Asian Drama

The Earth receives an influx of X refugees, who were deported from their home planet due to a dispute. Countries on Earth agonize over how to deal with the influx of these interplanetary immigrants. The U.S. government announced that they would accept X refugees, and the Japanese government announced that they would also accept X refugees.

The X refugees transform their appearance into human beings and live among ordinary humans. Residents in the host countries are unable to distinguish X refugees by appearance, and they have no idea if any of them live among them. People become anxious, confused, and afraid of the X refugees, and they try to find the refugees who may live among them.

Sasa Kentaro is a weekly magazine journalist. For a story, he hides his identity as a journalist and approaches Kashiwagi Ryoko, who is suspected of being an X refugee. He gets close to her and begins to have feelings for her, but he's not certain if she is human.

(Source: AsianWiki)

Adapted from the novel "Rinjin X" (隣人X) by Pallus Ayako (パリュス　あや子).

Set in a world where men get pregnant and give birth.

Kentaro Hiyama works at an advertising agency. His romantic partner is Aki Seto . Aki Seto works as a freelancer writer and an editor. She prioritizes her working career first and ignores her parents' pressure to marry. One day, Kentaro Hiyama learns that he is pregnant. Kentaro Hiyama and Aki Seto are surprised by the pregnancy. They both didn't expect to become parents. Kentaro Hiyama now faces a lot of difficulties due to his pregnancy. Kentaro Hiyama and Aki Seto must decided whether to have their baby or not.

Set in present-day Japan, Swing Girls is the story of girls who meet and are deeply fascinated by jazz. The heroine is a very typical Japanese teenager. Her character is suggestive of the hidden problem of today children. She lacks any special interests or motivation and dislikes making any effort. But when she discovers jazz, she discovers something she can be absorbed in and begins to transform herself. At first, she is not able to even make a noise. But she and her friends practice and come to be able to play their instruments. They slowly come to be fond of jazz and take part in a music competition.

Sawada Kyoka works as a yoga instructor. Her mother died two years ago and she moved in with her father Sawada Rintaro afterwards. Sawada Rintaro works as a Japanese language scholar. His only interest now is in the study of the Japanese language. After his wife died, his life seems to have no energy.

Sawada Kyoka gets into arguments with her father Sawada Rintaro constantly and she is also burdened with taking care of him. Sawada Kyoka wants to have a life where she can focus on herself. Due to everything around her, Sawada Kyoka doesn't care about getting married. But, one day, Sawada Rintaro finds a divorce document among his late wife's belongings. This pushes Sawada Rintaro into wanting to remarry. He also pushes his daughter Sawada Kyoka to find a marriage partner. The father and daughter begin to look for a person to marry. At this time, Sawada Kyoka meets Higashimura Seita, who is single father with a 7-year-old son.

Asagao continues her work as a forensic scientist at a university forensic medicine class in Kanagawa Prefecture. Her father Taira and her husband Shinya are busy with their work as detectives. Her daughter Tsugumi insists on having a younger sibling. Asagao spends ordinary days with her family, but, due to a reason, Asagao visits the Tohoku Region alone to find her mother’s dead body. ~~ Adapted from the manga "Kansatsui Asagao" by Masahito Kagawa (writer) & Naomi Kimura (illustrator).

Tamura Shin is a young man who has been pursuing the mystery of the murder that his father, a police officer, caused and changed the fate of their family. Ever since his father’s arrest, Shin and his mother have been criticised by the public and had to live in hiding. One day, Shin is told by his beloved wife to try and give his father the benefit of the doubt, and he decides to meet his father who is in prison. However, when he heads to the old crime scene, he is shrouded by a sudden mist and ends up going back in time to the past. Shin finds himself in the year 1989 – right before the murder took place. The crime scene has become a snowy village. At this village, Shin sees the warm smiling faces of his own face. If he stops his father’s case, he will not lose his family. This spurs him to challenge the taboo of changing the past.

Minato Shindo has savant syndrome. His memory is amazing, but he has difficulty communicating with other people.

When Minato Shindo was little, he dreamed of becoming a doctor. He met Doctor Akira Shiga and he wanted to become a paediatric surgeon. Akira Shiga was surprised by the 7-year-old's memory of the human organs and he decided to support Minato Shindo in achieving his dream. Eventually, Minato Shindo graduated from medical school and passed the national exam for medical practitioners.

Now, Akira Shiga works as a director at a large hospital. He suggests to Minato Shindo to work in the pediatric surgery department at the hospital where he works.

Aya spends her days as she pleases living in an aging apartment with her older boyfriend Mr. Ito. Her peaceful days are upended when her father shows up at her place after getting kicked out from his son's home.

"Aozora Yell" tells a story of a high school girl named Tsubasa Ono who saw an inspirational brass band performance at the finals of the Japanese high school baseball championships one summer. Tsubasa vows to join the band when she enters high school, and she happens to meet a certain boy there.

Based on the manga by Kazune Kawahara.

The 69th NHK Asadora Drama is Teruteru Kazoku. Locations include Ikeda, Osaka and Sasebo, Nagasaki. The story, based on Rei Nakanishi's novel, is about the Iwata family living in Ikeda, Osaka City between 1950's and 1960's. The story is told through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Fuyuko (16). The family runs a bakery. The mother, Teruko, is a very energetic woman who is determined to make her dreams come true. Responding to Teruko's expectations, the eldest daughter becomes a figure skater and the second daughter becomes a very famous professional singer. In contrast, Fuyuko finds her joy in bread making..

The 69th NHK Asadora Drama is Teruteru Kazoku. Locations include Ikeda, Osaka and Sasebo, Nagasaki. The story, based on Rei Nakanishi's novel, is about the Iwata family living in Ikeda, Osaka City between 1950's and 1960's. The story is told through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Fuyuko (16). The family runs a bakery. The mother, Teruko, is a very energetic woman who is determined to make her dreams come true. Responding to Teruko's expectations, the eldest daughter becomes a figure skater and the second daughter becomes a very famous professional singer. In contrast, Fuyuko finds her joy in bread making..

Daisuke works for a stationery manufacturer and enjoys being single. One day, a fire bell goes off at the apartment he recently bought. Daisuke accuses one of the residents, Hanako, who thinks her room is on fire. However, it is actually his father, Yozo, who smoked out Daisuke's room when he was cooking. To make matters worse, Daisuke's troublemaking father brought his son-in-law to live all together. His comfortable single life suddenly comes to an end...

A large real estate company’s social gathering is held on board the cruise ship ‘Poseidon’ as it goes around Tokyo Bay. Then the company president Kudo Ryoko (Nakano Yuta) is fatally stabbed. The ship never once stopped and it is impossible for someone to board from the sea. In other words, the murder scene is a “locked room aboard a ship”. The suspects are three employees Takase Minami (Takimoto Miori), Mitsumine Yoko (Nakagoshi Noriko) and Narita Koki (Tonesaku Toshihide) who were together with Kudo. They unanimously complain of being “put to sleep by sleeping pill” and “waking up after the murder occurred”. Detective Hagami Kyoko (Zaizen Naomi) of the First Investigative Division proceeds to investigate the case together with the young detective Kaburagi (Kiriyama Ren). However, a series of tragedies occur right in front of them. Mystery engenders mystery, darkness sucks in darkness. This is the “punishment” meted by Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, to those who do wrong. Internal trouble, baffling human resources and gruesome cases that vanish in the vortex of time. Then the perfect crime of a lifetime. Will Kyoko be able to get to the criminal?

The young, genius scientist Takano Ryuzo (Saito Yusuke) has died in his home. He was a leading authority on induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells together with his older wife Misuzu (Shimizu Misa). The cause of his sudden death is determined to be a heart attack, but insurance agent Tomonaga Masahiko (Hamano Kenta) approaches his wife Kuriko (Ueno Juri), who is also researcher in iPS cells, about Takano’s sudden death that leaves questions unanswered. He had been insured for a large sum of money. Furthermore, the crime scene is a perfect locked room. These increases Masahiko’s suspicions that it was a murder. Kuriko, the research geek, corners the “invisible criminal” with a wealth of knowledge unique to a female scientist and feminine deduction.

Following the death of their mother Kyoko (Nakamura Yuri), three sisters Chiaki (Dan Rei), Haruna (Kimura Midoriko) and Natsui (Watanabe Makiko) gather at the home where they were born and raised for an all-night vigil. Third sister Chiaki recalls memories of the time she was a girl when she sees something that was inserted into the coffin. After the end of the war, their father Hiroshi (Mashima Hidekazu) brought Toru, their youngest brother who is not related by blood, home. Then one day, Toru suddenly disappeared as if he had been spirited away. Who was responsible and where did he go? As the three sisters begin to trace back distant memories, a young man (Nakajima Ayumu) comes. He greets them with the words, “It’s been a long time since I last saw you, sisters …” The sisters piece together their memories and what starts to emerge is their father’s betrayal and mother’s secret. The 40-year-old truth that their mother had kept to herself is about to be revealed.

Woo-Hyun (T.O.P) is Korean man and Haruka (Juri Ueno) is Japanese woman. They live different lives, but they both carry emotional scars from their first love. Woo-Hyun has yet to get over his first love, but he still wants to believe in true love. Haruka is a woman wants answers relating to love.

What would you do if you woke up with a new face every day? Woo Jin, a man who designs furniture for a living, is used to this. An elderly man, a little boy, a chubby woman, a foreigner, Woo Jin has grown accustomed to his super-natural “situation.” The only people that know of his illness are his mother and his best friend, Sang Baek. One day, he meets Yi Soo, a girl who works for a furniture store and instantly falls in love with her. Since his physical identity changes frequently, he continues to visit her daily, acting as a customer that she has never seen before. Woo Jin finally musters up the courage to talk to her and ask her out on a date. The perfect date passes by and Woo Jin, knowing that his face will change once he falls asleep, attempts to stay awake for as long as he can. He meets Yi Soo for three consecutive days and Yi Soo also falls in love with him. However, Woo Jin can no longer fight sleep. He passes out and wakes up with a new face. Will Woo Jin tell Yi Soo about his condition? What will Yi Soo think?

"Ouroboros" is an ancient symbol that depicts a snake eating its own tail - meaning infinity. Based on a popular comic, a clumsy detective and a cool gang stand up to true evil. Ikuo and Tatsuya grew up in a children's orphanage together. When their favorite teacher, Yuiko, is murdered, a policeman wearing a gold watch covers up the incident. Ikuo and Tatsuya promise each other to avenge their teacher someday. Twenty years later, Ikuo is a detective in Shinjuku second police station investigating various cases with elite detective - Mizuki, while smart and handsome Tatsuya has become one of the top members of a gang group.

Nakajima looks up to his father, who was a war photographer, but can only get a job as an assistant for gravure magazines. Mizuno is a provisional high school teacher, currently on probation. Nishimura is Mizuno's best friend, whose boyfriend has been avoiding her since she discovered she was pregnant. Ichihara works at a magazine where he is being blackmailed into sexual favours by his chief editor. Park, on Twitter, takes on the persona of a doctor, when he is actually working at a company that sells medical equipment to disinterested doctors, and at the same time, trying to take care of his younger sister. This is a story about the blossoming friendship of five young people who were brought together by Twitter, and their journey to finding honesty with each other and with themselves.

Summer Time Machine Blues is based around a group of friends in a science-fiction club who spend their days fooling around at the clubhouse. The boys play a game of baseball as their friend Yui Ito takes pictures of them nearby. After the game, the boys return to the clubhouse and head off to the bathhouse leaving the girls, Yui and Haruka to develop their pictures. While they bathe, Niimi gets angry because he thinks someone stole his Vidal Sassoon shampoo. On their way back, Takuma decides to sneak off to buy tickets at the theater for a sci-fi B movie. He hopes that he can ask Haruka out. Haruka says that she does not want to go out with him since he apparently has a girlfriend, but Takuma has no idea what she is talking about. But when he returns to the clubhouse, his friends act very strangely as to where he has been. They make him explain what happened, but through a series of chain events, Daigo accidentally spills Coke all over the air-conditioner remote control after being hit in the face. Everyone rushes to try to clean the remote off, but it's too late. The remote is broken and they cannot turn on the air-conditioner. This immediately becomes a problem as the day becomes hotter.

The remote apparently cannot be repaired as it is too old, so the boys give it to their club advisor to try to fix. They look for a fan in the meantime but only find broken ones. Back at the clubhouse, the boys discover a strange boy in the room who hurriedly escapes, leaving behind some sort of machine. They put Sago on the time machine thinking it is a practical joke on the sci-fi club, but to their surprise it actually works. Sago appears in a picture of their baseball game that they held yesterday. They fool around discovering that it is a time machine. The boys decide to travel to the past to steal the remote control before it was broken and bring it back to the present. But as soon as they step back one day, they run into problems beyond their control.

While Daigo, Niimi and Shunsuke go back in time to retrieve the remote. The strange guy is revealed to be Tamura who is a member of the sci-fi 25 years in the future. Tamura gets sent to the past the same way Sago was coerced onto the machine. The remaining members, Haruka, Sago, Yui, and Takuma take Tamura on a tour of the past. While on the tour they encounter their club adviser, Professor Kohtaro Hozumi, who explains that changing the past results in the grandfather paradox and would cause the universe to vanish. Realizing this the remaining club members rush back to ensure that the Daigo, Niimi, and Shunsuke do not change the past. Daigo and Shunsuke gets sent back to the present but they return shortly with Tamura after being informed about the situation. They find the time machine waiting for them when they get back to the club room. Sago and Takuma go to the past and prevent the trio from changing the past. In the process Sago wraps the remote in tape and gets transported to 99 years into the past to prevent the caretaker from discovering the time machine. The school being originally a swarm, Sago almost drowns before returning to the present. The past villagers mistaken him as a Kappa and Kappas becomes integral to the town culture. Sago also loses the remote 99 years in the past.

Takuma finds Niimi at the bathhouse and in a twist it is revealed that Niimi himself took the shampoo. With the remote missing Tamura goes into his future to retrieve the future's remote so that the past won't be altered. Everyone gets on the time machine but the machine is too small and Takuma gets knocked off. Takuma deceive the past club members who mistakenly believe that he has a girlfriend due to a voice message Takuma sent to the "present Sago" which "past Sago" received. Takuma distracts the club members but before he can leave his past self enters the club room. With no other options Takuma hides in the club room locker. The present club members return and notice that Takuma is not with them, but Takuma is already in the present having spent the whole day in the locker. A dog digs up a remote which is revealed to have survived for 99 years in mud and the remote still works. Tamura returns to his present but forgets his camera. When he returns for it he says that it belonged to his mother and Takuma and Yui note that Haruka also possess a similar camera. When they met, Tamura notes that his mother also attended this college. Takuma and Yui deduce that Tamura is the son of future Haruka.

Professor Kohtaro Hozumi is inspired by these events to build a time machine which might explain the time machine's origins since Tamura and his club members also did not know the machine's origins.

Since Takuma's girlfriend was revealed a lie, Haruka agrees to go on a date with Takuma. Takuma wonders how he can change his name (presumably to Tamura).

The 50th NHK Taiga drama is Gou. The story focuses on the life of Gou, a wife of the second Tokugawa shogun Hidetada. Gou was the third daughter of the daimyo Azai Nagamasa, who was married to the sister of Oda Nobunaga. One of Gou's older sisters was the wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, while the other married the daimyo Kyogoku Takatsugu

Megumi Noda, or "Nodame" is a piano student at Momogaoka College of Music. An extremely talented pianist who wants to be a kindergarten teacher, she prefers playing by ear rather than reading the music score. She is messy and disorganized, takes baths several days apart and loves to eat, sometimes stealing her friend’s lunchbox when it is filled with delicacies. Shinichi Chiaki, is Momogaoka’s top student. Born into a musical family, he is talented in piano and violin and has secret ambitions to become a conductor. An arrogant multi-lingual perfectionist who once lived abroad in the music capitals of the world as a young boy, he feels mired in Japan because of a childhood phobia. They meet by accident. Nodame quickly falls in love, but it takes much longer for Chiaki to even begin to appreciate Nodame’s unusual qualities. Their relationship causes them both to develop and grow. Because of Nodame, Chiaki got the opportunity to lead a student orchestra and begins to have a broader appreciation of people's musical abilities. Because of Chiaki, Nodame faces her fears and enters a piano competition. Opportunities open up as both begin taking risks, stretching themselves far more than they ever thought possible.

Mizuno Asumi is a doctor at the University Hospital. Her only objective in life is to avenge the death of her father, a death caused by immoral and negligent doctors. She wants to reveal to the world their mistakes and corrupt behaviors, with the hope of preventing them from furthering their practise as doctors.

Last Friends tackles issues that afflict the current generation. Michiru's mother has brought a man back to their home and she is bullied at her workplace where she works as a beauty parlour assistant. She starts cohabiting with her boyfriend, a good young man who works at the Child Welfare Division and the only person who can give her emotional support, but ends up the victim of domestic violence and becomes fearful of love. The boyishly charming Ruka was a classmate of Michiru's in junior high school. She has performed brilliantly as a motocross racer and aims to win the national championship, but as the story progresses, a deep worry that she can neither confide in her parents or close friends grows evident. Takeru is a hair and makeup artist acquainted with Ruka. He is a good confidant to females due to his kindness and perceptiveness, and finds himself attracted to Ruka but has a phobia of sex as a result of a past trauma. The three of them become house mates and through their associations with others, gain the capacity to be positive about life.

While on a fishing boat, Naoko is captivated by a boy running along the shore. Tragedy hits when Naoko falls off the boat and the captain of the ship, the boy’s father, dies saving her from drowning. Six years later Naoki meets Yusuke, now an elite runner, at a marathon competition and reintroduces herself. Later, when the opportunity to become co-manager of Yusuke’s team presents itself, Naoko takes it. Yusuke resents Naoko's presence, but slowly they embark on a journey of forgiveness and healing their sorrows from the past.

Koji Namiki, a talented young pitcher, who had won the National High School Baseball Championships enters university, but soon afterwards injures his elbow. He and his teammates work hard to get back on the field placing all his hopes on a new slow-ball, "the magic pitch." However, the outbreak of WWII wipes out the baseball ambitions from everyone. They join the military and in the navy undergo the severe training that prepares them for death. Death awaits them in a "kaiten" (special attack submarine or "human torpedo") within the gloomy ocean depths, but Koji never gives up his dream of the "magic pitch."