Asian Drama

Story follows the life of Inotsume Tomoko, who dreams to be a lawyer.

(Source: Japanese = nikkansports.com)

Episodes: 130

Duration: 15 min.

Airs On: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Since he was in his 20's, Natsume Shunpei was a world famous maestro and lived abroad, while working with renown orchestras. He was always passionate about music and his passion inspired other musicians. But, Natsume Shunpei has zero abilities outside of music. He is unable to do simple things like housework. His life has been focused on himself and his music. Something happened that changed Natsume Shunpei's life. Due to that incident, his family, including his daughter Natsume Hibiki, left him and he left the music field.

5 years later, Natsume Shunpei returns to Japan for the first time in decades to conduct an orchestra in a province. He meets his daughter Hibiki that he hasn't seen in 5 years and they begin to live together. Unlike her father, Natsume Hibiki hates music and lives her life without it. Her father's genius ability in music clouds his view outside of music and he is unaware of his daughter's feelings. Natsume Shunpei faces Hibiki as her father and her life, that stopped 5 years ago, slowly begins to move again.

(Source: AsianWiki)

Episodes: 10

Duration: 54 min.

Airs On: Sunday

Hitsujitani Chiharu joined a big advertising agency after she graduated from a university. She experienced a hard time at her job due to harassment. After 3 years, Hitsujitani Chiharu decided to quit working at the advertising agency. She begins to work for a temp agency that is run by her aunt. There, she meets Kurusu Arashi, who works as a career adviser at the temp agency. He walks with a cane due to discomfort from his left foot, but he has a great reputation as a career adviser and his nickname is The Devil of Changing Jobs. He often makes biting remarks to people worried about changing jobs. Working with Kurusu Arashi and dealing with people who are looking to change jobs, Hitsujitani Chiharu also grows as a person.

Adapted from the novels "Tenshoku no Mao-sama" (転職の魔王様) and "Tenshoku no Mao-sama 2.0" (転職の魔王様2.0) by Nukaga Mio (額賀澪 ).

A story that begins when a husband and his daughter, who lost their beloved wife 10 years ago and lost the meaning of life, unexpectedly reunited with their wife (mother). As his wife is reborn as a 10-year-old elementary school student, the family is reborn.

Mikuri (and Hiramasa both work and share housework duties. They have peaceful days together. One day, Mikuri learns that she is pregnant. They decide to marry, but they soon face problems. Mikuri suffers from pregnancy sickness and Hiramasa decides to take a paternity leave before an important project is finished. The couple experience unfamiliar situations involving childbirth and rearing. They go through difficult times.

On Christmas Eve, a TV broadcasting station receives a phone call. The caller warns "I have set up a bomb at Ebisu in Tokyo." A contract worker for the TV broadcasting station and a housewife are accused by the Ebisu police as being the culprits. During this chaotic situation, a mysterious man silently watches as everything unfolds. A video clip is then uploaded to an online video website. The video contains a demand to talk with the Prime Minister during a live broadcast or a bomb will be detonated at 6 pm in Shibuya, Tokyo. Who is behind the bombings and who will stop them?

Ishikawa Kazuto is a first-class architect. He is married to Kiyomi. They have a son, Tadashi, who attends high school and a daughter, Miyabi, who attends middle school. They live together in a refined home, designed by Kazuto.

An injury causes Tadashi to quit playing soccer. Since that time, Tadashi often stays out all night without permission. One evening, Tadashi leaves home and does not return. Kazuto and Kiyomi become worried about their son and consider going to the police. News then reveals the murder of Tadashi's classmate. The police suspect that Tadashi might be involved in the murder.

Adapted from the novel "Nozomi" by Shusuke Shizukui.

Makino Satoshi is a genius classical guitarist. One day, he meets journalist Komine Yoko. They become attracted to each other, but Komine Yoko has a fiancé.

Dangerous hacker group “Phantom 20” is known internationally. They begin an attack on Hikari Bank in Japan. Kenjiro Namikoshi is the chief of the criminal investigation section at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. He leads the investigation into the group. Kenjiro Namikoshi thinks of Kogoro Akechi who holds vast knowledge on hacking and leads BD team hacker group. To ask him for advisor help on the investigation, Kenjiro Namikoshi sends Yoshio Kobayashi.

Kazu Tokita works at the cafe “Funiculi Funicula,” which is run by her relative Nagare Tokita. A mysterious rumor about the cafe has been spread that if a customer takes a specific seat at the cafe, that customer can travel back to a time of their choice. The specific rules for going into the past are: 1) You can't meet people who haven't visited the cafe 2) If you do something different in the past, it won't change the present. 3) Only one seat in the cafe is able to take someone into the past and if the seat is occupied, you have to wait until the customer leaves. 4) When you go back into the past, you stay in the seat 5) The time you can stay in the past is until the moment the coffee gets cold. 4 miracles take place at the cafe.

Sato Tomoko leads an ordinary life as a 40-year-old wife and mother with a part-time hourly job to supplement the household income. One day, she defies an unfair rule at her customer service job because she wants to help the customer, and is fired on the same day her husband loses his job. Tomoko is a high school dropout due to her family background, and has no certifications. How is she to get a secure job that pays enough to provide decent meals for Shun, her 5-year-old son? After her husband mentions find the high salary of city council members, Tomoko researches it on the Internet and learns that winning a seat on the council has a higher probability than getting a secure salary job. Inspired by the desire to earn a good salary, Tomoko decides and convinces her husband to withdraw their savings so she can run in the current election. While her rivals are endorsed by current politicians or come from families with elite backgrounds, Tomoko isn't intimidated for long, and decides she can be a voice for struggling working class families and fight the status quo that makes it difficult for Japanese women to work after becoming mothers. Todo Makoto, who comes from a long line of politicians and is also running for a seat on the council, hears her speech and is impressed. So is Hirata Kazumi, a former star political journalist at a newspaper whose daughter attends the same nursery school as Shun, is inspired by her energy and ability to unify people, and becomes her campaign manager.

25-year-old Moriyama Mikuri graduated but had no job offers. She became a temporary employee but was even laid off. So while she is taking a break right now, Mikuri feels unwanted and displaced. She starts work as a housekeeper for bachelor Tsuzaki Hiramasa by chance. One day, he proposes a contract marriage to her. The two of them get married in secret, but will their married life work out?

Mikuri Moriyama (Yui Aragaki) is 25 years old. She doesn't have a boyfriend and doesn't have a job even though she holds a graduate degree. Everyday, Mikuri Moriyama has a feeling that she is not needed. Her father, unable to see her suffering anymore, arranges for her to work as a housekeeper. Her employer is 36 year old Hiramasa Tsuzaki. He is single and works for a company. A series of events leads them to marry as a working condition.

Satoru Fujinuma is an unpopular manga artist, who doesn't like having relationships with other people, although he also works part-time delivering pizzas. Satoru has the special ability of "revival", that allows him to go back in time before terrible incidents occurred and right whatever wrong occurred. He goes back continually until the incidents are prevented. 18 years ago, a serial murder case took place with the victims being children. Satoru, using the body of an elementary school student, travels to that time to catch the killer and to save his mother who faced the criminal.

Satoru Fujinuma is an unpopular manga artist, who doesn't like having relationships with other people, although he also works part-time delivering pizzas. Satoru has the special ability of "revival", that allows him to go back in time before terrible incidents occurred and right whatever wrong occurred. He goes back continually until the incidents are prevented. 18 years ago, a serial murder case took place with the victims being children. Satoru, using the body of an elementary school student, travels to that time to catch the killer and to save his mother who faced the criminal.

Higuchi Shintaro (Sato Koichi), the Assistant Director of the Financial Services Agency’s Banks Division, has been working himself to the bone for 33 years. Even though he is despised by his bureau chief Yajima Sumihiko (Yashima Norito) and treated like a doormat by his family, he makes an honest living as he dreams of spending a happy old age with his family. But one day five years before Higuchi’s retirement, some unexpected incident happens. The blame for allegedly accepting bribes is shifted to him by Yajima. Higuchi is forced to retire with a private sector job waiting. This event causes the complete breakup of his family. His wife Yoshiko (Asano Atsuko) thrusts divorce papers at him and their two children (Daito Shunsuke, Mano Erina) also leave home. The life that he had built up with simple honesty crumbles miserably. Higuchi is also at his wits end. The place of employment that Yajima has prepared is JAMS, an organisation which supports small and medium-sized companies nationwide. JAMS will be the guarantor for small and medium-sized companies and sole proprietorships when they obtain a loan from a bank, and in the worst-case scenario, it will assume repayments with money from government coffers. The income is 10 million yen a year which is nothing to criticise. However, Higuchi can hardly believe the words of Tachibana Aoi (Ishida Yuriko), the director’s secretary and general affairs, at the Kanda annex where he has been assigned. The work at the office is only to manage the documents on bad debts to JAMS that have exceeded the five-year repayment term. In other words, he has nothing to do! Higuchi is frustrated, but starts to spend his days together with a former Self-Defence Force official Otomo Tsutomu (Ishiguro Ken) who has been parachuted into this workplace that seems like paradise on the same day. One day, Shintaro notices something about a favourite author Tsukuba Takuya (Takenaka Naoto) whose real name he knows is Kanao Tametaro. A long time ago, JAMS had taken over Kanao’s debt of 5 million yen and this document was left in the Kanda annex. Higuchi invents a reason to have Kanao validate a document stating that repayment is not necessary with his seal in order to get an autograph for his book and goes to Kanao’s residence. However, he is handed 30 million yen in cash including interest by Kanao. Learning about this, Aoi comes up with an outrageous scheme. It is to expose the high-income taxpayers who did not pay off their debts to JAMS in the past, collect the money and split it equally between Higuchi, Otomo and herself. A gloomy Otomo, who was dropped from the Self-Defence Forces to cover up a scandal caused by a superior, is keen. But Higuchi expresses reservations about this scheme which counts as embezzlement. At this point, he learns about Aoi’s past … … In fact, she used to be a bank staff and was also set up by Yajima, reassigned to JAMS and forced to become his mistress. All three of them were forced into similar misfortune and want to start their lives over again amid wearisome days where they have nothing to do. Will Higuchi participate in this high-stakes scheme?

A 30-year-old single detective (Nagase Tomoya), who is under the illusion that he is popular with females is called 'Unubore' by friends. He is an ultra romantic and susceptible to conceitedness. He has such a strong desire to marry to the extent that he has bought an apartment for his newlywed life. He falls in love with female criminals at first sight each time. While the sheer desire to meet wraps around him, he will get proof that the female is the culprit. And so, he will thrust both the arrest warrant and marriage papers at her, proposing with the words, "If you marry me, I won’t arrest you." If that still does not work, he will hold out an engagement ring and his handcuffs. In the end, the criminal will choose to be arrested and his heart will be broken. He will cry as he puts the handcuffs on her.

Aspiring rock star Motokazu Hayato Ichihara fills in for his twin brother Kiichi at college, while he travels to Thailand. Motokazu works as a sushi chef, while playing his guitar in his free time. His brother however is more cerebral and majors in physics. Motokazu must now fill in for his absent brother while also trying to grasp the subject matter in class. Motokazu also chases after brainy babe Shiratori (Rio Matsumoto) and becomes friends with social misfit, but brilliant Saraka (Mitsuki Tanimura).

Sakatsuki Shizuto is a mourner. He goes to scenes of accidents and mourns for the victims. Nagi Yukiyo, who killed her husband and served prison time, goes to the scene of the murder and meets Shizuto. She follows him from that time.

Other people that exists in their lives are Shizuto’s mother Junko who is terminally ill with cancer and waits for Shizuto’s return, his younger sister Mishio who is pregnant by her now ex-boyfriend and a magazine reporter who chases after Shizuto. The movie examines life and death, love and hate and sin and forgiveness through these characters. ~~ Based on the novel "Itamu Hito" by Tendo Arata.

On the surface, About Her Brother seems very different from Yoji Yamada’s samurai masterpieces that have reached the U.S. in recent years, films like Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade. However, consistent with those films, and with Yamada’s service as the regular director of the long-running Tora-san series, About Her Brother is, at heart, a contemplative character study with room for both wry humor and tear-jerking emotion – a gentle portrait of fundamentally decent people under stress. The film follows Ginko, a widowed Tokyo pharmacist dealing with her daughter’s marriage and her ne’er-do-well younger brother Tetsuro, whose drunken antics and stubborn refusal to grow up cause her no end of trouble. The title may be Ototo or “younger brother” in Japanese and Yamada may have packed the cast with ringers - Tsurube Shofukutei (Dear Doctor) as Ginko and Yu Aoi (One Million Yen Girl, Hula Girls) - but the film really belongs to Sayuri Yoshinaga. As Ginko, Yoshinaga simultaneously captures affection, exasperation and embarrassment without ever sliding over the edge into caricature. Rated one of Japan's 10 Best Films of 2010.

The drama is based on the best selling same-titled novel by Minato Kanae, and is about two families that reside in the same upscale neighborhood. Amongst all the beautiful homes lined up in a row, there is a small house that belongs to the Endo family. Even though it is small, but it is a dream come true for Endo Mayumi. Living directly opposite them, is the elite Takahashi family. With their three gifted and smart children and a doctor husband, the Takahashis seem like a blessed and happy family. One day, Takahashi Hiroyuki is found murdered. The police suspect the murderer is someone the family knows... by ~ TBS

In this world, there exists a police force that goes unnoticed, hidden deep within the city and never revealing themselves. Established after the September 11 attacks, this elite division, known as "Ura", is tasked with combating threats of international terrorism and espionage. Sumimoto Kenji leads this team in a war of secret intelligence, deception, and betrayal

Kasahara Natsuki is a thirty year-old hairdresser from Tokyo who comes to Sapporo to relax and enjoy a vacation during the 2000 New Year's Eve festival/party. Unfortunately, she gets locked out of her room and meets Kaede Soichirou, a 25 year-old local newspaper photographer. His kind nature impresses her, but they don't exchange personal information and write it off as a chance meeting. Like all women her age, Natsuki's worried about finding shiawase (lifelong happiness) by marrying and starting a family. When she goes to a matchmaking meeting, the friend of her would-be beau is none other than Soichirou. After that meeting takes a turn for the worst, Soichirou follows her out and cheers her up by taking her up for a ride in his single-engine plane. They part company once more, still not knowing each other's names, and write it off as a chance meeting. Arriving home, Natsuki's roommate Haruko announces that her brother Soichirou will be staying with them in their house, after being transferred to Tokyo's newspaper.

The scene is set in the town of Yume (Dream) city. Due to financial difficulties, the town is in the process of merging with another city, meanwhile turning into a garbage disposal facility. The formerly prosperous town was referred to as the "Town of Songs", represented by the music hall, now torn down and in ruins. Returning from New York having performed on Broadway, Kurasaka Mio was born and brought up in this city of dreams. Upon finding out the state the city, she stands up together with a group of mothers in a chorus group called "The Chansons" to bring the city back to life. Mio is a dropout musical star, attending auditions on Broadway until her agent tells her that there are no more auditions available for her to attend. The one and only time she got through an audition was for a substitute role. On the other hand, Isaka Chuko is the mayor's daughter and also is a housewife, who struggles to rebuild "The Chansons". While her father tries to go through with the merging of cities, she rivals Mio, who disposes of the old concept behind chorus' in attempt to incorporate a show choir into the routine. Chuko sticks to tradition and will not let Mio have her way without confrontation. A super positive musical comedy, Mio and Chuko team up to chase their dreams together with the chorus girls

Hoshino Tomomi (Nagasaku Hiromi) is a 41 year old housewife with a darling son and a handsome husband, but whose life has become sexless. Hayakawa Kaoru (Ishida Yuriko) is a 41 one year old movie producer who is single, but feels uneasy about her life. Mikami Haruko (Sato Hitomi) is a 41 year old housewife happy with her ordinary husband and two children. These three women were all best friends once during high school, but have since drifted apart. Now, after meeting again at a class reunion, they find themselves drawing closer to one another. But as they draw closer, an incident from their past threatens to destroy their relationship once more; particularly between Tomomi and Kaoru. But before that happens, both Tomomi and Kaoru find themselves in a situation that will turn their worlds upside-down..

Kuraki Naotake is the top ace of the Public Safety Department. Osugi Ryota is a top-notch straight-talking detective from the MPD. Akeboshi Misa is an investigator from the Public Safety Department. Together, the 3 of them investigate on the bombing incident in Shinjuku. Naotake had specifically requested to be on the investigation team as he had lost his wife in the said incident.

Asagi Serina is a housewife who loves her husband, Takefumi, to the extent that she would not mind being his shadow. However, his response to her excessive devotion is to attempt to avoid her “burdensome”, “gross” expression of love. With a wife's naivety, she refuses to suspect her husband of infidelity, and initially gets frustrated. One day, with the help of her good friend, Motoko (Ashina Sei), Serina goes out for a meal with the men at the publishing company where Motoko works. The moment a man in the group makes a move on her, it is captured on film by the sleuth, Jinnai Haruki (Kiritani Kenta). Not wanting her husband to see the photograph, Serina starts working at Jinnai's detective agency as an assistant. This ordinary, bumbling housewife grows stronger and improves her self-confidence through the skills she hones. Serina wants to support and help her husband instead of flaunting her new self to him because he is having a hard time. Aware of the problem that happened to her husband because of her over positivity, she sets about trying to solve it. ~ Jdrama Weblog

Hachiro is a former boxer, now working as a debt collector for a finance company. He is sent to collect money from Kazuma, a former trainee doctor who has fallen on hard times ever since the suicide of his girlfriend. Hachiro pursues Kazuma into a bank, where Kazuma convinces the staff that the debt collector is, in fact, an armed robber. Although he is falsely arrested, Hachiro develops a liking for the roguish renegade and even offers to help him evade other debt collectors.

Tatsuya was killed in a car accident and his spirit lives in Hikata - the one who killed him in the accident. Since then, he had a hard time trying to change his girlfriend's perception of "him" or "Hikata" while still trying to protect her.

Episodes: 13

Duration: 54 min.

Aired On: Monday

Since Shigeki’s wife passed away, he has raised his daughter Ema alone. Ema is now a high school student. Like most father and daughter relationships, they sometimes have arguments, but they still rely on each other. One night, Ema does not return from her part-time job. She is found dead. Shigeki falls into deep despair. A couple of days later, Shigeki receives a phone call. The caller gives him the name and address of the man who killed his daughter. After hesitating, Shigeki goes to the apartment that the caller told him about. There, Shigeki discovers a video showing his daughter's brutal murder. He then faces Atsuya, who just came home to his apartment. Shigeki kills Atsuya. The media goes into a frenzy covering the story. Public opinion is divided between Shigeki's actions. Shigeki chases after the main culprit Kaiji. ~~ Adapted from the novel "Samayou Yaiba" by Higashino Keigo.