Massan

is a Japanese television drama series, the 91st Asadora (morning drama) broadcast daily on NHK from September 29, 2014, until March 28, 2015. Massan is based on the lives of Masataka Taketsuru and his Scottish wife Jessie Roberta "Rita" Cowan, whom he met while studying abroad. American actress Charlotte Kate Fox stars as Ellie Kameyama opposite Japanese actor Tetsuji Tamayama as Masaharu Kameyama in a fictionalized account of Rita's travels to Japan and Taketsuru's attempts to begin the Nikka Whisky Distilling company. It is the first time that NHK's Asadora series has featured a non-Japanese actor in a lead role. Plot Osaka chapter (1st week - 15th week) When Masaharu Kameyama returns to his hometown Takehara in Hiroshima prefecture after spending two years in Scotland learning how to make whisky, he brings back with him Ellie, a woman whom he met and married there. His parents are shocked to see this blonde woman arrive as their new daughter in law. Masaharu's mother, Sanae, in particular refuses to accept the marriage. But Masashi, his father, is more forgiving, even encouraging his son to pursue his dream of making real whisky in Japan, despite the fact the family has run a sake brewery for generations. Masaharu takes Ellie and returns to his job at the Sumiyoshi Brewery in Osaka, but encounters another problem: even though nothing was actually verbalized, Daisaku Tanaka, the head of the brewery, paid for Masaharu to go to Scotland on the expectation that he would later marry his daughter, Yūko. She initially resents Ellie, but they eventually become friends and Yūko teaches Ellie how to cook Japanese food.