Actor Koichi Sato (64) appeared on NHK General TV's "Family History" broadcast on April 30. He was surprised by the content that delved into his family roots.

His father was actor Rentaro Mikuni. He passed away in April 2013 at the age of 90. His son, Kan'ichiro (28), also pursued a career in acting. Mikuni and his mother, Toshiko, left home when Sato was 11 years old and divorced. He revealed that he "may have had some negative feelings" about his father, and decided to appear on the show, saying, "Maybe it's about time I asked him about the burden that 'Mikuni-san' has been carrying."

Mikuni dropped out of junior high school and stowed away to China at the age of 14. He made a living there by working as a dance hall boy and selling bento lunches. After returning to Japan in 1941, he married a woman five years older than him and had a daughter. The daughter died at the early age of two by the Japanese age reckoning system. Sato was surprised by this fact, saying, "I hadn't heard anything about it either," and "I'm really glad I found out today."

He then worked in steelworks in Osaka and other places, and when he received his conscription notice at age 19, he fled by train to Kyushu. However, his mother reported his location, and he was arrested by the police in Saga and sent to the war zone in China. When the war ended there he was placed in an internment camp, but in order to return home quickly he entered into a fake marriage. He returned to Japan in June 1946 and made a living by working as a wiring installer and bus driver. In December 1947, he had a daughter and got married, but a year later Mikuni left home. After a life of wandering he became an actor. He then married a third time to geisha Toshiko, and had a daughter named Sato.

The story also revealed how Mikuni's father, Sato Tadashi, and his mother, Han, met. Han was employed as a servant at a military man's house in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, but became pregnant and was kicked out at the age of 17. She began feeling unwell at a steamship dock in Shizuoka, and it was Tadashi who looked after her. After accepting everything, Sato reportedly submitted a birth certificate for the unborn child as his own. Touching on the secret of his father's birth, Sato said, "I don't think Mikuni ever told me that the child wasn't (Tadashi's) biological child."