1. Hiyokko (ひよっこ)
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?
It has an average vote of 8.2 on TMDB.
2. Yôi don (よーいドン)
A struggling Korean veteran comes to terms with the fact that he is actually a caterpillar. I just made this up.
3. Haikara-san (ハイカラさん)
The 29th NHK Asadora. Starring Satomi Tezuka as a woman who starts a hotel in the Meiji era.
4. Honjitsu mo Seiten Nari (本日も晴天なり)
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.</p><p></p><p>The 28th NHK asadora, set in the Showa era and location included Tokyo.
5. Mansaku no hana (まんさくの花)
The story follows the Nakamori family in Yokote, Akita Prefecture, where half of the year is buried by deep snow.
6. Niji wo Oru (虹を織る)
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.
7. Natchan no shashinkan (なっちゃんの写真館)
The 25th NHK Asadora. Nishiki Natsuko is a woman who strives to become a photographer.
8. Ayu no uta (鮎のうた)
The 24th NHK Asadora. Starring Senri Yamazaki as a woman who makes her life at a fishing port.
9. Nonchan no yume (ノンちゃんの夢)
The 40th NHK Asadora starring Fujita Tomoko. It is about a woman who struggles to survive after World War II and starts a magazine.
10. Hassai Sensei (はっさい先生)
The 39th NHK Asadora drama is Hassai-sensei. A novice teacher in 1930s Osaka learns that there is more to education than mere instruction. Though her tenure is interrupted by first marriage and later World War II, she begins a quest for "ideal education" after the war.
11. Chotchan (チョッちゃん)
The 38th NHK Asadora. Based on the autobiography of Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's mother.
12. Miyako no kaze (都の風)
The 37th NHK Asadora. A woman from Kyoto moves to Nara and runs a ryokan and then enters the fashion industry.
13. Ichiban Daiko (いちばん太鼓)
The 35th NHK Asadora about a man who enters the world of popular theater.
14. Kokoru wa Itsumo Ramune Iro (心はいつもラムネ色)
The 33rd NHK Asadora. Starring Eisaku Shindou as a man who loves manzai . Average rating of 40.2%</p><p></p><p>Based on the life of a famous two-man comedy act writer, Akita Minoru, who loved comedy more than anything. His life itself was full of wit and humor, love and friendship.
15. Romansu (ロマンス)
The 32nd NHK Asadora. Starring Takaaki Enoki as a young man who becomes a film director. The first Asadora with a male lead since 1967.
It has an average vote of 2 on TMDB.
16. Eenyobo (ええにょぼ)
A woman works hard to become a good doctor even though she is separated from her husband.
17. Welkame (ウェルかめ)
(ウェルかめ)
18. Audrey (オードリー)
Mizuki is a would-be actress who has yet to attain her goal, struggles to keep the dream in her heart alive while dealing with the reality of her normal life, far away from lights, cameras, and action she longs for. Despite words of warnings from her family, which includes her birth and step mothers, intended to keep her from reaching her destiny, she actually makes it onto a set of one of the film companies in Tokyo. She experiences the peaks and valleys of a starting actress, but receives a blow when news of the company collapses and eventually closes. Mizuki returns home, but, the fire once lit, still burns.
19. Asuka (あすか)
The 61st NHK Asadora Drama is Asuka. Set in Kyoto in the home of a traditional Japanese candy-maker, Asuka is the story of one young girl's dream to one day walk in her father's shoes and become a top candy-maker in the male-dominated world of wagashi . Asuka grows to be a healthy, adventurous young girl with a deep curiosity and, a desire to become a candy-maker like her father. This NHK drama is one of the best in years with an excellent cast, a well-developed story based on extensive research into the traditional worlds of candy making and the tea ceremony in Kyoto, and beautiful scenery and settings in Kyoto and the surrounding areas.
20. Yanchakure (やんちゃくれ)
The 59th NHK Asadora Drama is Yanchakure. Location includes Osaka. In Osaka, "yanchakure" is a bit of an old word which is used to describe tomboyish or mischievous young girls. Mizushima Nagisa happens to be such a girl, that, no matter how well-intentioned her motives nor how hard she tries, Nagisa just seems to end up failing. In fact, she has failed at different things in her life so many times that she has come to see it as a source of personal strength, her philosophy being one of, "It's natural for a human being to fail many times in the course of their life and thanks to those failures we can become adults."
