Gochisōsan Explained

Alt Name:	Bon Appetit!
Genre:	Drama
Director:	Takafumi Kimura Tetsuya Watanabe Yoshiharu Sasaki
Starring:	Anne Watanabe Masahiro Higashide Naomi Zaizen Taizō Harada Midoriko Kimura Tsuyoshi Muro Yoshiko Miyazaki Mitsuki Takahata Kazuko Yoshiyuki Masaomi Kondō Masato Wada Aki Maeda
Narrated:	Kazuko Yoshiyuki
Opentheme:	"Ame Nochi Hallelujah" by Yuzu
Composer:	Yoko Kanno
Country:	Japan
Language:	Japanese
Num Episodes:	150
Runtime:	15 minutes
Company:	NHK Osaka

is a Japanese television drama series. It first aired from 30 September 2013 to 29 March 2014. It is scripted by Yoshiko Morishita, who wrote such dramas as Jin, and stars Anne Watanabe as Meiko Uno, a woman who lives through the Taisho and Shōwa eras and tries to excel at Japanese cuisine.^[1] Meiko is the daughter of parents who run a western style restaurant in Tokyo. She marries, moves to Osaka with her husband, and experiences cultural differences between Tokyo and Osaka, as she lives as a mother and wife in Osaka. It is the 89th NHK Asadora.

The word gochisōsan is an informal version of gochisōsama, a term used to thank a host or a cook for a meal.

Cast

Main characters

• Anne Watanabe as Meiko Nishikado (her maiden name was Uno)
  • Hana Toyoshima as young Meiko Uno
• Masahiro Higashide as Yūtarō Nishikado, Meiko's husband
  • Ryūnosuke Hosoda as young Yūtarō Nishikado
• Miyabi Matsuura as Fuku Nishikado, Meiko's daughter
  • Tomoka Harami as young Fuku Nishikado
• Masaki Suda as Taisuke Nishikado, Meiko's son
  • Ryūto Misawa as young Taisuke Nishikado
• Daigo Nishihata as Katsuo Nishikado, Meiko's son
  • Teruo Ninomiya as young Katsuo Nishikado

Uno family

• Kazuko Yoshiyuki as Tora Uno, Meiko's grandmother (also as narrator)
• Naomi Zaizen as Iku Uno, Meiko's mother
• Taizō Harada as Daigo Uno, Meiko's father
• Kai Inowaki as Teruo Uno, Meiko's brother
• Chiemi Matsutera as Kuma

Nishikado family

• Masaomi Kondō as Shōzō Nishikado, Yutaro's father
  • Masahiro Kobori as young Shōzo Nishikado
• Yoshiko Miyazaki as Shizu Nishikado
  • Saki Furuwa as young Shizu Nishikado
• Midoriko Kimura as Kazue Yamashita (her maiden name was Nishikado), Yutaro's older sister
• Mitsuki Takahata as Noriko Kawakubo (her maiden name was Nishikado), Yutaro's younger sister and Keiji's wife
  • Yura Arata as young Noriko Nishikado

Others

• Yasuhi Nakamura as Umasuke Takagi
• Takashi Yamanaka as Kosai Muroi, Sakurako's husband and Meiko's friend
• Aki Maeda as Sakurako Muroi (her maiden name was Horinohata), Kosai's wife
• Abe Yohana as Ayame Muroi, Kosai and Sakurako's eldest daughter
  • Akira Sugimoto as young Ayame Muroi
• Akiko Kimata as Tatsuko Takagi, Umasuke's sister
• Mai Miyajima as Tamiko Nogawa, Meiko's friend
• Kaoru Okumeki as Mrs. Miyamoto
• Masato Wada as Genta Izumi, Meiko's childhood friend
• Ai Kato as Akiko Matsuda
  • Kotoko Noda as young Akiko Matsuda
• Ippei Shigeyama as Keiji Kawakubo, Noriko's husband
• Henry Fowler as Kansai ben-speaking GHQ interpreter

International broadcast

• Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Vietnam: It was aired every Monday to Saturday on WakuWaku Japan under the title Bon Appetit!.
• It was also broadcast in Malaysia through TV Alhijrah.
• The broadcast rights for the drama were sold to Sri Lanka with the intention of dubbing it into Sinhalese.^[2]
• Jamaica

It premiered on CVM Television in 2017.

• Thailand

It was aired every Saturday to Sunday on Thai PBS under the title "Bon Appetit! ยอดหญิงยอดเชฟ"

• Iran

It was aired every night on Tamasha TV under the title "Bon Appetit (نوش جان)"

Notes and References

1. Web site: Anne Watanabe to star in NHK's new morning drama. Japan Today. 2 September 2013.
2. Web site: The Current Situation of Sri lanka TV Media and the Challenges Ahead - 24th JAMCO Online International Symposium . www.jamco.or.jp . 12 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170805000558/http://www.jamco.or.jp/en/symposium/24/5/ . 5 August 2017 . dead.