Asian Drama

Kenta Date, a high-school student, is the ultimate champion of an arcade video game called "Megaranger". He belongs to the Cybernetics club, a group of like minded friends from his school. Koichiro Endo, Shun Namiki, Chiasato Jogaseski, and Miku Imamura are also members of Cybernetics. The International Network of Excel-Science and Technology (INET), the games creators, invite Kenta and the Cybernetics club members to tour the INET laboratories. Following a short tour of the INET HQ buildings, the company is attacked by the Neijirejia, an evil force led by Dr. Hinelar on a mission to conquer the current reality. Dr. Kubota, INET's chief scientist, reveals that Megaranger was more than only a simple video game but actually a combat simulator to identify potential recruits for a super fighting team to combat the Neijirejia. While the INET headquarters (HQ) is destroyed by the Neijirejia warrior Yugande, Dr. Kubota gives Kenta and his friends devices known as 'Digitizers'. By entering the key-code "3-3-5" and shouting "Install, Megaranger!", Date, Endo, Namiki, Jogasaki and Imamura transform into the Megarangers to fight the Nejirejia.

The 31st NHK Asadora Drama is Oshin. Oshin tells the story of a girl born in a very poor rural family in Japan, who through hard work and perseverance eventually triumphs over pain and adversity to achieve fame and success. Broadcast in the early 1980s when Japan had finally cast off the legacy of the post-war years and the Japanese were beginning to reap the benefits of economic development, the aim of the story was to recall the hardships the older generation had endured in order to pave the way for their children to enjoy their more affluent lifestyle. Viewers were drawn to the suffering of the main character Oshin - and then drew similarities between her story and their own home lives.

Some Japanese worried that showing Oshin abroad would give the country a bad profile - and would even be shameful because it showed the seldom glimpsed, poor, unequal side of Japan. In the event, the reverse proved true. Oshin gave viewers outside Japan - whose only image of Japan was formed by Japanese cars or electric goods, or through bitter memories of Japanese treatment during World War II - a far better understanding of the modern Japan and its people.