Hearts And Flowers For Tora-san (29)

In Yoji Yamada's 29th installment of the Tora-san series, Hearts And Flowers For Tora-san (1982), takes place mostly in Kyoto. The pre-credits sequence has another historical/folk tale-like opening with Tora-san (Kiyosumi Atsumi) as a traveling artist who draws sparrows that come to life-animation style. This episode finds Tora in Kyoto where he meets a Kanjior Kawai-esque ceramics maker, Sakujiro Kano (Nizaemon Kataoka) who is considered a living treasure. While spending some time in his studio he meets a young widow, Kagari (Ayumi Ishida in an award winning role), working there as a maid. She is jilted by a former disciple of Kano and returns to her hometown on the Tango peninsula, a beautiful part of Kyoto-fu that is on the Japan Sea side of Honshu. Later she comes to Tokyo to visit a friend and while at Toraya she passes Tora a love letter to meet her in Kamakura. He's too shy to go alone so he brings Mitsuo (Hidetaka Yoshioka in his first real storyline) with him and the awkward date ends badly and Kagari returns home and Tora hits the road again only to meet up with Kano sensei again. I thought this was one of the best episodes I've seen to this point, Yamada and his team are really hitting their stride in the late 70s and early 80s..