The 17th episode of the historical drama "BROTHERS IN ARMS （Toyotomi Brothers!）" (NHK General, Sundays at 8 PM, etc.), starring actor Taiga Nakano, aired on May 3rd and depicted the final moments of Nagamasa Asai, played by Ayumu Nakajima. What attracted attention in that scene was that Oichi, played by Aoi Miyazaki, served as the second in the beheading. We asked Yoshio Watanabe, the chief director of "BROTHERS IN ARMS （Toyotomi Brothers!）", about the filming episode.
◇Ichi brings her sword down on Nagamasa as he attempts to commit seppuku.
In the 17th episode, Takeda Shingen (Masahiro Takashima) raises an army against Oda and invades Tōtōmi, but Ieyasu (Kohei Matsushita) who meets him at Mikatagahara suffers a crushing defeat.
Yoshiaki (played by Onoe Ukon) also raised an army in Kyoto, and Nobunaga (played by Shun Oguri) seemed to be in dire straits, but for some reason the Takeda army suddenly retreated. Yoshiaki lost his backer... Having escaped the crisis, Nobunaga resumed his attack on the Asai and Asakura clans, and Nagamasa, cornered, holed up in Odani Castle. Koichiro (played by Nakano) and Fujikichiro (played by Ikematsu Sosuke) try to do something to rescue Ichi and the others... and so the story unfolds.
Nagamasa asks Ichi to take his daughter and leave the castle, taking pride in having fought Nobunaga and cornered him to within an inch of his life, and choosing to end his own life there. Although Ichi had parted ways with Nagamasa once, she changed her mind and went to him as he was about to commit seppuku. She brought down the sword she held in her hand.
◇Considering that his blood is "Nagamasa himself"...
According to Watanabe, "The idea of Ichi performing the ritual beheading on Nagamasa is, as far as I know, an unprecedented setting." "It was a major point in the scriptwriting process, and I had been preparing to try out the idea of Ichi 'putting Nagamasa out of his misery' from a fairly early stage," he revealed.
"From a historical perspective, the setting might be impossible, and we had many discussions about the line between fiction and nonfiction in historical dramas. Ichi married Nagamasa in a political marriage, but as she got to know his character, she went from being a woman of the Oda clan to the wife of a man like Nagamasa, and it was because they had a deep connection that she was able to kill him. We filmed it with the feeling that such an ending would be more convincing."
At the moment of the beheading, blood splattered across Ichi's face, but Watanabe commented, "Being splattered with blood is probably something that doesn't happen very often in Miyazaki's career." He was particular about the amount of blood splattered.
"If you consider the blood to be 'Nagamasa himself,' then Ichi being covered in his blood means she is receiving his feelings. That's why I was particular about the amount of blood and where it landed. In the end, I think the blood splatter turned out exactly as I had envisioned."
◇ "She put a tremendous amount of emotion into it,"Aoi Miyazaki.
The filming took place at the end of last year. It was apparently a "one-take" shoot.
"(To do multiple takes) we would have to wipe away the blood and reapply the makeup, and if it got on the kimono, it wouldn't be easy to fix."
Regarding Miyazaki's reaction, Watanabe revealed, "I don't think he had any resistance to being covered in blood," and recalled, "Miyazaki put a lot of emotion into this scene, so I didn't need to give him any detailed instructions."
*The character "崎" in Aoi Miyazaki's name is the "tatsu-saki" character, and the character "高" in Masanobu Takashima's name is the "hashigodaka" character.
