Info in Movie News | Behind prison walls, who would expect a place that can bring warmth, hope, and even a brand-new smile to many? WOWOW’s latest drama Beauty Salon in Prison tells a unique story about a beauty salon run by female inmates, serving customers from outside the prison. Inspired by a true story and adapted from Sakurai Mina’s novel, the series blends realism, deep emotion, and a rare message of humanity in Japanese drama.
According to cinemacafe.net, WOWOW will release the series Beauty Salon in Prison, or Hei no Naka no Biyoshitsu, on August 22, 2025. The drama is adapted from Sakurai Mina’s novel, itself inspired by the real existence of a beauty salon inside a women’s prison in Japan. What made it a different movie was the main character, a prisoner who decides to work as a hairdresser for the local people, a theme which is very rarely shown in Japanese television.
It is a story about Haru Komatsubara (Nao), a woman who is in prison for a serious error in her life. In the prison, Haru does the job of hairstylist at the Aozora Beauty Salon, a place where the inmates run the business and the customers are from the outside world. Haru’s role goes beyond cutting hair, she listens to the life stories of her customers with full attention. Each haircut becomes a symbol of emotional connection, and each conversation opens a space for Haru to reflect on whether she can truly atone for her sins once her sentence ends.
Family relationships strengthen emotional connection in the case when Natsu Komatsubara (Kaho), Haru’s elder sister, who is the actor, drops in at the salon. The meeting was not only an occasion for a family get-together but the event which changed everything and brought up a new question, however, still waiting for the answer, can the broken trust be mended? The characters’ interplay is nowhere near to being clear-cut. Every one of them is carrying hurt, secret and even their own hopes that are making the drama’s relationships complicated and deeply human.
Matsumoto Kana, the one who directed the series, is definitely a person with vast experience of Galaxy Award winning Fence. The screenplay is by Inukai Kyoko, a writer who is known for her delicately uncovering of emotion in Kaze no Denwa and Egoist. The music by Hayashi Masaki, the one who created the tune for Subarashiki Sekai, gives both sadness and joy to the series’ mood.
Moreover, WOWOW explicitly got the permit from the Ministry of Justice of Japan to record the video in the real women’s prison, thus allowing for an atmosphere of the highest possible authenticity. Furthermore, lead actress Nao in her role went to Kasamatsu Prison in Gifu Prefecture, a place which is the real facility that the novel is based on. There, she learned how to cut and style hair practically from a real prison hairdresser and then she performed them during filming. This enthusiasm is easily seen in the released scenes and on the official poster, where Nao’s faces are exactly mirroring the delicate but strong spirit of Haru.
For Japanese drama fans, Beauty Salon in Prison is a story that has a different tone altogether. This is not the only story of the redemption, but it is also the story of the relationship between the jailers and the outer world as well these two unearthly, rarely meet here, but now they are brought together by just a salon chair. Viewers can look forward to very warm scenes, for instance, when people who enter just for cutting their hair a leave not only with the new hairstyle but also with a fairly light heart or when Haru, through simple and sincere conversations, can find her lost self gradually.
In terms of acting, Nao who was last seen in Tokyo Salad Bowl (NHK, 2025) and won the audience, once again confirms her ability to definitely become one with the character's emotions. Kaho that acted in A Gentle Breeze in the Village and Modern Love Tokyo realizes a quiet but powerful performance which brings out the sisters' relationship more clearly.
Going further we have the supporting cast members Narumi Riko, Mitsuishi Ken, and Kobayashi Satomi that guarantee the acting quality at a high level throughout the whole play. The story of every supporting character is very much related to the main narrative thus giving the overall story but tightly woven yet still flowing.
There are only seven episodes of Beauty Salon in Prison scheduled to hit the TV screens, each shown on Friday night. Still, it definitely can turn out to be the one people without whom cannot picture a day when they want great drama along with realism, honest emotion, and the social issues rarely addressed by the film industry to be vividly added. The series demonstrates that even in jail there is space for meetings, pardon, and little things that can give a person new life.
Consequently, if you want to find out how one little beauty salon in a prison can turn into a place where two different worlds meet, then you should definitely save the date, August 22, 2025, and tune in to WOWOW.
Post a Comment