EAPC 5 (2) pp. 101–109 Intellect Limited 2019
East Asian Journal of Popular Culture
Volume 5 Number 2
© 2019 Intellect Ltd Editorial. English language. doi: 10.1386/eapc_00002_2
Editorial
ElisabEth schErEr
revisiting a national
institution: NhK’s morning
drama (asadora) in transition
This year, the idea of taking a critical look at the Japanese morning drama
(asadora), which started in 1961, almost suggests itself: from April to
- Kyo
- kai (NHK) is
September of 2019, the public broadcaster Nippon Ho-so
airing the 100th series of this classic format, called Natsuzora. At the same
time, the asadora looks back on a decade of changes that have resulted from
digitization, alterations in TV viewing practices and demographic change. This
year is thus the ideal time to publish this special issue of the East Asian Journal
of Popular Culture. The idea of compiling a special edition dedicated to this
serial format was born at the 2017 European Association for Japanese Studies
(EAJS) conference in Lisbon, where Dolores Martinez, Sachiko Masuda and I
presented material on asadora. Kyungjae Jang and Timo Thelen, both of whom
also conduct research on asadora, joined the project afterwards.
WhY asaDOra?
Why is it worth taking such a detailed look at this series format? The asadora,
which runs six times a week in the morning for 15 minutes, has been a fixture
on Japanese television since 1961 and is still among the programmes with
the highest audience ratings today. The format is often referred to as ‘kokumintekina dorama’ (‘national drama’) because of its special presence in everyday
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Japanese life. An investigation of this series format can illustrate how popular
media products and the construct of the nation are discursively interwoven.
As the articles of this special issue show, the asadora is vital for the construction of collective memory in Japan. Again and again, the format offers new and
generally feminine perspectives on certain sections of modern Japanese history
and creates interpretations of the development of the Japanese nation. Memory
is always influenced by current events from when the series was first broadcast, which was particularly evident after the Great East Japan Earthquake of
11 March 2011 (hereafter referred to as 3/11), as the contributions by Dolores
Martinez and Sachiko Masuda in this special issue demonstrate.
In addition to this function as a medium of collective memory, asadora
also has an external effect as an instrument of Japanese cultural policy. The
prime example of this effect is the most successful asadora of all time, Oshin
(1983–1984), which achieved an average audience rating of 52.6 per cent and
became a kind of symbol for Japan. During a visit to Japan in November 1983,
US President Ronald Reagan even drew an analogy between the rise of the
protagonist Oshin and Japan’s economic success after the Second World War
(Haberman 1984). This positive image has been actively exported abroad: from
1984 onwards, the Japan Foundation made the series available to broadcasters worldwide free of charge as part of its cultural programme, such that by
1995, the series had been broadcast in 44 countries (Takahashi 1998: 144). As
Iwabuchi (2015: 421) explains, Oshin thus conveyed a new international image
of Japan that was detached from the negative image of Japanese imperialism.
The situation is similar with the asadora Amachan (2013), which takes place
partly in northeastern Japan (To-hoku) and addresses the catastrophe of 3/11.
The series, which has also met with success in other Asian countries, counteracts negative international reporting, especially on the nuclear catastrophe of
Fukushima, with a forward-looking view and throws a positive light on the
To-hoku region.
The asadora format is also worth a closer look because of its significant
effects on filming locations. In recent years, media tourism has developed into
an important economic factor worldwide, and numerous efforts have been
launched in Japan to promote fans’ travel activities and thus help structurally weak regions achieve economic upswings. In this issue, contributions by
Kyungjae Jang and Dolores Martinez show how tourism, asadora and regional/
local identity interact in this manner.
The asadora, with its long history, is ultimately an ideal starting point for
examining changes in broadcasting culture. The audience ratings for linear
television are falling steadily in Japan, as they are in many other countries,
while online streaming services such as Netflix have invested heavily in the
Japanese market and are steadily gaining users (Chin 2018). At the same time,
social media are becoming increasingly important for the discourse on TV
content and offer opportunities to involve fans more actively and to create
new forms of co-viewing practices. The asadora must also reinvent itself in
these times – but only to such an extent that asadora maintains its function as
a medium of collective national memory and still meets the expectations of its
regular audience.
The asadora is very Japanese in a way and shows ‘the social fabric of postwar Japan’ (Dusinberre and Aldrich 2011: 684) as well as current discourses
in mainstream Japanese society. The format’s peculiarities and developments
are also comparable with TV programmes from other countries, including their status and current challenges. Co-editors Ford et al. dedicate their
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book The Survival of the Soap Opera to the ‘crisis of daytime drama’ (2011: 3)
in the United States and show how the soap opera can survive through the
involvement of the audience and new themes. The situation is similar with
telenovelas in Brazil. Viewing figures for telenovelas are falling, but the growing unofficial online discussion, as Pires de Sá and Roig note, offers space for
‘the sharing of content and discussion regarding delicate issues like moral and
sexual conflicts, the role of conservative and powerful political, social and religious groups and private corporate power’ (2016: 404). The asadora thus offers
several starting points for a more general discussion of the involvement of TV
audiences, cross-media strategies for marketing TV content, and the significance of long-running TV series for national and regional identity.
ParticUlaritiEs OF thE asaDOra
Since 1961, the asadora (officially titled Renzoku terebi sho-setsu, or ‘serial TV
novel’) has entertained audiences for fifteen minutes every day from Monday
to Saturday morning. The morning drama has a cyclical structure: the story
is related to a female figure over a certain fixed period of time (formerly one
year; now six months). Once this story is over, a new asadora starts, with a
new protagonist, new locations and a different timespan of recent Japanese
history. This closed structure of the narrative makes the morning drama similar to Latin American telenovelas, which also have a comparable genesis. Both
telenovelas and asadora emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, respectively, from
serial radio dramas whose narrative principles were transferred to television.
The asadora tells changing stories, but a few basic principles remain the
same. The series has a fixed broadcasting slot and welcomes its viewers daily
with opening credits and a title song. Each asadora has its own narrator who
comments on the events, which allows for following the stories even if viewers are busy during the broadcast and are not always looking at the TV set.
The series content also has various continuities. The stories unfold against the
background of certain periods of modern Japanese history (since the Meiji
restoration in 1868, i.e. the start of Japan’s modern era), they revolve around
a female protagonist and they stress the importance of the family; regional
peculiarities (such as certain dishes and dialects) and the details of everyday
life also play a major role.
During the period 1961–74, the series lasted an entire year; in 1975, NHK
changed to a semi-annual schedule that continues to this day, with two exceptions. As of July 2019, in addition to the primary broadcasting (8:00–8:15 a.m.),
NHK broadcasts a rerun at 12:45 p.m. on its main channel and at 7:30 a.m.
and 11:00 p.m. on NHK BS Premium (via satellite) every day. All the episodes
from the week are also broadcast again on BS Premium on Saturdays from
9:30–11 a.m. NHK has no permanent staff for asadora, but the team changes
with every series, and producers or scriptwriters usually only work once in
their lives for asadora. NHK Tokyo produces asadora for broadcast from late
March/early April to late September/early October, and NHK Osaka takes
over from late September/early October to late March/early April. NHK Osaka
tends towards series with historical content (jidaigeki), and the locations are
in western Japan, while NHK Tokyo is more likely to focus on current topics
and to shoot in eastern Japan.
Since the early 1990s, asadora audience ratings have declined significantly.
Whereas ratings of around 40% were once usual, starting in 1994 they were
only in the 20 per cent range and would continue to fall until 2009, when
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Uerukame reached an historic low of 13.5 per cent (Video Research Ltd n.d.).
NHK then shifted the broadcast time from 8:15 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. starting with
Gegege no nyo-bo- (2010). The intention of this shift was to win over new target
groups, and it did indeed result in increased ratings, which have since settled
at around 20 per cent. The most successful series since the shift to 8 a.m. was
Asa ga kita! (2015–2016), which reached an average of 23.5 per cent of viewers.
Even though audience ratings have halved over time, this figure is still high if
we consider the diversification of TV programming and the general decline in
audience numbers. For NHK, a public broadcaster financed by fees, asadora
is one of its flagships, alongside the news and the Taiga dorama (a historical
period drama). The basic principles of NHK as a public broadcasting organization are political independence, the offering of multifaceted perspectives in its
reporting and the widest possible distribution of its content so that all citizens
will have access to the broadcasting. One of the asadora’s requirements is thus
to reach as many people as possible in terms of content as well.
For years, the asadora has had the reputation of a ‘housewife’ genre. Yano
(2008: 104) sees one reason for this reputation in the brevity and daily broadcast of the asadora, which enables women to establish close relationships
with the characters and the events without having to neglect their household duties. From early on, the content of morning dramas was also directed
towards women. The first asadora, written by novelists such as Kawabata
Yasunari or Hayashi Fumiko, still had male protagonists. Starting with the very
successful Ohanahan (1966–1967), a clear focus was established, with a few
exceptions, on the life story of a female main character.
Based on the life of the author Hayashi Ken’ichi’s mother, Ohanahan tells
the story of a young woman who becomes a widow and raises her children
alone. Such stories of women who master their lives against all odds and
various adversities have become recipes for asadora’s success that continue
to this day. As Harvey explains, these stories about women in professional
roles such as authors, doctors and pilots are often contradictory in themselves,
‘promoting the ideal of women working outside the home, but at the same
time holding up for emulation traditional values such as filial loyalty and selfsacrifice’ (1998: 133). This reality demonstrates that compromises between the
interests of different groups of viewers must be negotiated in the scriptwriting process. Some asadora heroines are based on historical personalities who
have achieved exceptional success as women, such as the singer Sato- Chiyako
(Ichibanboshi) (1977), the beauty specialist Yoshiyuki Aguri (Aguri) (1997) or
the translator Muraoka Hanako (Hanako to An) (2014). Other protagonists are
loosely based on the wives of famous men, such as Gegege no nyo-bo- (‘Gegege’s
wife’) (2010), which refers to the manga artist Mizuki Shigeru, or Massan
(2014–2015; see Timo Thelen’s text). These series emphasize the wife’s support
as an important key to the husband’s success. From the 1980s on, asadora
production and screenplays were also often in the hands of women, a situation that further stressed the female perspective.
A look at NHK’s current figures on asadora (Hayashida et al. 2019: 77)
shows that housewives are no longer the predominant consumers of asadora.
People over 60, in particular, tune in at 8:00 a.m. for the primary broadcast,
most of them women over 70; the asadora Manpuku (2018–2019), for example, achieved a market share of 34 per cent among these viewers. Only 6–14
per cent of women aged 20–59 tuned in at that time. This strong focus on
viewers over 60 has certainly affected the production and content of the series
as well as its marketing concepts.
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It is also important to measure asadora’s presence in everyday Japanese life
not solely by its audience rating. Countless paratexts such as magazine articles
and features in other television programmes contribute to the morning drama
continuing to be an almost inevitable factor. Asadora is a topic of conversation
in everyday life, it provides material for variety shows, and it opens up marketing potential for merchandise, fashion and tourism, for example. Those who
live in Japan cannot avoid being at least roughly informed about the current
series, even if they never watch it. And, if a certain topic (such as the ageing
population, LGBT rights or foreign residents) appears in the asadora, the topic
has surely arrived in the Japanese mainstream discourse.
asaDOra rEsEarch
Despite asadora’s enormous presence in everyday Japanese life, the format
has received little attention in English-language research compared to other
media products, especially anime and manga. Although Harvey wrote two
fundamental essays on the subject (1995, 1998), new perspectives on the series
format appear rather sparsely. This scarcity may also be because viewing the
material can be quite laborious: one current asadora has over 150 episodes,
which corresponds to nearly 40 hours of television viewing. With recordings
of older asadora, the difficulty is that some no longer exist (see Masuda’s
contribution), and NHK only grants access to its archives to a small number of
researchers upon request.
In Japan, however, a number of fresh publications on asadora have
appeared in recent years, which is certainly because the stabilization of
viewer ratings has led some people to speak of a new flowering of the morning drama. Three books by more journalistically oriented authors (Kimata
2017; Shinan’yaku 2017; Tako- 2012) provide insights into the background of
asadora’s production, including insider interviews. To mark the 55th anniversary of the first asadora broadcast, NHK has published a book that provides
a richly illustrated overview of the history of the series format (NHK Drama
Department 2015).
One of the first to study asadora academically was Muramatsu Yasuko,
who examined the image of women in asadora from a feminist perspective
(1979). Gender remains one focus of asadora research; Watanabe and Shiroma
(2019), for example, address male roles in asadora in their recent work. Chance
addresses the ‘gendering of the black market’ in current asadora and shows
how the connection of female figures with this area ‘helps to rewrite the dark
wartime era’ (2018: 751). Linguistic studies on asadora are also available, with
a focus on gender (Occhi et al. 2010; Okamoto and Shibamoto Smith 2008;
Shibamoto Smith and Occhi 2009), as well as on dialect (Kinsui et al. 2014;
Maynard 2016), as dialect is a particularly important indicator of authenticity
in many morning dramas.
Several studies have been published in recent years on the touristic impact
of asadora on filming locations, including studies by Maruta et al. (2014)
on Jun to Ai (2012–2013); Tajima (2015, 2018) on Amachan (2013); and Timo
Thelen and I (Scherer and Thelen 2017, 2018) on Mare (2015). In addition,
recent English-language articles on other topics have been published by Yano
(on Japanese Americans in asadora) (2008, 2010), Dusinberre and Aldrich
(on the nuclear power industry in asadora) (2011) and Johnson (on asadora
and media intimacy) (2018). NHK itself conducts extensive quantitative studies on asadora for which viewers are interviewed online and by telephone.
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The results are published regularly and offer comprehensive insights into the
viewing habits of asadora audiences, including when they watch, with whom
they watch and if they do other things (such as eating or household chores)
while they watch.
thE articlEs OF this sPEcial issUE
In this special issue, we look at asadora from different angles and use various methods to approach this everyday Japanese phenomenon. The articles are based on field research, qualitative analysis of the series as well
as of paratexts and quantitative content analysis. My own article addresses
the asadora Hiyokko (2017) to illustrate the position of the series format
in everyday Japanese life. I understand the asadora as a ritual phenomenon that constantly naturalizes the construct of the Japanese nation while
simultaneously reaffirming the position of the public broadcaster NHK as a
‘social centre’.
Sachiko Masuda has analysed an extensive corpus of asadora qualitatively and quantitatively to demonstrate how the Second World War’s Pacific
theatre (often known as the Asia Pacific War) is memorialized in asadora and
how collective memory of this period of Japanese history changed after 3/11.
Specifically, she focuses on the depiction in asadora of 15 August 1945, the day
on which the Japanese population learned of their country’s surrender through
the emperor’s radio announcement, known as the ‘Jewel Voice Broadcast’.
The catastrophe is also an important aspect in Dolores Martinez’s contribution, which discusses the successful asadora Amachan (2013). Against the
background of 3/11, Amachan combines the topic of ama divers with that of
the Japanese idol industry. Martinez shows how the series established national
solidarity after the catastrophe as a major theme and conveyed a positive
image of rural northern Japan.
Kyungjae Jang examines Kazamidori (1977–1978) as an early example of the
use of an asadora for regional development. This series, set in Kobe, contributed
to the initiation of various conservation projects for Kobe’s Kitano-cho- district.
As Jang shows, however, certain memories were strongly emphasized – specifically of the western inhabitants of this neighbourhood during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – while the history of the Japanese and
Chinese population receded into the background. Jang’s study may thus also
stimulate a critical look at the current media-tourism boom.
The asadora Massan (2014–2015), which focuses on the development of
the Japanese whisky industry, is innovative in its inclusion of a foreign protagonist for the first time. Timo Thelen analyses the portrayal of the Scottish
protagonist Ellie and shows how she (as well as the whisky in the series)
serves primarily to demonstrate Japan’s uniqueness. According to Thelen, the
series has largely missed the opportunity to engage with multiculturalism in
Japan in a meaningful way.
Even though we address many facets of asadora in this issue and trace
current developments, much remains to be done. One research gap for future
studies is to gain detailed insights into asadora production and asadora filming in the studio as well as on location. Another promising approach would be
to conduct qualitative interviews with asadora fans, with a focus on personal
and collective memory in connection with media products. In view of the
upswing in asadora research in recent years, further new perspectives on this
national institution will certainly not be long in coming.
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acKNOWlEDGEMENts
I wish to thank all the authors of this edition for agreeing to participate in the
project and for undergoing the editing process with me. A special thank-you
is due to Timo Thelen, who has always provided help and advice. I would also
like to thank the reviewers of this edition for their commitment and for their
valuable advice to the authors.
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Hayashida, Masayuki (林田将来), Namiki, Mai (行木麻衣) and Nakayama,
Junnosuke (中山準之助) (2019), ‘Terebi rajio shicho- no genkyo-: 2018 nen
11 gatsu zenkoku kojin shicho-ritsu cho-sa kara’ (‘The present stage of TV
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Kinsui, Satoshi (金水敏), Tanaka, Yukari (田中ゆかり) and Okamuro, Minako
(岡室美奈子) (eds) (2014), Dorama to ho-gen no atarashii kankei (The new
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—— (2018), ‘Drama off-screen: A multi-stakeholder perspective on film
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Takahashi, Kazuo (1998), ‘The impact of Japanese television programs:
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Watanabe, Yutaka (渡邊寛) and Shiroma, Mari (城間益里) (2019), ‘NHK
renzoku terebi sho-setsu ni arawareru dansei yakuwari’ (‘Male roles in
NHK’s morning drama serials’), Shakai shinrigaku kenkyu-, 34:3, pp. 162–75.
Yano, Christine R. (2008), ‘Gaze upon sakura: Imaging Japanese Americans
on Japanese TV’, in K. E. Ferguson and M. Mironesco (eds), Gender and
Globalization in Asia and the Pacific: Method, Practice, Theory, Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 101–20.
—— (2010), ‘Becoming prodigal Japanese: Portraits of Japanese Americans
on Japanese television’, in Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, Eva Tsai and Jung Bong
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Elisabeth Scherer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that
was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
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