50 years after the first of 48 Otoko wa tsurai yo movies (plus 1 special) the 50th film had been released, although the main actor Kiyoshi Atsumi only appeared in flashbacks as he had passed away 23 years ago, which marked the end of these movies.

At the same time of the 50th movie, this TV series had been released. It deals with the youth of our hero Torajiro Kuruma or as everybody calls him: Tora-san. It begins with his appearance in Shibamata as a foundling and ends with him leaving his hometown. 20 years later he will return, which is the theme in the first of the movies. So, watching the movies before the TV series is highly recommended.

Most of the characters of the TV series are already known from the movies, but much younger of course. For the first time we see Tora's mother and his elder brother who, as we already know from the movies, both died durings Toras childhood days. We see his aunt and uncle who then adopted him, as well as his younger sister Sakura. And of course we see Tora's father, whose violence finally caused Tora to leave his home, making him end up as a low-level yakuza and street peddler. And of course we see him falling in love with the girls and getting dumped all the time.

This series is the perfect complement to the 48 (or 49) movies and unlike the 50th movie, it feels a lot more like the culmination of the story. The cast is excellent, as is the direction by Yoji Yamada. Machine-translated English subtitles are available in the meantime. There's also a two-part sequel that covers Tora's early days as a street peddler, but it lacks all the charm of this series.