Gegege no Nyobo: Week 1 recap, screenshots and cast info

  Been waiting too long to start this as there's going to be quite a few posts for this Asadora drama that aired in 2010, have only watch the first 7 weeks out of a total of 26, though the episodes are only 15 minutes each there's 6 per week, already watched almost 11 hours of it and barely 1/4 of the way through it but really need a break from it even though it's quite good. What I'm going to do is give a brief recap of each week and plenty of shots of Nao from each week, not so many of her from week 1 as some younger actresses play her part as she's growing up.

The 82nd NHK Asadora is Gegege no Nyobo. The story is based on a 2008 autobiography by Mura Nunoe, the wife of Gegege no Kitaro mangaka Mizuki Shigeru. The story revolves around the life of the married couple, told from the perspective of Mura. --Tokyograph

 And that's really the storyline, simple yet a very long one as it starts out in 1939 and as of week 7 it's already up to the year 1963. Week one briefly starts out in 1961 as Fumie(Nao) is preparing to get married, we only see her for a short time as the story quickly goes back to 1939 when Fumie is only 7 years old. What week one really focuses on is showing Fumie growing up during the war and some of the hardships they had to endure plus really introducing her family which included her parents, 2 sisters and a brother. Fumie as a youngster was quite a shy, intorverted sort who being the youngest was at times forgotten about by her family but slowly throughout the episodes and weeks she grows up to be a strong woman who in a way becomes indispensibloe to the rest of her family. That's really what happens during the first week and for the most part the second week too as it being a total of 156 episodes things need to stretched out a bit but it's never boring.

 Future posts will also have a short recap with many screenshots of Nao from that week, however she wasn't in it too much to start off as the story was of Fumie as a youngster so not many Nao pics for this post but gives me a chance to give the cast list here, quite a big cast but really none that stay around for too many weeks, after week 4 we rarely see anyone from Fumie's family though they were such an important part of the story up until then. Check out the next 6 posts for recaps of weeks 2-7 and many pics of Nao from the show.

Broadcast period: March 29 to September 25, 2010 on NHK at 8:00 am, average rating of 18.6%.

Cast:

Nao Matsushita as Fumie Iida
Osamu Mukai as Shigeru Murai
Ren Osugi as Genbee Iida
Yoko Nogiwa as Toshi Iida
Asami Kikuchi as Fumie Iida, age 7
Miku Sato as Fumie Iida, age 10+
Rika Adachi as Yukie Iida
Gen Hoshino as Takashi Iida
Asami Katsura as Kuniko Iida
Morio Kazama as Shuhei Murai
Keiko Takeshita as Kinoyu Murai
Koji Ohkura as Yuichi Murai
Kami Hiraiwa as Chiyoko Nomura
..... plus many, many others but this was most of the main cast for the first 7 weeks.

Gegege no Nyobo: Week 2 recap and Nao Matsushita screenshots

 On to week 2 now where the story is still centered on Fumie(Nao) growing up, where as week one showed Fumie as a young girl growing up during and after the was the story now moves up to the later 1950's where Fumie as now turned into a fine young lady. Hadn't mentioned it but during this time the family lived in Otsuka, right outside of Yasugi city which is in the eastern part of the Shimane prefecture.
 Briefly is how I said the recaps would be and they will be short ones, so many weeks to go through plus it being 26 weeks long they storyline doesn't get rushed through enabling us better understand the main characters. Fumie is working in her family's store, one that changes what they sell quite often depending on what the 'hot items' of the time were. Fumie's sisters got married at a young age but this was not so for her, being such a tall woman seemed to turn many men off and her family, especially her father, were worried she would never get married. During one stretch the story was about an arranged marraige for Fumie which fell through but cost her the chance to be a teacher, she was offered a position doing that but it fell through once the marraige was announced so she ended up with both not getting married and no teaching job.
  That was the main thing that happened during week 2, the main focus was watching Fumie with her family and how they came to really depend on her, she still hadn't met her future husband yet, that doesn't happen for a while yet, not until 1960. Actually one other main event during this week was that Fumie's grandmother passes away, she lived with the family and was a bit of a second mother to Fumie. Recaps may be brief but don't want to give away too much of the story or spoil it for you, it's slow paced but mainly is always quite interesting. As always going to end these posts off with many screenshots of Nao for that week, the grandmother who passed away this week is the narrator for the show and you'll see many of her voiceovers in these pics.

Gegege no Nyobo: Week 3 recap and Nao Matsushita screenshots

 Week 3 continues on where the second week left off, Fumie is still living at home and by now really running the shop and household but to the disamy off her paretns is still single at the age of 28, the year is now 1960. None of the omiais (arranged marriage) seem close to working out until one day a friend of the family suggests someone, a bit of an older man living in Tokyo, he's 38 and looking at his picture and hearing a bit about his life Fumie becomes quite interested and agrees to another omiai. The man is Shigeru Murai (Osamu Mukai), a rental manga artist who everyine thinks is doing well but we come to see the opposite is true though he never gives up his passion for becoming a successful manga artist. The big drawback for him, least to others it seems, is that he lost his left arm in the war, doesn't seem to affect him too much, is still able to draw and has adapted quite well to living with only one arm. Fumie doesn't seem to mind that about him and the omiai is set up with them and their parents meeting. It goes off well enough, some minor glitches but the two agree to be married.
  The problem is that the marraige has to be done quickly, within 5 days as Shigeru needs to head back to Tokyo to meet a deadline for his next book, everyone on both sides get into a bit of a panic about it and work feverishly to somehow get the pair married in this short time span. It's now right around Christmas time 1960 and the wedding is all set, no problems except you'll have to wait for the next recap on the drama as week 3 comes to a close to keep the suspense built up.... and my usual ending to these mini reviews are many shots of Nao as Fumie for this week's episodes and as noted before, her deceased grandmother does the narration for the show, those are her comments you see often doing the voiceovers.