Suzume is a girl born to a family running a small restaurant in Gifu Prefecture. She loses her hearing in one ear from a disease. Encouraged by her loving parents and childhood friend, she lives through an eventful life with a tenacious spirit.
The 17-year-old Yatabe Mineko grew up in a family of seven in a mountain village in northeastern Ibaraki Prefecture. Her father Minoru has gone to Tokyo to work in order to earn extra money. However, her life completely changes when her father does not come back for the New Year. Mineko asks her family to let her go to Tokyo to find him and promises to send money home. In the autumn of 1964, she and two childhood friends Tokiko and Mitsuo are hired to start working at a small factory in Tokyo’s working class neighborhood. After work each day, Mineko searches for her father and gets disheartened at times. Mineko overcomes challenges and starts to lay down roots in Tokyo as she experiences many meetings and farewells amid the laughter and tears with regulars, people of the shopping street, friends, and colleagues. But will she be able to find her father?
Starring Yōko Minamida as a woman who supported her family during and after World War II. All episodes are missing from the NHK archives, though a brief clip does survive as part of a contemporary news segment documenting the drama's production.
The 9th NHK Asadora. Starring Naoko Otani as a young woman living with her grandmother.
The 8th NHK Asadora. Starring Yumiko Fujita in a family drama. The first Asadora filmed in color.
The 7th NHK Asadora. Starring Tadashi Yokouchi in a narrative about an employee of the national railroad living through 50 years of modern history with his wife.
The 6th NHK Asadora. Starring Fumie Kashiyama as a woman, born in the Meiji era, who raises a family by herself.
The 5th NHK Asadora. Starring Chishuu Ryuu as an old man who begins to travel after he retires. From a story written for television by Yasunari Kawabata.
A struggling Korean veteran comes to terms with the fact that he is actually a caterpillar. I just made this up.
The 29th NHK Asadora. Starring Satomi Tezuka as a woman who starts a hotel in the Meiji era.
Katsuragi Motoko started as an NHK announcer, became a reportage writer after the war, and then an author. This story is about a woman's struggle to find her life's purpose and to survive. The 28th NHK asadora, set in the Showa era and location included Tokyo.
The story follows the Nakamori family in Yokote, Akita Prefecture, where half of the year is buried by deep snow.
The 26th NHK Asadora. Shimazaki Kayo is a woman from Hagi, Yamaguchi, who joins the Takarazuka Revue, a Japanese all-female musical theater troupe based in Takarazuka, Hyougo Prefecture, Japan. Women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of Western-style musicals, and sometimes stories adapted from shoujo manga and Japanese folktales.
The 25th NHK Asadora. Nishiki Natsuko is a woman who strives to become a photographer.
The 24th NHK Asadora. Starring Senri Yamazaki as a woman who makes her life at a fishing port.
A woman who lost her memory after experiencing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The 13th NHK Asadora. Starring Youko Takahashi in a story about a brother and sister coming of age in Hakodate and Kanazawa.
The 12th NHK Asadora. Set in Amakusa, Kumamoto Prefecture, at the end of the Pacific War. Maki is the heroine, married to Shuichi who must go to war. She stays home and takes on the role of other war widows, managing business and a Chinese restaurant.
In the end of Meiji era, Takei Chiyo was born in a poor family in Osaka, and was sent to a theatre tea room as a servant when she was 9 years old. There, she was attracted by the world of theatre comedy. She grows up to be an actor and marries to Amami Ippei , but the war broke out and she was forced to stay away from acting for a while. However, when she comes back again, her acting in a radio drama impresses many people and makes herself one of the leading actors in western Japan.
The twin girls Tajima Megumi and Ichijo Nozomi was separated at birth after their parents had divorced. Years later they meet each other. Both of them have a career within the entertainment industry. Megumi who lives in Matsue, Shimane sings in the band Shijimijiru, and Nozomi is a maiko, an apprentice geisha in Kyoto.