The Tokyo Suds

Any American housewife with a command of Japanese would be perfectly at home listening to Kimi No Na Wa (What's Your Name?). A rich, ripe, full-bodied soap opera, Kimi has been running on Japanese radio for almost two years, has won more than 18 million devoted listeners, and is about to have three monuments erected to its memory at localities prominently mentioned in the script.

On to the Bridge. Though somewhat more literate, the story is just as juicy as most U.S. radio serials. The hero, Haruki, and the heroine, Machiko, meet on the night of May 24, 1945 during a great B-29 firebomb raid on Tokyo. Caught for a few breathless minutes on the Sukiyabashi bridge, they agree to meet on the same spot six months later--if they are still alive. Haruki shows up on the appointed day, but his girl has been sent away by her wicked uncle and forced into a marriage with a government official. When she and her husband return to Tokyo. Machiko and Haruki come face to face. Is it too late? Never. They meet by stealth. Machiko attempts suicide but is saved at the last moment by Haruki, who begs her to elope. She would, except that she is pregnant. After a passionate farewell. Haruki leaves for a European visit. Machiko promptly collapses and is taken to the home of a wealthy exporter who is also in love with her. And so it goes.

Kimi is so popular with its fans that thousands of infants are being named Machiko and Haruki. An estimated two of every five Japanese girls wear turbans of white wool, just as Machiko does. The book version of Kimi has sold more than 500,000 copies. The movie made a record postwar profit of almost $700,000, and three top studios are battling for the rights to a sequel.

Into the Volcano. The show was originated and is written by Kazuo Kikuta, 46, whose own life reads like a soap opera. Born in Formosa, he was taken from his parents (described in the newspapers as "ogres") at the age of three, because they kept him trussed up like a ham and suspended from a beam in the living room. By the time he was twelve, Kikuta had gone through six foster fathers; the last one sold him to an Osaka pharmacist for $50. Escaping, Kikuta finally made his way to Tokyo, landed a job as assistant scriptwriter for a third-rate girlie show in the capital's bawdy Asakusa district. During the war, he spent three months in South China as a historian for the Japanese navy, writing patriotic plays and radio scripts.

Since the Japanese, unlike U.S. listeners, demand that soap operas eventually be brought to a conclusion, Kikuta's present problem is how to wind up his show when it goes off the air next month. Forbidden by his employers, the Japan Broadcasting Corp., to reveal or even speculate on events to come, Kikuta will only say, "I should like to see a sad-happy ending." Radio listeners are predicting that 1) Haruki and Machiko will marry and she will then die in childbirth, or 2) Haruki and Machiko will both climb Mount Fuji and make a double suicide dive into the crater of the sacred volcano.

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