Tsurukame Josanin Minami no Shima Kara (2012)

Description:

Housewife Onodera Mariya’s married life was supposed to have been happy, but turns out shortlived when her husband Tatsuya suddenly disappears without a trace one year later. Mariya sees a picture postcard left by Tatsuya which shows a heart-shaped southern island, and recalls that he had spoken of wanting to go there. At her wits end, she heads to the island in search of him. When she visits, Tsuruta Kameko is there working at the island’s only maternity clinic. Kameko had come to this island from Tokyo a while back. A former midwife in Tokyo, she was disgusted with the mentality of frivolous girls who regarded abortion as reasonable, and the compromise in natural childbirth which was far from her ideal. Then one day, Kameko won a large sum of money in a lottery and left for a carefree journey by herself. This remote Okinawan island was the first place she visited. While there she is beseeched by Nagai Akira to take over the island’s maternity clinic. Learning that there was a shortage of midwives, Kameko decided to set up the ideal maternity clinic down there. These two women of different generations meet in the southern islands. As Mariya is touched by the warmth of Kameko and the islanders, she slowly opens her heart to them and confronts the issues she has.