SAEDNEWS: A new investigation by Kayhan draws an unexpected parallel between Iran’s late president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the transformative capitalist arc of the Japanese drama “Oshin.”
According to Saed News, Tehran’s Kayhan newspaper has unearthed a striking correlation between the economic reforms championed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the early 1990s and the narrative of the 1980s Iranian‑dubbed Japanese series “Salhaye Door Az Khaneh” (“Oshin”). The series—once a fixture of family viewing on the Islamic Republic’s state television—portrays traditionalist Oshin resisting her son Hitoshi’s shift toward modern, profit‑driven retail chains.
Kayhan notes that Hitoshi’s venture into sleek, high‑margin chain stores—markedly different from his mother’s modest shop—mirrors the foundation of Iran’s first nationwide supermarket, Refah, inaugurated in winter 1994 under President Rafsanjani’s market‑liberalizing agenda. “Just as Hitoshi’s success reshapes Oshin’s values, these new outlets transformed Iran’s consumer landscape,” the editorial observes.
Critics argue that the series presaged a broader cultural pivot: chain stores eroded the traditional bazaar’s customer‑centric ethos and kindled a consumer‑driven mindset. “The portrayal of unbridled capitalism, culminating in Hitoshi’s triumph, foreshadowed real‑world debates over small traders versus large retail conglomerates,” says cultural historian Dr Leila Mahmoudi.
Indeed, within a few years of Refah’s launch, dozens of similar chains proliferated, solidifying consumerism as a central pillar of Iran’s economy. Kayhan contends that by spotlighting this cinematic‑political symmetry, “Oshin” served not merely as entertainment but as a subtle harbinger of Iran’s own retail revolution—and of the social tensions it would unleash.
