1. Futaba Kono
Futaba Kono is the protagonist and the mother in the Japanese movie Her Love Boils Bathwater. She is sweet yet stern. When she realizes that she doesn’t have long to live. She decides to accomplish a few tasks before she dies. First, she wishes to find her estranged husband and make him help in the family business. She also wants to make her daughter independent and find the right person for her. Her last thing to do is regarding her secret which no one knows about. She has always been a single mother to her daughter. She wishes to make everything right and settle for her loved ones and has the foresight to do so. This is proof of her love and dedication to her family and daughter. It is portrayed by Rie Miyazawa.
2. Katsu
Katsu is the main protagonist and the mother in the movie Sing My Life. She is a bitter seventy-three-year-old woman. Her acidic remarks tend to hurt people. Being a single mother to her daughter, she believes she did not get the chance to live the life she wished to. One day, she goes to a photo studio to have her photo taken. When she left the studio, she realized that she has transformed into her twenty-year-old self. She rechristens herself Setsuko Otori and decides to live the life she wishes to. Her charming voice helps her win a local singing contest and she decides to pursue her dream to be a singer. She ends up being a punk singer in her grandson’s band. She symbolizes women who have to spend their whole lives devoted to their families and children and never got the chance to pursue their ambitions. She teaches us to grab every opportunity we get and make the most of it. The older Katsu is portrayed by Mitsuko Baisho and the younger Setsuko is portrayed by Mikako Tabe.
3. Yaeko Nishimiya
Yaeko Nishimiya is a supporting character and the mother of the protagonist Shoko Nishimiya in the movie A Silent Voice. She is also the mother of Shoko’s younger sibling Yuzuru Nishimiya. She is very strict and stern but is very caring. She is shown to have tried baking a cake for her mother on her mother’s birthday. She is very protective of her older daughter Shoko as she has a hearing impairment. She defends Shoko in front of her now-divorced husband and in-laws when they blamed her disability on Yaeko and said that Shoko will grow up dumb. She complained to the school when she realized her daughter is being bullied. She also personally fought off Shoko’s bullies at a point. She is also very supportive of Yuzuru’s photography hobby. She represents mothers who have a hard time expressing their love to their children but manage to do it in the form of kind deeds. She is voiced by Akiko Hiramatsu.
4. Kaori
Kaori is the main protagonist and the mother of Futaba in the movie Bento Harassment. She also has an older daughter Wakaba who has already left home. Futaba has achieved the age of adolescence where she has drifted apart from her mother and has ceased communicating with her. To connect with her daughter, Kaori starts making imaginative bento boxes or Japanese lunchboxes, which traditionally have patterns, words, and illustrations on them. She usually designs them to give instructions to her daughter. While initially embarrassed, Futaba starts enjoying the attention her mother and peers shower on her due to the bento boxes and starts being more open with her mother. Kaori starts chronicling her methods in a blog and gets in touch with a single father. She is a symbol for single parents everywhere who find it difficult to bond and connect with their children. She is played by Ryoko Shinohara.
5. Kayo Nogami
Kayo Nogami is the main protagonist in the movie Kabei: Our Mother. She is a mother in 1940, Tokyo, whose husband is arrested under suspicion of communism. She frantically raises her two children with the help of her sister-in-law and her husband’s former student. Even though she is worried, she does her best to stay calm and cheerful for her children. Even with the threat of war looming in the air, she takes care of her children in peace. This story is based on the true events of a family. This film shows how war impacts a small, frugal family. This story is about war, hope, peace, and above all, the serenity of motherhood. Kayo serves as an example of women whose husbands are in war or the army and who have to raise their children by themselves. They need utmost optimism and resilience. Kayo Nogami is portrayed by Sayuri Yoshinaga.
6. Kaoruko Harima
Kaoruko Harima is the mother of two children and the protagonist of the movie The House Where The Mermaid Sleeps. Kaoruko has separated from her husband and both have decided to divorce once their daughter has completed her elementary school exams. Tragedy strikes, when her daughter drowns in the swimming pool. She is declared brain dead. The grief-struck couple has two choices. Either they choose to donate their daughter’s organs to people in need or they wait for a miracle cure until her heart stops beating. Kaoruko refuses to give up on her daughter and doesn’t permit the doctors to do tests that will declare her daughter brain dead. She does grow frustrated that the world refuses to see her perspective, but she does her best to take care of her comatose daughter tenderly. She is the epitome of a mother’s steadfast love for her children. Ryoko Shinohara portrays Kaoruko Harima.
7. Chie Yasutake
Chie Yasutake is the main character in the movie Hana’s Miso Soup. Chie has recently graduated from her college and is engaged to her boyfriend. Her perfect life goes into shambles when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. She is told that her treatment will leave her infertile. By some miracle, she soon gets pregnant and has a difficult choice ahead, either give up on the pregnancy that she has yearned for or risk her life for it. She chooses the latter and gives birth to an adorable girl named Hana. She starts teaching Hana important life skills, including the recipe for the miso soup. Chie is a devoted mother and wife to her goofy husband, Shingo. She knows she doesn’t have long to live, yet wishes to be the best mother and wife for her family. She shows how mothers give unconditional love to their families even when the odds are not in their favor. It also shows that the only thing that worried her was her daughter’s welfare after her death. This story is based on real events, inspired by the blog of the real Chie Yasutake, who passed away in 2008. Hana’s Miso Soup was written by her husband, Shingo after her passing. Ryoko Hirosue portrays Chie Yasutake nee Matsunaga.
8. Hana
Hana is the mother of Ame and Yuki and is the protagonist of the movie Wolf Children. She first meets he boyfriend and the father of her children Wolf Man when she was nineteen years old and in university. They fell in love at university. Hana is very kind- hearted as she accepts her husband’s wolf status when most people would’ve been scared. She is a kind and loving mother and helps her half-werewolf children adjust to normal life. Her boyfriend is unfortunately killed while hunting. She has been a single mother for both her children and does her best to raise them with love. She symbolizes widows and mothers who have faced the loss of their loved ones and have to gather the strength to raise their children without any help. She is voiced by Aoi Miyazaki.
9. Yuko Moriguchi
Yuko Moriguchi is the mother of Manami and the protagonist of the movie Confessions. She is a junior high teacher who informs her class that she intends to resign at the beginning of the movie. Yuko tells the class that her daughter, whom she used to bring to school, was found dead in the school’s swimming pool. She suspects that two students have murdered her daughter. She tells the class that she has infected both the students with HIV+ blood and that they must have contracted HIV. The rest of the movie toggles between the turmoil of the two students and their fears and the past when they killed young Manami. Yuko is a vengeful mother hellbent on taking revenge for her daughter’s death. She is the image of a grieving mother whose love drives her to do anything for her children and the steps they take to save and keep their children. Yuko Moriguchi is portrayed by Takako Matsu.
10. Nobuko Fukuhara
Nobuko Fukuhara is a mother and the main character in the movie Nagasaki: Memories Of My Son. Her younger son Koji died in the atomic bombing in Nagasaki. Three years later, he reappears in front of her and both reminisce good memories. While this makes Nobuko happy, she also reflects on her losses and her relationship with Koji’s fiancée. Nobuko is a kind but lonely middle-aged woman who has lost her entire family to the war. Talking to her son’s apparition makes her remember the days when she was happy with her family and friends. She also has to accept and explain the reality to her son, that he is dead and that the people around him will move on. Nobuko is also a grieving mother who symbolizes the one lesson that mothers need to know- sometimes, some harsh lesson of life will have to be taught to children, even if it hurts them and you. Nobuko Fukuhara is portrayed by Sayuri Yoshinaga.
