The story ends with Kenzō, to everyone's surprise, appearing on NHK Nodo Jiman to sing "Ue o muite arukō".
The series theme song, "Sakasama no sora", was provided by SMAP. [1] It reached the number one slot on the Oricon chart. [3]
Umechan Sensei finished with an average rating of 20.7% in the Kantō area, the first time an Asadora had averaged over 20% since Kokoro in 2003. [4]
Japanese literature throughout most of its history has been influenced by cultural contact with neighboring Asian literatures, most notably China and its literature. Early texts were often written in pure Classical Chinese or lit. 'Chinese writing', a Chinese-Japanese creole language. Indian literature also had an influence through the spread of Buddhism in Japan.
The University of Tokyo is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era institutions, its direct precursors include the Tenmongata, founded in 1684, and the Shoheizaka Institute.
SMAP was a Japanese boy band, composed of Masahiro Nakai, Takuya Kimura, Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, and Shingo Katori. The group was created in 1988 by music producer Johnny Kitagawa, founder of Johnny & Associates, originally as a six-piece with Katsuyuki Mori, until his departure from the band in 1996. The name stands for "Sports Music Assemble People". After making their debut in 1991, the group took the Japanese entertainment industry by storm, becoming one of the most successful boy bands in Asia. The group is often referred to as a "national treasure" and a "fortune and property of the country" in Japan.
Sazae-san is a Japanese yonkoma manga series written and illustrated by Machiko Hasegawa. It was first published in Hasegawa's local paper, the Fukunichi Shinbun (フクニチ新聞), on April 22, 1946. When the Asahi Shimbun wished to have Hasegawa draw the four-panel comic for their paper, she moved to Tokyo in 1949 with the explanation that the main characters had moved from Kyūshū to Tokyo as well. The first Sazae-san strip run by the Asahi Shimbun was published on November 30, 1949. The manga dealt with everyday life and contemporary situations in Tokyo until Hasegawa retired and ended the series, with the final comic published on February 21, 1974.
Major is a Japanese sports manga series written and illustrated by Takuya Mitsuda. It was serialized in Shogakukan's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday from August 1994 to July 2010, with its chapters collected in 78 tankōbon volumes. It was followed by a sequel titled Major 2nd, which started in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in March 2015.
Rumic Theater, or Rumiko Takahashi Anthology, is a Japanese manga series composed of short stories written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. New stories are published annually in Shogakukan's Big Comic Original magazine, and have been since 1987.
Maki Horikita is a Japanese former actress. During her career from 2003 until 2017, she starred in numerous Japanese television dramas, television and magazine advertisements, and movies, including roles in Nobuta wo Produce, Hanazakari no Kimitachi e and Umechan Sensei.
Departures is a 2008 Japanese drama film directed by Yōjirō Takita and starring Masahiro Motoki, Ryōko Hirosue, and Tsutomu Yamazaki. The film follows a young man who returns to his hometown after a failed career as a cellist and stumbles across work as a nōkanshi—a traditional Japanese ritual mortician. He is subjected to prejudice from those around him, including from his wife, because of strong social taboos against people who deal with death. Eventually he repairs these interpersonal connections through the beauty and dignity of his work.
Carnation is a Japanese historical drama television series and the 85th asadora series of NHK. It premiered on 3 October 2011 and ended on 31 March 2012. The series is inspired by the life of fashion designer Ayako Koshino in Kishiwada, Osaka. Ayako was the mother of famous designers Hiroko Koshino, Junko Koshino, and Michiko Koshino.
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods is a 2013 Japanese animated science fantasy martial arts film. It is the eighteenth animated feature film based on the 1984–95 manga series Dragon Ball, the fourteenth to carry the Dragon Ball Z branding, and is the first film in the franchise to be personally supervised by series creator Akira Toriyama. It was the first animated Dragon Ball film in 17 years to have a theatrical release, the last being Dragon Ball: The Path to Power (1996), and the first to use digital ink and paint. Unlike previous theatrical Dragon Ball releases, this was a full feature-length production with a stand-alone release and not shown as part of the now-discontinued Toei Anime Fair. At the time of its release, Battle of Gods was initially the first film considered an official part of the Dragon Ball storyline, being set during the time skip in chapter 517 of the original manga. The plot involves Beerus, the God of Destruction, learning of the defeat of the galactic overlord Frieza at the hands of Goku. Seeking an opponent worthy of his power, Beerus, along with his companion Whis, travels to the North Galaxy to challenge Goku to a battle.
Rena Nōnen, known professionally as Non, is a Japanese actress, fashion model and singer from Kamikawa, Hyōgo Prefecture. She is best known for her lead roles on the NHK drama series Amachan (2013). In July 2016, it was announced that she changed her stage name to "のん, Non." She started releasing her own music in 2017 with her debut single "Ohirome Pack" and released her debut album called "Superhero's" in 2018.
Events in the year 2020 in Japan.
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers is the third expansion pack to Final Fantasy XIV, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Square Enix for macOS, PlayStation 4, and Windows, then later on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. It was released on July 2, 2019, two years after Stormblood. As before, Naoki Yoshida served as director and producer and Masayoshi Soken composed the soundtrack. It released as a standalone product for current players; for new players, the "Complete Edition", originally launched with Heavensward, was updated to include all available expansions.
