Oshin - Kanzen ban (complete edition) 2 Seishun hen

Almost 23 years ago, my country organised a Japanese cultural festival, and part of it was a number of Japanese movies and tv-series on our national tv-channel. Including a "Japanese soap", something we had never seen before, up till then. We had seen American soaps though, and they were usually quite awful... so our expectances weren't too high. The "soap" was called "Oshin", and it didn't take us long to realise that this was of a different level altogether!! For more than a year, in the whole of Flanders, every day, people greeted eachother in the morning, saying: "Ah, did you see 'Oshin' last night? Oh, wasn't it beautiful? How I cried!" (not only the women, but also the men, mind you :-) ...) Never had we seen a soap of such quality. Children began calling their mother "Okaasan!", the way they'd heard Oshin do on tv. We were all under an "Oshin-spell"... Now, so long ago, I know this hasn't just happened in Flanders, but everywhere in the world Oshin has shown her sweet little face. And still does. For years, I have tried to find this series on dvd, and finally I've found it; unfortunately, in Europe nobody can understand it, since it has no English subtitles. I use it to learn Japanese pronuciation; my memory of long ago helps me to understand what's happening. But I can't share it with my friends. This is a super-beautiful story. The main topic is, I think, 'exploitation': of children by adults, of poor by rich, of women by men, of simple people by political dictators. And of course, it's about the fact that you should never, never!! let yourself be exploited, bullied, nor mistreated without fighting;and never lose courage and self-respect, even if it kills you. Anybody who understands Japanese, and hasn't seen Oshin yet, should buy and watch this series. You must start at the beginning: Shojou hen, (a little girl's times), and then go on till the end. If CDJapan should ever have the brilliant idea to sell an English subtitled version of "Oshin", I think they would sell millions of dvd's, throughout the world; for I am pretty certain that once you've seen her, nobody can ever forget that lovely, brave little girl... and would be overjoyed to find her back.