Asadora heroine and the idealization of Furusato

Abstract

Asadora (morning drama) has been considered an important part of NHK’s repertoire as Japan’s only public broadcaster. This paper problematizes a narrative pattern applied in asadora called jōkyō. This narrative pattern has the asadora heroine moving from her rural hometown to the urban capital city of Tokyo in the course of the story, as seen in Hiyokko (2017) and Ama-chan (2013). Such a pattern serves as a storytelling strategy used for emphasizing the ideal values of furusato (hometown). To get a holistic comprehension of this phenomenon, close reading method on the narrative is employed in the analysis. The finding of this research shows that asadora as a medium is utilized through the public broadcaster NHK to achieve socio-cultural sustainability.