YMMV / Oshin

• Friendly Fandoms: Oddly enough with Princess Sarah, due to the shows airing around the same time and having similar lead heroines.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Not that Oshin isn't already a classic in Japan, but it's also very, very well-loved in the Middle East, Peru and, ironically, in South East Asia. In Vietnam, "Oshin" became a word for domestic worker.
  • In Iran, it was one of the few foreign shows to air in the country during the Iran–Iraq War. Many young Iranian women looked up to Oshin, and to this day many Iranians refer to thrift stores as "Tanakura shops"
• Harsher in Hindsight: The series is said to have been based on the real life of the mother of the guy who founded the Yaohan supermarket chain. Through a combination of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the stagnation of the Japanese retail market, however, the Yaohan group declared bankruptcy with 161 billion yen of debts in what is generally considered the biggest postwar failure in Japan's retail sector at the time. It's even more harsher when you consider that 83-year-old Oshin was played by then 59-year-old Nobuko Otawa since she would never live to see her 83rd birthday as she passed away in 1994 at age 70 following a battle with terminal liver cancer.
• Iron Woobie: Oshin's life is full of crap, but she keeps going on no matter what. As her difficulties keep piling, she refuses to give up and comes back stronger each time.