Asian Drama

Itomura Satoshi is back again, but in Kyoto and with a new team. He begins work at the 1st Investigation Division of the Kyoto Prefectural Police Station. The 1st investigation division with deals with the most difficult cases.

Domoto Tsuyoshi plays the lead character Tenma who has inherited the power to get into contact with spirits but is afraid of his ability to do that. Out of no choice, he has to take on the position of the president of an exorcism company. Kawaguchi Haruna and Minagawa Sarutoki will be Tenma's assistants in his "ghost-busting" missions. Serina will play an elder woman in the neighbourhood who chases Tenma around while Sato Jiro plays Tenma's late father who communicates with Tenma through his dreams.

Two prisoners managed to escape after the police truck carrying them crashed. One of them ,is a gangster. The other called "Otowa YonKo" - our protagonist - is a con artist whose cheats money from criminals or terrorists. Accidentally, "Otowa Yonko" then becomes the new teacher for the nearby high school, under the new name "Hachisuka Goro", and according to a deal of "Hammer Session" with the headmaster.

Adapted from the manga series "Hammer Session!" (ハンマーセッション!) written by Koganemaru Yamato (小金丸大和) and Yatsu Hiroyuki (八津弘幸) and illustrated by Tanahashi Namoshiro (棚橋なもしろ).

On her way to school, high school girl Nana sees a train accident. But this is just the beginning of the nightmare that awaits her. Nana and her friend Kanae come across various bizarre phenomena, including red fingerprints and a female spirit who "lives" on the station platform. One day, Nana's younger sister is lost, and the only possibility seems to be that she had been taken by these spirits. The missing tracks. The predictions that a mysterious woman makes. Weird incidents which happen one after another. Entangled series of frights and mysteries lead to a shocking climax.

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.