The title of this week's two-part "NHK Special" is "Nippon Kazoku no Shozo (Portraits of Japanese Families)" (NHK-G), though the families that are portrayed are quite out of the ordinary.
Part One (May 27, 9 p.m.) is about Toshiko Hidaka, an 84-year-old woman who lived most of her life in a Kagoshima sanitarium for patients of Hansen's disease. When she was young, Hidaka was forced to abort a 7-month-old fetus by the doctors at the sanitarium. Two years ago she learned that the baby girl had been preserved and was still at the facility.
Hidaka had earlier given birth to a son, Kazuo, who grew up to become a successful businessman. Now 60, Kazuo is already retired because he wants to take care of his mother full time. Together, they go to the facility to "meet" the daughter who was taken from her so long ago.