Shida Mirai to appear in "Hajimemashite, Aishiteimasu" from Ep 7 onwards

Shida Mirai will be appearing in the TV Asahi Summer 2016 drama "Hajimemashite, Aishiteimasu" showing at 9pm on Thursdays from the 7th episode on 25 August. She will be playing the role of Kurokawa Izumi who is the birth mother of Hajime (Yokoyama Ayumu), the 5-year-old boy who is about to be adopted by the lead couple Umeda Mina (Ono Machiko) and Shinji (Eguchi Yosuke). Despite the fact that Izumi had left Hajime alone and confined in an apartment and disappeared without a trace, her mother Tsukiko (Tomita Yasuko) appeared at the end of episode 6 and asked the Umedas on behalf of her daughter to give her grandson back. However, Izumi herself does not appear personally. The reason why she abused Hajime and her whereabouts will be gradually revealed with Izumi's appearance in the story.

Despite being just 23 years old, Shida has been an actress for 17 years and her first drama series appearance was in Yukawa Kazuhiko's 2005 drama "Joou no Kyoushitsu" opposite Amami Yuki. The following year, she played a 14-year-old girl who became a mother in "14-sai no Haha". Since then, it has been 11 years since she last worked with Yukawa and she was feeling pressurised to play Izumi who had given birth to Hajime in her teens. Especially since she is just 23 years old, she felt that it was a shock to have a 5-year-old son. As she is only joining the drama halfway into the season, she was trying to think of ways of how to play her character. Shida also expressed her anxiety at being able to act in a Yukawa drama again regardless of the size of her role and hopes that she can show that she has grown up and improved over the years.

Source: Oricon