Television Dramas

Looking beyond the Pandemic
Ota Shoichi

New Endeavors Amid a Return to Origins
One trend among the television dramas of 2022 was a return to origins.
Take NHK’s serial drama Come Come Everybody (Kamu kamu evuribadi).
Some 90% of the many serial dramas NHK has broadcast since 1961 have featured a female protagonist, and early series in particular often told the life storyof a woman who had experienced war. Come Come Everybody implicitly
acknowledged these origins of the “morning drama” as a form.
However, it also demonstrated innovation in following three generations of109

mothers and daughters instead of a single heroine. Combined with the masterfulforeshadowing and payoff of scriptwriter Fujimoto Yuki, this created a serial
drama of a type that is seldom seen—a tale of intertwined fates that spanned afull century and stirred genuine emotion in viewers (48th Hoso Bunka Foundation Prize: Incentive Award―Program, Television Drama, Scriptwriting
Award—Fujimoto Yuki; Tokyo Drama Awards 2022: Series Drama Award forExcellence, Best Supporting Actor—Odagiri Joe, Scriptwriting Award—FujimotoYuki; 60th Galaxy Awards: Award—Television, first half of year).
Skilled depictions of complex interpersonal relationships were also on
display in The 13 Lords of the Shogun (Kamakura-dono no jusan-nin), this year’s
taiga drama. NHK’s taiga dramas have brought the lives of warriors and otherfigures from Japanese history to the screen since 1963. For this entry in the series,
Mitani Koki’s screenplay stayed true to the recorded facts of history while fillingin the blanks with flights of imagination, spinning a rich human drama aroundthe struggle for supremacy that is the origin of the taiga drama form.
Making protagonist Hojo Yoshitoki (Oguri Shun) a cold and calculating
Theatre in Japan

Theatre Yearbook 2023

TELEVISION DRAMAS

antihero rather than the often-seen idealistic dreamer also added a fresh touch.
The superb pacing, with comical scenes woven seamlessly into the series of historical tragedies, heightened the sense of maturity, demonstrating a terminus adquem of the “Mitani screenplay.”
What these works shared in common was an attempt to find new possibilities for drama amid a return to origins. In their approach to this, they threw thecurrent realities of Japanese society into relief. Indeed, the intent to recapture theeveryday that is the point of origin for our lives, and discover new drama there,
was another commonality shared by some the finest works of 2022.

Crime Shown as Continuous with the Everyday
That intent was readily visible, for example, in dramas that depicted the relationship between crime and everyday life. When an extraordinary event like crimerears its head amid what had seemed to be a peaceful everyday existence, whatdrama can be found there? Works posing this question to their viewers attracted
110

attention in 2022. This facet was visible in dramas like the much-discussed Don’t
Call It Mystery (Misuteri to iu nakare) (Fuji TV) starring Suda Masaki, but I will
discuss two in particular here.
The first was Ishiko and Haneo: You’re Suing Me? (Ishiko to Haneo: Sonnakoto de uttaemasu?) (TBS) in which a lawyer and a paralegal (Nakamura Tomoyaand Arimura Kasumi, respectively) buddied up to explore the unexpected
human dramas behind the cases handled by their legal office. Clients arrived
with minor issues that could arise anywhere, such as disagreements over in-app
fees for smartphone games, but as our heroes traced the threads toward resolution, hidden snarls in relationships and surprising motives on the part of theparties involved came to the surface. This was an appealing work, further elevated by Tsukahara Ayuko’s refined direction (60th Galaxy Awards: Incentive
Award―Television, first half of year).
By contrast, the central crime in Love with a Case (Hatsukoi no akuma,NTV) was a string of gruesome murders. This heightened the contrast with theeveryday life woven by the four highly individual actors Hayashi Kento, Nakano
Taiga, Matsuoka Mayu, and Emoto Tasuku, which contained all the romanceand friendship of a coming-of-age tale. However, these two worlds were not separated but existed on a continuum. This drama’s Japanese title literally means “thedemon of first love,” and it did indeed contain both of those elements. Sakamoto
Yuji’s screenplay was fresh as always, with memorable lines and exchanges thatbound together these two worlds representing opposite extremes.

A Drama Urging Self-Reflection by the Television Industry
One work that sought to depict the relationship between society and crime froma slightly different angle was Elpis: Hope or Disaster (Erupisu: Kibo, arui wa
wazawai, Kansai TV).
When television news announcer Asakawa Ena (Nagasawa Masami) learns
that a prisoner sentenced to death for serial murder may have been falsely convicted, she starts working on the story with her director Kishimoto Takuro(Maeda Gordon). The two uncover new evidence and draw nearer to the truth
but are frustrated by political pressure and their network’s eagerness to comply
with the unspoken demands of the powerful.

111

It is extremely rare for a prime-time commercial television drama to takethe problems of the judicial system as its theme. In doing so, while also putting
television news reporting and even television itself on the chopping block, Elpis
felt fresh and razor-sharp. It demonstrated a perspective that urges criticalself-reflection by the television industry and, and posed a sincere question: “Howdeeply can drama delve into the contradictions and problems of society?”
Critical to the realization of this vision was, I gather, the role of SanoAyumi, who was also producer of Teen Regime (Junanasai no teikoku, NHK)
(60th Galaxy Awards: Incentive Award—Television, first half of year), in whicha seventeen-year-old boy chosen by AI struggles to become the ideal politician
to reverse the decline of a regional city in a waning near-future Japan. Watanabe
Aya’s screenplay for Elpis skillfully blends in the romance between Asakawa andpolitical reporter Saito Seiichi (Suzuki Ryohei) and entertaining elements like
Kishimoto’s development beyond his sheltered upbringing, creating a social suspense drama that was more than rewarding.
Elpis surely created a stir in the world of television dramas, where
Theatre in Japan

Theatre Yearbook 2023

TELEVISION DRAMAS

stereotyped works that seek solely to entertain constitute the mainstream. It wasa deeply meaningful attempt to broaden the possibilities of the form.

Coming to Terms with the Pandemic
Years after the initial outbreak, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shake oureveryday life to the core. This naturally raises the question of how television
dramas are addressing the pandemic as a kind of “extraordinary turnedeveryday.”
Ultimately, however, dramas have tended to avoid facing that question
directly. Admittedly, there have been “remote dramas” in which actors and staff
avoided close contact by filming separate segments that were edited into a unified
story. Some of these works were superb. But most television dramas only reflected
the impact of COVID-19 on our lives at the most superficial level.
By contrast, Your Stuff Is Here (Anata no butsu ga, koko ni, NHK) was awork that fixed its gaze directly on the question of what the pandemic means for112

our lives.
Nimura Sawa plays the protagonist, a single mother who works at a cabaret
club. When she loses that job due to the pandemic, she finds new work as a delivery driver. Having no existing connection to this industry, her unfamiliar new
duties cause her difficulties and lower her spirits.
Your Stuff Is Here vividly depicted other aspects of daily life that have beenchanged or exacerbated by the pandemic. The okonomiyaki restaurant owned by
the protagonist’s parents found itself in straitened circumstances as customers
stopped coming. The delivery recipients around the city faced difficulties too.
One had work cancelled due to COVID-19. Another treated the protagonist andother delivery drivers coldly, refusing even to meet them in the entranceway outof fear she would transmit the disease to her unwell husband.
The program showed how the pandemic creates a despairing sense of being
trapped at every turn. However, as the protagonist interacted with her colleagues
and clients—sometimes clashing with them, sometimes solving problems
together—she found her own salvation. In short, this was a drama about people
isolated by the pandemic gradually reclaiming the human connections they had

before (60th Galaxy Awards: Award―Television, first half of year).

The Essence of Communication
Another television drama that made us rethink this meaning of “connection”—
or, put another way, what communication is—was silent (Fuji TV). silent is thestory of a love affair between its two young protagonists, but at its root lie universal questions transcending the romantic frame: What does it mean for twopeople to communicate? What is it to understand each other?
Aoba Tsumugi (Kawaguchi Haruna) and Sakura So (Meguro Ren) had arelationship in high school before becoming estranged from each other. Whenthey encounter each other again years later, So has become hearing-impaired dueto illness. Tsumugi and So, however, are not the absolute center of the story; thework placed great emphasis on depicting their relationships with the friends andfamily around them, including a woman who has had a hearing disability frombirth, played by Kaho. At times, these characters were presented in as muchdetail as the lead protagonists.

113

This approach brings the diversity of communication into view. Instead of asimple “hearing/not hearing” opposition, So lost his hearing partway through lifeand knows both worlds. Characters interact with each other using a range ofmethods, including spoken, sign, and written language. Naturally, this brings
complications, making life difficult and communication challenging at times. On
the other hand, the moments when those barriers are surmounted and mutual
understanding is achieved give hope to carry on. What this work teaches us is theuniversal essence of communication—the fact that it goes both ways.
It is suggestive that a work like silent appeared in 2022 amid the ongoingpandemic. While it does not address COVID-19 directly, its story does feel like ametaphor for a future world in which we put pandemic-induced isolation behind
us and move toward becoming a continuum once more. What can be read fromthis is a vision of a post-COVID age—a gaze that looks beyond the pandemic.

In Closing
This year also saw many other worthy dramas, including The Two Who Do
Theatre in Japan

Theatre Yearbook 2023

TELEVISION DRAMAS

Not Love (Koi senu futari, NHK), which explored different ways to be a family
through the shared life of an aromantic and asexual couple; Shizuka and Papa
(Shizuka-chan to Papa, NHK), a domestic comedy about a deaf single father
and his daughter, who has always helped him with communication, learning tolet each other go as she prepares to marry; Lost Man Found (Hirowareta otoko,NHK), a biographical drama about real-life actor Matsuo Satoru in whichsome of the actors in his story are played by themselves; If My Wife Became an
Elementary Student (Tsuma, shogakusei ni naru, TBS) in which a widowed
husband and his daughter are visited by his late wife, who has borrowed the bodyof an elementary student; and Hey, Handsome!! (Oi hansamu!!, Tokai TV), a
domestic drama about the day-to-day life of a cantankerous father and his threedaughters who have terrible taste in men.
In 2022, the relationship between television dramas and social media also
became a topic of discussion. Viewers took to social media to discuss their “interpretations” of works, and trending “review and evaluation meeting” tags brought
114

together doubts about how characters were depicted or stories were progressing.
This is certainly a valid way to enjoy the genre. On the other hand, I hope we canalso recall how many television dramas like the ones described above werecreated this year—works that moved us deeply and afforded realizations thatcannot be put into words.
Ota, Shoichi
Sociologist and writer. Writes on topics including television and postwar Japan, comedy,idols, and dramas. His books include An Almost Complete History of Writers for Broadcast (Hososakka hobo zenshi, Seikaisha Shinsho, 2022), On Mizutani Yutaka (Mizutani Yutaka-ron, Seidosha,2021), Provocative TV Tokyo, Lovable TV Tokyo (Semeteru Tele-To, ai sareru Tele-To, University ofTokyo Press, 2019), and Kohaku Uta Gassen and the Japanese People (Kohaku Uta Gassen toNihonjin, Chikuma Sensho, 2013). committee member for the television category of theAssociation of Broadcast Critics’ Galaxy Awards.
(Translation: Matt Treyvaud)