Alright, I'm fully aware this is going off on a little bit of a tangent, but it is still technically part of the purpose of this blog (bringing information related to Akihiko Hirata into a more accessible format to English-speaking fans), so... y'all wanna see his younger sister?
Yoshiko Otowa (birth name Kazuko Onoda) was born on July 6th, 1932. This is just speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if she changed her name to "Otowa" because of the immensely popular actress Nobuko Otowa, who was occasionally known as "the girl with the million-dollar dimples", a feature that our Otowa also had. I'm not certain if she's still alive; her Wikipedia page simply says that "apparently" she's retired from the entertainment industry, so if she's still out there, she's probably living a quiet life well away from the spotlight. She was a singer as well as an actress, and married NHK director Shoji Kume, who she worked with. Kume passed away in 1985.
We're going to look at what is probably her most famous role, which was as a regular cast member on the widely-beloved, long-running live comedy show Comedy Trio [Owarai san'ningumi], broadcast on NHK between 1956 and 1966. As the title implies, the focus of the show is a group of three comedians: rakugo performer Kinō Sanyutei, storyteller Teiho Ichiryusai, and impersonator Nekohachi Edogoya. As their counterparts is a group of three women: Toshie Kusunoki, Yoshiko Otowa and Kyōmi Sakura. Before it became a television series it was also a radio show from 1955 to 1960. The television show ran for ten years and a massive amount of episodes were produced, but I'm not sure how much of it Otowa was in, since I've seen some posters for the series that don't have her name on them. Once she did join the show, though, she was fairly central to the cast. The series was quite popular, with very high viewer ratings, and was eventually made into a manga, with menko cards of the three goofballs available as well.
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| She's second from the right in this cast photo. |
The three comedians were close friends to begin with, and when NHK was looking to round out their comedy offerings, writer Seiro Nawa created a radio show featuring the three of them in 1955. In the following year, it was turned into a television series. The setting of the show changed from time to time, and at one point it was even a period piece taking place in the Edo era, but this became unpopular and the setting changed back shortly. Roles changed as well; the three comedians had different jobs and their three female co-stars' relationships to them shifted (sometimes sisters, sometimes wives).
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| A still from when the show was jidaigeki. |
Unfortunately, the series is essentially lost media. Hundreds of episodes were produced and broadcast, but only three have resurfaced. One is on YouTube, but NHK doesn't seem to like it being there; an earlier upload with millions of views was taken down recently. Otowa's character is named Kaoru but I don't know that I really need to tell you which one she is.
Before NHK zapped it, the first upload of that episode had a comment section that was full of nostalgia. It's all gone now, but here are some of the comments:
"@masaseto8507
I used to watch this video more than 50 years ago ... . It was the time when TV was exploding .... I miss those days .... It was a great fun show back then． I am very happy to see it again ...."
"@genpome4587
It was my favorite show that still stays in my heart. It was 50 years ago.
Thank you for uploading the precious footage."
Also, the lone English commenter said Otowa looks like Mary Tyler Moore. I guess I vaguely see it.
Three Comedy Trio feature films were produced, one by Nikkatsu and two by Shintoho. There are two trailers extant on YouTube, for two separate films, and they have several million views between the two of them. I think it's pretty safe to say that memories of this show run deep.
Another snippet from the show can be found on NHK's website here.
Eagle-eyed viewers may notice a familiar surname in the above trailer: two of the Comedy Trio feature films were directed (and one written) by Yoshiki Onoda, the eldest of the three Onoda siblings. Due to having been a Toho contracted actor for a long time, Hirata didn't make it into any of his brother's films save for one up until the late 1970s, at which point the five-studio agreement had collapsed, Shintoho had also collapsed, Onoda was working in television, Hirata was not contracted anymore, and everybody was free to do whatever they wanted. Otowa did not appear in anything whatsoever with Hirata.
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| Here Otowa is third from left in the group in the back of the poster. |
Just for fun, also, here's an extremely grainy and washed-out photo of Yoshiko Otowa with a bunch of other people, including Enoken. She's fourth from the right.
I hope you found this as interesting as I did. I'll be keeping an ear to the ground in case any more episodes are discovered, and I will probably get my hands on that DVD at some point, but it is very expensive for some reason. The amount of episodes that were aired compared to the four that have survived is a real shame. I greatly enjoyed the episode I did watch, even if I could barely follow the plot, and I would love to see more; it seems like a real hoot.
In addition to this, I do happen to have a movie that Otowa had a very brief role in available on my archive.org page.
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