lontongstroong:
Is it only me who feels Ando`s casting in the 99th asadora not underwhelming (remember some recent asadoras tend to cast very young actresses whose role spans for entire lifetime lol) but not exciting as well. She is extremely overpowered for something like asadora heroine, but I think her casting here is to counterbalance the hype from Suzu`s upcoming 100th asadora. Imagine if the 99th uses less-known actresses as heroine, it would`ve been completely overshadowed even before both aired!
On side note, if someone at the very top of acting career like Ando possible to be yanked to act in asadora, it`s meant that almost every actress plying trade in the geinoukai could be possible to be heroine as well, no matter how critically-acclaimed they are/have been (unless the acting is so unredeemable of course).
Nice point about the counterbalance. Im totally agree with you, nhk definitely wont want a let down warming up
Actually following previous asadora, it's not always young actress -the most case- . There's time like they cast machiko ono at her prime age or even complete foreigner.