Actress Natsuna (22) has been chosen to star in NHK’s next morning drama series, scheduled to start this October. Natsuna was selected out of the 2,258 people who auditioned for the role, though she revealed that this was her third time auditioning for an NHK morning drama.
Natsuna made her debut with a minor role in the 2005 drama series “Nobuta wo Produce,” but she became more visible during the past couple of years after appearing in the movies “Kimi ni Todoke” and “GANTZ,” as well as becoming a regular on the variety show “Picaru no Teiri.”
The new morning drama is titled “Jun to Ai” and is being penned by “Kaseifu no Mita” screenwriter Yukawa Kazuhiko. The story follows a young woman named Kano Jun (Natsuna), who was raised in Miyakojima, Okinawa. She begins working at a top-tier hotel in Osaka. There, she meets a man named Machida Itoshi (“Itoshi” is written with the same kanji as “ai”), whose brother has passed away. Although the two are very different, they fall in love.
Filming is scheduled to begin in late May. NHK will broadcast the drama for 151 episodes, from October 1st, 2012, to March 30th, 2013.
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