This week, Nihon TV launches a new series called "Drama Complex" with a three-hour adaptation of Akiyuki Kosaka's best-selling novel "Hotaru no Haka (Grave of Fireflies)" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), which is set during World War II.
Nanako Matsushima plays Hisako, who loses her home in Tokyo to Allied bombing. With her husband fighting somewhere in Asia, she and her two children evacuate to a suburb of Kobe, where they share a house with Hisako's cousin, Kyoko. However, the area where they are staying is also bombed, and Kyoko is killed. Hisako is forced to take care of Kyoko's two children in addition to her own, but there is not enough food for everyone. In the end, to save her own children, Hisako allows the other two to die of starvation.
In Japanese popular culture, Hisako has come to represent the archetype of the cold, ruthless mother, which most people remember from the famous animated version of Kosaka's book.