Name of character in Always Sunset on 3rd St

One of the main characters is a young girl called Mutsuku, from a small town in the country. When she arrives in Tokyo, the family that takes her in misreads or misinterprets her name tag and call her "Roku". From then on, they always refer to her as Roku. At the beginning she corrects them, but then she seems to give up and accepts being called "Roku".

I think this was a popular film series in Japan, so hopefully somebody will remember and will know what I am talking about. What's the deal with the two names? Is it an untranslatable play on words?

Thanks!

I remember it well.

The name is "Mutsuko" written as 六子 in Chinese characters. It is not a common way to write a name at all. If it were common, more people would be able to read it correctly.

Here in Japan, we use Chinese characters (kanji) among hiragana to write. Each of every Chinese character may represent several meanings. For example, 六 means the number "six" and 子 means "child". Also, 子 is commonly used on girls' names.

Now, every Chinese character can be read in more than one way, too. For example, 六 is most commonly read as "roku" which is literally the Japanese word that means "six". But it can also be read as "mu", and in combination with a hiragana character, for example, 六つ would be read as "muttsu" or, in an old-fashioned way, "mutsu" which means "six (of something)".

So while Mutsuko's parents named her 六子 to be read as "Mutsu-ko", the people who met her, either seriously or jokingly, "misread" it as "Roku-ko".

Note that the sound of "Mutsuko" is much more feminine than "Rokuko". And although the characters 六子 is not common as a name, there are more common characters like 睦子 that can also be read as "Mutsuko". Meanwhile, "Rokuko" sounds a bit more comical and jumpy but cute at the same time.

By the way, it is common to assume that 六子 means that she is the "sixth child" of the family. Sure enough, she explains that she was sent to the city to work so that her poor family back home would have fewer children to feed, which was common when Japan was yet to become rich.

You might remember that Mutsuko was also misinterpreted when her employer assumed from her resume that she's good at fixing "cars" (自動車) instead of "bicycles" (自転車). Workers in downtown Tokyo are known to be short-tempered ;)

Great, thanks for the explanation!

Definitely one of my favourite J-movies! Kind of habit to watch it every summer, such a good mood film for me.

Definitely one of my favourite J-movies! Kind of habit to watch it every summer, such a good mood film for me.