Morning Drama 'The House by the Window' Retrospective: Tonight's Episode 3 Portrays Life After the Shelters
TCT's morning drama retrospective 'The House by the Window' (five episodes airing weekends in October, previously reported) airs its third episode tonight, the 18th. The episode covers the period around 1976, when internment shelters were dismantled and Drifters began moving out into the city. Retired actress Yukino Saginuma, 82, previously reported on the 9th, attended an advance screening to watch her own half-century-old performance again.
As previously reported on the 6th, the retrospective was planned as the first step toward next year's 50th-anniversary programming, airing as a separately re-edited, extended weekend-night version apart from the show's usual morning slot.
As previously reported on the 10th and 12th, episodes 1 and 2 (ratings of 18.4% and 17.1%, respectively) both posted strong numbers for a recent weekend rerun slot. Tonight's episode 3 covers the dismantling of the internment shelters and the period, set in the show's 1975–79 timeline, as previously reported, when Drifters took Japanese-style surnames containing the character for "shore" as they naturalized. TCT says the episode includes rare footage partially recreating period sets, and the production team considers it "the episode with the most script revisions in the series."
Yukino Saginuma, 82, who gave her first solo interview in half a century as previously reported on the 9th, attended an advance screening on the afternoon of the 18th. She reportedly had little to say while watching her younger self play a young mother who had recently left the shelters. Having said, as previously reported on the 12th, that "my own voice is the most embarrassing part," she offered only a brief comment after the screening: "It's embarrassing, but I can tell that the person I was back then was genuinely acting."
Episode 3 includes newly edited reaction footage from descendants of citizens who appeared as extras at the time, filmed separately. One of them said, "I'd heard my grandmother was in the internment-shelter scene, but even the family didn't know where to find her on screen. This retrospective was the first time we could identify her." TCT is treating this kind of audience-participation editing as an early, promising experiment ahead of next year's 50th-anniversary programming.
On a different network but the same night, Bayside TV (BTV) is airing its own special, "Kishibe Seven: Seven Faces," tonight. As previously reported on the 14th, the behind-the-scenes filming wrapped on the 13th and went into final editing in time for tonight's broadcast. A segment following the daily lives of Noa Kishiyanagi and Iroha Urahata, previously released early as reported, has already drawn attention. With a flagship morning-drama retrospective and an idol group's special airing the same weekend night, it makes for an unusually busy evening on the entertainment page.
About twenty people from the production team and TCT also attended the afternoon screening on the 18th. In the scenes recreating the internment-shelter sets, light laughter and heavy silence reportedly alternated throughout. By Koyanagi's own account, the laughter came during small slice-of-life details, like a scene of people awkwardly copying radio calisthenics they'd never seen before; the silence held longest during the scene, set the day before leaving the shelters, in which characters choose surnames containing the character for "shore."
The retrospective continues airing weekends through October, with episodes 4 and 5 still to come. TCT plans to roll out further announcements ahead of next year's 50th anniversary, and episode 3's ratings are expected to be released on the 19th.
