Asian Drama

Work, love, marriage, dreams...Four sisters face the inevitable challenges of life and go through trial and error while searching for their own happiness. What will be the four different happy endings they each reach...

Episodes: 10

Aired On: Sunday

Duration: 10 min.

Content Rating: Not Yet Rated

Kyoji Narita is a high ranking yakuza member. On a rainy day, he wanders on the street. He hears a singing sound and he walks towards the sound. There, he meets junior high school student Satomi Oka and he invites him to go to a karaoke place to teach him to sing. Kyoji Narita badly wants to improve his singing so he won't place last in his gang's karaoke competition. Meanwhile, Satomi Oka is a 3rd grade junior high school students and leads the school choral club. Satomi Oka has a sincere personality, but he often makes biting remarks. He has one problem, which is that he has difficulties with high-pitched notes due to his voice going through puberty. Satomi Oka is embarrassed by the unexpected request from Kyoji Narita.

Based on manga series "Karaoke Iko!" by Yama Wayama (published August 25, 2019 by Kadokawa)

(Source: Asianwiki)

Sanae goes to prison after she fails in an attempt to murder her boyfriend. Six years later, she meets and marries Kenta, a forestry worker. Their marriage takes a new turn when the wife of Sanae’s ex-boyfriend shows up at the door. Sanae hasn’t gotten over her ex-boyfriend, and Kenta finds it hard to deal with her.

(Source: biff.kr)

Release dates: Oct 8, 2023 (Festival) || Feb 2, 2024 (Cinema)

Duration: 2 hr. 7 min.

Content Rating: 13+ - Teens 13 or older

Adapted from the manga series "Tasogare Yusaku" (たそがれ優作) by Abe Yaro (安倍夜郎).

Episodes: 10

Mizushima Satoru is a designer, who prefers traditional things like handmade items and handwritten works. One day, he happens to meet a mysterious woman, Miharu Miyuki, at the cafe named Piano. She seems to have similar values to him and he is attracted to her. Mizushima Satoru asks for her cellphone number, but she doesn’t own a cellphone. They make a promise to meet at the cafe every Thursday. Since then, Mizushima Satoru & Miharu Miyuki meet every Thursday and their relationship develops romantically. Mizushima Satoru decides to propose her, but, on the day he is going to propose her, Miharu Miyuki doesn’t show up at the cafe.

(Source: AsianWiki)

Adapted from the novel "Analog" (アナログ) by Beat Takeshi (ビートたけし).

Duration: 2 hr. 0 min.

Content Rating: G - All Ages

Ratings: 8.2

Adapted from the novel "Kisetsu no Nai Machi" (季節のない街) by Yamamoto Shugoro (山本 周五郎).

Episodes: 10

Miyazawa Masajiro owns and runs a pawn shop for generations. His first son is Miyazawa Kenji and his daughter is Miyazawa Toshi. Kenji is supposed to take over the pawn shop as the first son, but he refuses to take over the store. Masajiro is soft on his son. Meanwhile, Toshi is smart and wise. She gives advice to her father and her older brother. One day, Toshi gets sick.

Adapted from the novel "Ginga Tetsudo no Chichi" (銀河鉄道の父) by Kadoi Yoshinobu (門井慶喜).

A drama based on a true story of two comedians as they overcome their crippling insecurities on the path to fame.

They were two people who weren't even nice all the time. One of them is Wakabayashi Masayasu and the other is Yamasato Ryota. Shyness, self-consciousness, negative feelings of inferiority. Negative emotions that arise.

Everything went wrong. But there is passion. The survival of the two youths was like that.

On an early morning, two dead bodies are found at a house. One deceased person is a senior citizen and the other deceased person is their caregiver. Shiba Munenori works for the same home health care agency that the deceased caregiver worked. Shiba Munenori is known as a kind and devoted caregiver. Yet, the police begin to target him as a suspect. While investigating the case, Prosecutor Otomo Hidemi learns that the home health care agency has an unusually high mortality rate. To uncover the truth, Otomo Hidemi confronts Shiba Munenori.

Adapted from the novel "Lost Care" (ロストケア) by Hamanaka Aki (葉真中顕).

Since Kasumi became old enough to understand things, she didn't know what love was and she doesn't have any feelings of romance or attraction. Although she has worries about herself, she has lived at her own pace until she turned 30 years old. She studied at a music university, and she wanted to be a professional in music, however, she returns to her hometown and works at a call center. Due to her sister's marriage and pregnancy, her mother often adds pressure on her, "Don't you have a boyfriend?" or "You should try to find a steady boyfriend". One day, her mother arranged a formal marriage arrangement without her permission. At the meeting table, she met a man who is also seeking just a friendship.

(Source: JFDb)

Duration: 1 hr. 44 min.

Content Rating: G - All Ages

Ratings: 7.8

N/A

Takamiya Susumu is a salary man. He who works in audit division of an insurance company. His job has him traveling all over the country on one-day business trips via the Shinkansen train. When he visits an area on his business trips, he likes to find delicious food nearby and gets it to go. On his return, via the Shinkansen train, he eats the meals that he bought. The train becomes like an izakaya to him, a place to relax with good food and drinks.

Toshizo Hijikata, the “Baragaki'” of Bushu Tama, heads to Kyoto with Isami Kondo, Souji Okita, and other comrades, with the dream of becoming a samurai in his heart. Under the auspices of the Tokugawa Shogunate, he formed the Shinsengumi, with Kamo Serizawa as its chief, to protect the city.

As vice-commander, Hijikata leads the organization with unparalleled skill and strict laws, and the Shinsengumi shows all-around success in suppressing the anti-shogunate forces. Hijikata had a fateful encounter with Oyuki and was attracted to each other, but the tide of the times is tilting towards overthrowing the curtain. The unknown love and battle of the men who burned their lives with swords now open the curtain.

Adapted from the novel "Moeyo Ken" by Ryotaro Shiba.

A love story of a youth group second-year high school students who are swayed by 'mysterious handsome transfer students' that no one has met because he was absent from the first day.

On Christmas morning, Fujino Ryoko finds her classmate Kashiwagi Takuya’s dead body at their snow covered school. The police and the school conclude that Kashiwagi Takuya died by suicide. At that time, an anonymous letter is delivered to Fujino Ryoko. The letter states that Kashiwagi Takuya was murdered by a group of students including Ooide Shunji. The media and SNS begin to question whether Kashiwagi Takuya really died by suicide or was he murdered. The school principal tries to take control of the narrative, but this leads to a more chaotic situation.

Fujino Ryoko is disturbed by people's reaction to Kashiwagi Takuya’s death. She asks for a trial and an unprecedented school trial begins.

On Christmas morning, Fujino Ryoko finds her classmate Kashiwagi Takuya’s dead body at their snow covered school. The police and the school conclude that Kashiwagi Takuya died by suicide. At that time, an anonymous letter is delivered to Fujino Ryoko. The letter states that Kashiwagi Takuya was murdered by a group of students including Ooide Shunji. The media and SNS begin to question whether Kashiwagi Takuya really died by suicide or was he murdered. The school principal tries to take control of the narrative, but this leads to a more chaotic situation.

Fujino Ryoko is disturbed by people's reaction to Kashiwagi Takuya’s death. She asks for a trial and an unprecedented school trial begins.

Aoba Ippei, a police officer in the Police Dog Section of the Forensics Division, and his police dog buddy, Oliver, take on a series of inexplicable cases. As they try to solve the cases, they find themselves in the midst of various conflicting incidents...

(Source: NHK)

Episodes: 3

Duration: 45 min.

Aired On: Friday

Shinichi Tsuda, a Naoki Prize winning author, is working to publish his newest story. It revolves around Tsuyama, a driver for a call girl business in Toyama Prefecture, who comes across a mysterious counterfeit bill and has his life targeted by underworld kingpin Kurata. Is his story fact or fiction? His editor, Nahomi Torikai, decides to verify whether his latest work is mere fiction based on real-life experiences. She looks into a family that vanished, a post office worker who went missing, a shady load of cash, the whereabouts of the doves, and the fateful encounter from that night... A series of shocking facts are revealed from Tsuda’s stories. Why did the counterfeit money end up in Tsuda’s hands? What is the “ending” that Tsuda wished to portray?

Adapted from a novel of the same name.

Momone Nagaura lives with her parents, grandfather and younger sister on an island in Kesennuma Bay, Miyagi Prefecture. In the spring of 2014, Momone Nagaura graduates from high school and moves to the city of Tome. She fails to enter a university. While she tries to figure out what to do with her life, she begins to work as an apprentice of a forest guide. A turning point in her life occurs. A popular weather forecaster from Tokyo arrives. Momone Nagaura walks on a mountain with the weather forecaster. She hears from the weather forecaster that the weather forecaster can predict the future. Momone Nagaura becomes touched by that comment and decides to become a weather forecaster. She studies hard for the exam to become a weather forecaster. With the help of the people around her in Tome, she finally passes the exam. Momone Nagaura moves to Tokyo and begins to work at a private weather forecasting company. Working there, she grows up as a weather forecaster. Several years later, in 2019, a major typhoon approaches Japan. To help her hometown, she heads to Kesennuma Bay.

Upon learning salaryman Aoyagi Seiichi will lose his job due to company cutbacks, his family deserts him!

Given a reprieve, he must ensure a struggling ballet company achieves financial success with their year-end performance of ‘Swan Lake’. Can he successfully turn the troupe’s fortunes around, despite not knowing the first thing about ballet?

Hakuro's father died when he was a child allowing his mother to re-marry into the wealthy Yagami family. Although Hakuro was also welcomed, he struggles to feel a part of this family. His younger half-brother, who possesses the same blood as him, has fared much better. After the death of his mother, Hakuro dropped the Yagami surname and parted ways with the family.

Hakuro, now a veterinarian, has a strong sense of justice, is sincere and has a weakness for beautiful women. One day, he is approached by such a woman, claiming she is the wife of his half-brother. She worriedly informs him that his half-brother has gone missing, leading the pair to team up and find his whereabouts.

In the process, Hakuro finds himself reluctantly embroiled in the Yagami family's battle over one sizeable inheritance. Could his half-brother's mysterious disappearance be connected?

Based on novel by Keigo Higashino.

On a gloomy Monday morning, my week begins. Although I am sleepy, I put on my make-up and I leave home for work at a bank. I take the subway filled with passengers and get off at the nearest subway station from work. I meet Maki Fujikawa at that subway station. She is my closest colleague at work. While talking with each other, we get to our workplace.

Yasui Tsukasa, the young CEO of an IT venture company, is one of seven men and women (Onishi Ayaka, Kuroba Mario, Kakei Miwako, Wada Masato, Mashima Hidekazu, Sakai Maki) who meet at a one-day cooking class at the restaurant Grand Rossa in Ebisu, Tokyo. Rumours have spread that the owner-chef Iwasa Akira of Grand Rossa can solve anything when consulted on romance. Night after night, troubled people come to this restaurant.

Sawamura Masahiko is a reporter with a local newspaper, Shin Kanagawa Nippo. One day, he gets an scoop on a hit-and-run case. Morimoto Atsukoa, the grieving wife of the man who died, is reportedly the culprit. Masahiko is excited by this scoop which is the first he has had in a long while. However, it is false information planted by his colleague Kirino Hiroshi. Masahiko’s university schoolmate Mitazono, who is now the chief editor of an online news website, points this out. Masahiko pursues Kirino who has disappeared. Meanwhile, Oga Masakazu, a former journalist of a national newspaper and a old friend of Masahiko’s father Ippei, visits Masahiko. Oga has started investigating whether the suicide of a former colleague Kakiuchi Tomonari was due to an incorrect story that Kakiuchi published 15 years ago.

The first youth story of Sato and Satoshi Takahashi. The original story of the movie of the same name released on Friday, November 1, 2019 will be developed in the same work as Hulu. At a high school, Soraku (Sato) has a class-like presence, and Nakaya (Takahashi) is a tune. Two people who are opposite to each other draw a figure to confront the “black school rules” of high school that respects discipline.

Kasuga Takao is a boy who loves reading books, particularly Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. A girl at his school, Saeki Nanako, is his muse and his Venus, and he admires her from a distance. One day, he forgets his copy of Les Fleurs du Mal in the classroom and runs back alone to pick it up. In the classroom, he finds not only his book but Saeki's gym uniform. On a mad impulse, he steals it.

Now everyone knows "some pervert" stole Saeki's uniform, and Kasuga is dying with shame and guilt. Furthermore, the weird, creepy, and friendless girl of the class, Nakamura, saw him take the uniform. Instead of revealing it was him, she recognizes his kindred deviant spirit and uses her knowledge to take control of his life. Will it be possible for Kasuga to get closer to Saeki, despite Nakamura's meddling and his dark secret? What exactly does Nakamura intend to do with him?

"Poison Daughter” & “Holy Mother”

Yumika is an actress. Since she was a child, she has had to endure her mother Yoshika controlling her life. Yoshika is a “poison mother” to Yumika and Yumika cannot tolerate her mother anymore. Yumika appears on a talk show and criticizes her mother. Her criticism causes a sensation.

Meanwhile, people around Yoshika state that she is not a poison mother and she is actually a good mother.

“Tsumibukaki Onna”

She blames herself for everything and feels like terrible.

“Best Friend”

A screenwriter gets nervous because her rival is doing good.

“Yasashii Hito”

A woman is too nice to commit murder.

“My Dearest”

A middle aged woman opens her mind only to a cat.

Shirakawa is a surgeon. His 21-year-old patient Shotaro has terminal cancer. Shirakawa tries everything he can, but it doesn't help Shotaro. His patient is in extreme pain. Shotaro's aunt asks Shirakawa to euthanize her nephew. Shirakawa carries out her wishes, but Shotaro's mother Yasuya, who did not care about her son, decides to sue Shirakawa. A divide over the legalization of euthanasia occurs.

Attempted murder, fraud and embezzlement, illicit drugs, tax evasion and even murder? Five women convicted of various crimes and a crime-loathing female warden put aside their differences to hatch a grand plot of revenge against a handsome but crooked company CEO. But the revenge plan keeps hitting snags. All of these mature women with interesting back stories meet in a female penitentiary and band together to clear each other of unjust sentences in this blockbuster female crime story rich in laughter and tears, brilliantly merging the comedy and cheerfulness of Kudo Kankuro storytelling with serious deeper questions of why we’re all here and what constitutes true happiness.

Umeda Mina (Ono Machiko) is a pianist whose father is a famous conductor. She has set her sights on winning an international piano competition. However, she has faced countless setbacks and this is her last chance at the age of 35. Mina has been married to her husband Shinji (Eguchi Yosuke) for 10 years, but they do not have children for some reason. One day, a filthy boy with an impassive face breaks into their garden. It turns out that he has been abused and he is put in a home. But several days later, he appears in their garden again. Believing that it is fate that brought him to their house twice, Shinji secretly starts to look up on child adoption … …

Yoichiro (Kippei Shiina) is a ice-cool heart surgeon and an associate professor at a medical school. He is well known for developing an innovative method to transform an old heart into a young heart. Kazuhisa (Kenichi Takito), who is suspicious of bureaucrats, asks him to work at the National Neo Medical Center. Yoichiro turns down Kazuhisa’s offer, because of his likely promotion to a professor. Yoichiro then becomes involved in a mysterious document commotion over his past medical mistake. Meanwhile, famous actor Rentaro (Tatsuya Nakadai) is admitted into the hospital because of a cardiac problem. He expects to improve with treatment from Yoichiro.

"Kaiki Renai Sakusen" follows three women and depicts their persona lives, work lives and their fight against a monster. Natsumi (Kumiko Aso) is 36-years-old. She dreamed of becoming a cafe owner and saved money to achieve her dream, but she was swindled out of her money. She now works at the cafe where she dreamed of becoming the owner. Akiko (Maki Sakai) is 39-years-old. She works as a music teacher and awaits for the perfect man. Fuyu (Tamaki Ogawa) is 38-years-old. She thinks of herself as an actress.

Two men with the same name work for the same company and are involved with the same girl. One is her husband and the other is her superior. Best Partner focuses on the life of Japan's corporate 30-somethings and the rivalry for success that encompasses their lives. Unbeknownst to each other, Suzuki Ichiro and Suzuki Ichiro both work for the same publishing firm in Tokyo. The only difference in their names is two strokes in the kanji character of their first names. Ichiro #1 marries his coworker, Hayama Asuka. Ichiro #2, who is Asuka's superior, attends the wedding reception and the two Ichiros meet for the very first time. But seeing how close his new wife and her superior seem to be, Ichiro #1 begins to feel anxious about the future

The genius Mitarai Kiyoshi (Tamaki Hiroshi) is a neuroscientist and famous sleuth. The author, Ishioka Kazuki (Domoto Koichi), is his good friend. One day, Ishioka starts to tell him about a mystery which he had heard on the radio. It is something that a listener had witnessed one day. A long-haired woman wearing a white dress was walking in the pouring rain with a closed umbrella. She held a small plastic bag in her hand and stood at a traffic intersection. However, the woman showed no sign of crossing the sidewalk even when the traffic light turned green. Just as the traffic light was about to change, she placed the folded umbrella on the road and hid in the shadows of a wall. Cars stayed clear, so she put it in the middle of the road. When a car finally ran over the umbrella, the woman picked up the bent umbrella and left in the rain. Ishioka is pleased to be able to share a story with an air of mystery that Mitarai seems to like. However, Mitarai figures out the woman’s mysterious behaviour in an instant and says with absolute certainty that a very bloody murder should have taken place near the place where this woman had walked. Despite the late hour, he contacts the police about the supposed murder in order to prove his own hypothesis. Then the next morning, the police receives a call from the first person to discover the dead body, just like Mitarai had hypothesised. Mitarai and Ishioka conduct an investigation of the crime scene together with the police. Like Mitarai’s hypothesis, the body of an old man who was stabbed to death, lies inside the apartment that is the crime scene. However, there is more. The dead body of a woman in a white dress, whom Mitarai regards as the murderer, is also in another room of the apartment … …

Double Kitchen is a heartwarming situation comedy about a newlywed couple sharing a house with the husband's parents in a suburb of Tokyo. Ordinary situations become hilarious cross-generational battlegrounds, as the wife and her mother-in-law pursue vastly different images of the ideal family. --TBS

Heisuke Hara (Ryo Nishikido) works as a teacher at an all boys high school in Shizuoka Prefecture. 15 years ago he had an unfortunate accident which made his life go crazy. He has since become obsessed with his hometown and the school where he graduated from.

Due to declining enrollment at the all boys high school where Heisuke Hara works, the school plans to merge with an all girls high school next year. Prior to the merger of the schools, a culture festival is held for the students from the two schools. Heisuke Hara struggles to make the culture festival a success.

Silent poor... the poor and needy whose cries for help are drowned out in today's busling society. Their existence is spreading rapidly across the nation, and as such, the government decided to set up a body to help them. Nationwide, there are now people called Community Social Workers (CSW), and their jobs are to attend to the poor and needy. One such person is Satomi Ryo, and she works at the Shitamachi area's Council of Welfare. The people that she meets in her busy working life are people afflicted with juvenile dementia, those who have shunned society and locked themselves up in their rooms, the homeless... generally people who are in despair over life and the fate dealt to them. Ryo herself had been down the lonely road before, and as a way to pull herself out of her depression, she decided to work as a CSW, in order to help others like her. She strongly believes that one can always start all over again, and it is her belief that helps her to move forward in life.

Katsuya Maruyama (Hiraoka Takuma) is a middle school student boy full of obscene thoughts. He then meets Tatsuo Shimoi (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), a single father who moves into the same apartment complex. Tatsuo Shimoi is a bit of an enigma, not getting along with the housewives in the apartment complex and doesn't appear to work.Through meeting the mysterious single father, Katsuya grows as a person.

Toru Nakamura and Maki Sakai play middle scool student Katsuya Maruyama's parents. the shooting began on June 13 and will be finished on July 25. the movie will be completed in December, 2012.

In the fictional town of Mahoro on the outskirts of Tokyo is Tada Benriken, a small business which does odd jobs. Its owner is the solemn and level-headed Tada Keisuke (Eita), and his unexpected guest, the easygoing but vague Gyoten Haruhiko (Matsuda Ryuhei), a former junior high school classmate who showed up one day and started to sponge on him. The two of them get on like oil and water, and yet are somehow inseparable. They receive queer, dubious incoming odd job requests which they accept, and what comes into view are the friendship between them as well as the backgrounds of their clients.

A comedy featuring three single women working hard in a big city and one love counselor who gives them glimpse of their true feelings toward love, marriage, relationship, and ultimate happiness. The game of "love" begins with a gong!!

(Source: TV Asahi)

Episodes: 11

Duration: 54 min.

Aired On: Thursday

Ratings: 6.7