Friday, March 02, 2018

Press conference of new Amazon Prime Video drama "Shiro to Kiiro ~ Hawaii to Watashi no Pankeeki Monogatari ~"

The press conference of new Amazon Prime Video drama "Shiro to Kiiro ~ Hawaii to Watashi no Pankeeki Monogatari ~" was held at United Cinema Toyosu on 28 February which was attended by the director Motoki Katsuhide and cast members Kawaguchi Haruna, Yokohama Ryuusei, Tokito Saburo and Zaizen Naomi. The drama consists of 25 episodes of 15 minutes each and will be released on every Monday and Friday from 28 February.

The heartwarming drama describes the true story of how a female university student Sawano Natsumi (Kawaguchi) from Shonan comes across a pancake restaurant named Eggs n' Things in Hawaii and decides to bring this delicacy to Japan which subsequently leads to the pancake boom in Japan. Despite the difficulties and setbacks she encounters, Natsumi manages to realise her dream with the support of her family and friends. Yokohama plays Mitsuyama Ryosuke, a surfer who has feelings for Natsumi but finds it hard to be frank towards her. He sees her dream as his own and supports her through the journey of achieving her goal. Tokito and Zaizen play Natsumi's parents. Filming was done at Chigasaki and Hawaii.
In line with the title of the drama, Kawaguchi appeared in a white blouse and yellow skirt and joked that she was the one who was most representative of the colour theme among the cast. As part of her preparation for the filming, Kawaguchi met Nawano Yuka, the lady who Natsumi was modelled after, and remarked that she felt a lot of positive energy around the latter. As such, she hoped that her portrayal of Natsumi would impress even women so that they could identify with and respect her.

When asked about what dream they would like to achieve, Yokohama who only participated in the filming at Chigasaki, expressed his wish to go overseas for filming even though he heard from those who went that it was really tough. Zaizen who also stayed in Japan for the filming, said that she would love to go to Hawaii too which led the director to say that they hoped to film at Hawaii again in future.

As for the highlight of the drama, Zaizen cited the scene where Tokito was playing the ukulele which was echoed by Kawaguchi. Besides this, Kawaguchi also said that the warm support from the people around Natsumi, her love and youth as well as the beautiful scenery would definitely make watching this drama worthwhile. Yokohama then cited his surfing scenes as something to look out for even though he was a beginner but he had fun learning from the instructor and other surfers during the process.

The director praised Kawaguchi for working very hard in this drama as she appeared in most of the scenes and was about to fall sick. However, she agreed to his demands such as making her go into the sea or interact with the pigeons even though they looked rather menacing. Although he thought that she would cry at some point, Kawaguchi surprised him by pressing on bravely which made her blush and thank him for his compliments. Kawaguchi also had to speak English in this drama which she said was tough on her even though she took lessons to improve her proficiency in the language.

Sources: Natalie / Nikkansports / Oricon

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