Asian Drama

N/A

Episodes: 7

Duration: 43 min.

Aired On: Friday

A long time ago, the Earth was plagued by the Demon King Beasts, monsters that wreaked havoc across the globe until the Ultra Warriors sealed them.

Time passes...

To protect the Earth from the revival of Demon King Beasts, Ultraman Orb descended from beyond the galaxy, taking the form of young traveler Gai Kurenai. In order to defeat the resurrected Demon King Beasts, Gai utilizes the Orb Ring and a pair of Ultra Fusion Cards.

Tomonaga Ranmaru, Kamekanbo Hikaru and Miyazawa Kanji, who happened to meet through a strange turn of events, ride in a car to eat and sleep at hot spring inns as they journey across Japan in search of an enigmatic hot spring geisha called Miyabi.

Hasumi Kayoko, the rookie investigator at the all-female Hasumi Detective Agency, always observes people and cases in a level-headed manner. She detests lies and secrets and has a strong sense of justice. Her late father worked at the city news desk of a newspaper but committed suicide 7 years ago. However, the truth lies in darkness and Kayoko’s mother, Kyoko, the agency’s director, has been secretly pursuing the facts. An incident becomes the catalyst that entwines Kayoko and the people around her, and she closes in on the truth behind her father’s death.

Kanbe Takeru chooses to remain in the Special Missions Division, but he seems to continue to keep a distance from his direct superior, Sugishita Ukyo. One day, the dead body of the popular female novelist, Mizumoto Shoko, is found in her own home. The possibility of murder fuelled by a grudge is high from the situation at the crime scene, and a male stalker emerges in the line of investigation. However, Ukyo focuses his attention on a missing section from a document package for a new book that Shoko was working on. It is eventually determined that Shoko was attempting to write a novel with an environmental theme which is completely different from her style of writing so far. Ukyo and Kanbe try to get information from the employees at a trading conglomerate that Shoko had interviewed.

Some 400,000,000 years after an advanced human civilization was destroyed by aliens, 12 direct descendants of the civilization's warriors (called "Sazers") have their powers awakened and form four tribes: Flame, Wind, Earth and Water. Each Sazer is based on a Zodiac sign represented in an animal totem or spirit representation. At first, they wage war on each other, but after learning the truth of their ancestry and their reason for awakening, the Gransazer tribes unite to protect Earth from the Warp Monarch, an alliance of various alien species, from once again extinguishing all life on the planet.

The series featured many firsts for the franchise, including the start of the story in a movie rather than the series proper. Ultraman Cosmos: The First Contact was the prequel to the series and took place ten years before episode 1. In it, 9-year-old Musashi Haruno encounters the being of light, Ultraman Cosmos, and befriends him as the two confront a threat to Earth.

Ten years later, Musashi, now 19 and a member of Team EYES, once again encounters the being of light from his childhood. The dark being Chaos Header has appeared and is corrupting the monsters of Earth, making them become ravenous and violent creatures that threaten humanity. Through Musashi's will to see the beasts and humans live in peace, Cosmos grants him a new power that will allow him to heal the corrupted creatures.

The 35th NHK Taiga Drama is Hideyoshi, the story of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, a daimyo warrior, general and politician of the Sengoku period He unified the political factions of Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, named after Hideyoshi's castle. He is noted for a number of cultural legacies, including the restriction that only members of the samurai class could bear arms. Hideyoshi is regarded as Japan's second "great unifier".

The drama won 11th Television Drama Academy Awards (1996-Dec-20) for best drama.