Asian Drama

The 17-year-old Yatabe Mineko grew up in a family of seven in a mountain village in northeastern Ibaraki Prefecture. Her father Minoru has gone to Tokyo to work in order to earn extra money. However, her life completely changes when her father does not come back for the New Year. Mineko asks her family to let her go to Tokyo to find him and promises to send money home. In the autumn of 1964, she and two childhood friends Tokiko and Mitsuo are hired to start working at a small factory in Tokyo’s working class neighborhood. After work each day, Mineko searches for her father and gets disheartened at times. Mineko overcomes challenges and starts to lay down roots in Tokyo as she experiences many meetings and farewells amid the laughter and tears with regulars, people of the shopping street, friends, and colleagues. But will she be able to find her father?

Minami is a 27-year-old female office worker in an advertisement agency. Though she has a boyfriend, she spends the majority of her time working and appears to feel ambivalent about the relationship at best. When the boyfriend finally breaks up with her, it's the push she needs to start a social life with her co-workers. In-office romances soon follow. Much of the story is told through Minami's thoughts, which are full of self-doubt.

10 years ago Hide (Hiroki Narimiya), a college student, meets Yuki Gakuko (Yuki Uchida), an older woman, through work. They become lovers with Hide falling hard for Yuki Gakuko. The following year, Yuki abruptly announces one day that she is going to marry another man. This devastates Hide. Hide eventually finishes college and finds a job, but his yearning for Yuki leads him into depression and alcoholism.

Meanwhile, Yuki is involved in a car accident and suffers a life altering injury. Now, 10 years later the two former lovers come across each other once again. They are both shells of their former selves ...

After being forced to resign from her publishing company job when her magazine goes out of circulation, office worker Haname Jinchoge is given the name of her real father-Noburo Jinchoge when her mother falls into a coma after nearly drowning in a pond while searching for kappa. Unsure if Noburo is her father, Haname decides to visit him but tells him that she is a distant relative, he happens to be the shopkeeper at an odd antiquities shop called Light Bulb Co., working for her father is a punk rocker named Gas.

Haname becomes fascinated with the various oddities and charm of Light Bulb Co., and discovers that she, like her father has a knack for selling things so she decides to become a shopkeeper herself. Customers are hard to come by, but she listens to her dad's strange advice-like filling a sink full of water whilst running errands makes life exciting. One day her father offers to sell her the key to the family warehouse for 1 million yen to fund his next trip, which she excitedly agrees to without thinking. However, when she discovers a shocking fact about Light Bulb Co. she chucks the key away in disgust. Later she realizes that she's been stubborn not telling Noburo he was her dad, but by the time she runs back to meet him he's already gone. Eventually Haname with the support of gas.

A young couple start dating, but their happy days are interrupted by a single fact: she is planning to apply for a local university but he is not. The girl pleads with her boyfriend not to go away and he starts to think over the priorities in his life.

Aoyama Saori, working as an office lady at an MNC, gets into trouble with a drunkard on a train. She's saved by Yamada Tsuyoshi. As a form of appreciation, she sends him Hermes teacups. Having no experience with the opposite sex, Tsuyoshi decides to ask for help on the Aladdin Channel BBS on how to interact with Saori.

(Source: TVDb)

Adapted from the novel "Densha Otoko" (電車男) by Nakano Hitori (中野独人). ~~ Based on a real online conversation on the Japanese forum 2channel.

Episodes: 11

Duration: 45 min.

Aired On: Thursday

Ratings: 7.5

Kai Yuuki (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is in his senior year at university studying social welfare psychology. At present, he is in the middle of job-hunting season. He is finding it difficult with no job offers so far. One day, he meets a girl who is playing violin in the campus. She is Sae Hagio (Kou Shibasaki). In marked contrast to her beautiful tone and attractive looks, her personality is somewhat impertinent. And to top it off, she communicates through very vulgar sign language. Four years ago, she lost the most important thing for a violinist - her hearing. As a result Sae closed off her inner self from the outside world. Kai finds himself on a date with Sae, in place of his best friend. Unexpectedly, he comes into contact with Sae's private side. Love, job-hunting, friendship... Setting a campus in spring as a dorama's backdrop, it's the start of a glittering youth drama.

This drama pits two protagonists against each other. On the one hand there's Makoto, a woman who believes that the TV program is a product and that viewer ratings are the proceeds, and who believes any method is fair in getting those ratings. On the other hand there's Hiromi, a flashy sort of guy who claims that life is to enjoy and boasts that the program is simply a tool in that process. He loves wine, women and gambling. Such a pair is bound to mix like oil and water, but following a fateful reunion, they come to understand each other in the midst of confrontation.