Asian Drama

Fifty-year-old Yuria has a quiet life teaching embroidery classes in her home, where she lives with her writer husband and his mother. Then one day her world is turned upside down when husband has a subarachnoid hemorrhage and upon arriving at the hospital, Yuria is met by a tearful young man who announces that he is her husband's lover.

(Source: MangaUpdates)

Adapted from the manga series "Yuria Sensei no Akai Ito" (ゆりあ先生の赤い糸) by Irie Kiwa (入江喜和).

Episodes: 10

"Ooku" is the story of the picturesque lives of the women living in the hidden, maze-like inner structure of Edo Castle. Inside, the women wielded their beauty and knowledge: some of them to win the Shogun's love, obtain political power, or to climb the ladder of the Ooku hierarchy. Their lives were filled with romance, hatred, anger, envy, tears, and persecution. Of the three-century history of the Tokugawa Ooku, this drama focuses on the last several years. It tells the story of the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Ooku, and also the lives of the women who lived through these times.

Three mothers have sons with the same name of Yu Ishibashi and they are all 10 years old.

In Kanagawa, Ishibashi Rumiko is 43-years-old and she works as a freelance writer. She is married to Yutaka, who works as a freelance cameraman. They have a 10 year old son Yu.

In Osaka, Ishibashi Kana is a 30-year-old single mother. After her divorce, she has worked part-time jobs and raises her 10-year-old son Yu alone.

In Shizuoka, Ishibashi Asumi is a 36-year-old housewife. She is married to Taichi and they have a 10-year-old son Yu. Her husband works as a salaryman.

These 3 women are happy and busy raising their boys named Yu. Due to some little thing, their lives fall apart. Their anger and anxiety unconsciously head towards their sons Yu.

Adapted from a novel of the same name.

Aoi Minase is in her 40's. She works as a popular writer of romance novels. She is also a single mother, who raised her daughter alone. Her daughter is now 20-years-old. Due to Aoi Minase's success as a romance novelist, Aoi lives with her daughter in an upscale high-rise apartment building. Aoi is worried about her daughter. Her daughter doesn't have a boyfriend. Aoi Minase believes this is because her daughter is an otaku, who enjoys manga and cosplay. Her daughter does want to fall in love.

Meanwhile, Aoi’s daughter is worried about her mother. Her mother has a girl like sensibility and oblivious to the ways of the world. Somehow, Aoi and her daughter decide to meet someone to fall in love with.

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.

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?

Yohei is a middle school teacher married to Miyoko. For the first time in 25 years, they begin to live by themselves after their son marries and moves out. One day, Yohei finds divorce papers which Miyoko keeps hidden, but he doesn't have the courage to ask her about it and agonizes over the papers. His involvement with students and associate in a cooking class, allows Yohei to recognize the concept of an ideal family. He takes new first steps with Miyoko.

The 95th NHK Asadora is about Sumire, a girl born in the uptown of Kobe in the early Showa period. In the wake of wartime devastation, she works hard toward making children's clothes for a living, and later establishes a first-ever children's goods store in Japan. -- NHK

Dolls is a film about Japanese doll theater and a human love story illustrated through beautiful imagery. This film is a lot more sensitive than most Kitano films.

A pet groomer at a salon in Shirogane, Nogami Meiko has a lot of celebrity dog-lovers as customers. She cheerfully serves customers with care, and her skills are tried and tested. The salon's owner, Kotomi, has a strong faith in her, and she is admired by her colleagues. Meiko leads a quiet and fulfilling life… however, there is another side to her. She has a plan for revenge that she must accomplish. In truth, when she was 19, she was imprisoned for murder but there was also another side to this case. And just as she's about to execute her plan, she meets a man named Mashima Takuro. She acts mysteriously around him and for some reason, he makes her feel better. Is he the only miscalculation to her? Or a reckoning?

The story takes place during Japan's tumultuous 19th century Meiji Period and is told through the military officers and brothers, Akiyama Yoshifuru and Akiyama Saneyuki and the poet Masaoka Shiki who used their ingenuity to fight an uphill battle during the Russo-Japanese War.

Matsukata Hiroko is a super busy magazine editor. Just like any other 28-year-old woman, she enjoys going on dates with her boyfriend, fashion and her private life. But once she turns her switch into working mode, she sacrifices all that and dedicates her life to her job. That's when her colleagues refer to her as the Hataraki Man (working man). Her success at work however doesn't give her total satisfaction.

At first glance Haruse Kiina is a completely normal 29-year-old. However, Kiina is the head of a special investigation unit nicknamed "Beppan" which deals with strange cases. With an unorthodox approach to solving crimes, she draws on her exceptional memory and powers of observation, and gets so absorbed in the pursuit of these cases that she forgets to eat or sleep til she solves the mystery. One of the show's selling points is that its mysteries are based on difficult real-life cases.

According to a national census, the number of unmarried women between the age of 30 to 40 has been increasing and is now at the highest. Compared to 10 years ago, the rate of unmarried women have increased by 6.7% and 8.5% for woman in their early 30’s and late 30’s, respectively. Why are they not getting married? The women appearing in this drama are unmarried for various reasons including, they have high expectations, are not able to be themselves in front of men, become attracted to losers, think being single is much more easier, or they think men are unreliable. They’re almost about to lose all hope, however, it’s not that they don’t want to get married, it’s just... things just don’t work out, they don’t know if they’re getting married for themselves or to please others, or they question whether there really is a reason to get married. This drama will realistically portray the trials and tribulations of love, friendship, and work of these women. ~ Fuji TV

Akinori Kimura (Sadao Abe) and his wife Mieko (Miho Kanno) opens an apple orchard in their hometown of Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture. Due to Meiko's allergic reaction to pesticides, Akinori Kimura has to grow his apples without the aid of chemicals. Because of this challenge, his family endures hardships and suffers severe financial difficulties. Akinori Kimura even contemplates suicide. A miracle then happens ....

The story will focus on a love triangle between the three leads. Eikura plays the role of Morimoto Naoko, a girl from the countryside whose first love is her uncle, Ikezawa Masato (ARATA). She follows after him to Tokyo by getting admitted into an elite medical university, but there she runs into Masato's girlfriend and colleague Aya (Kanno), a beautiful and intelligent researcher who is the daughter of the university hospital's director. However, things get complicated after Naoko and Masato meet again.

Ogiwara Saki, 33, is a woman who does not go with the flow of society but forges her own path. She hates flattering men and trying to be nice to people of the same sex. She has failed the bar exam ten times in a row but persists in her dream of being a lawyer while working as a clerk at a law firm. Saki's good friend, Osabe Riko, who is a mother of two children, was high school classmates with Saki, but is in fact 35, because she had deliberately declared herself to be two years younger. She has no qualms of lying for the sake of female happiness, pretending to be married to a man of wealth and blessed with children. Because her personality is the exact opposite, this accentuates Saki's uncompromising way of life.

Tamako, an elite lawyer with a promising future, works for a reputable law firm. She is recently given an opportunity to take a case involving a young child who has been bullied at a local elementary school. Fully aware of the difficulties uncovering the truth in cases involving schools, Tamako is reluctant to proceed with her new client. Tamako is romantically involved with one of her colleagues, Naoyuki, and is hoping to further develop their relationship. However, Tamako's seemingly happy life comes to a sudden halt when she learns the news of an accident involving a young female high school student named Asuka. Asuka had apparently fallen from a classroom window on campus and suffered serious injuries. Tamako takes a strong interest in Asuka's case and immediately launches her own private investigation.

"100 Tales of Horror" is the follow-up to "Onmyoji Abe no Seimei" in the Tuesday night "Super Jidaigeki" time slot. Computer graphics and special effects bring a new face to these stories of horror that have been told for many years.

The 64th NHK Asadora Renzoku Drama is Churasan, a story of a young woman, Kohagura Eri, who was born in Kohamajima Island, Okinawa on May 15, 1972, the day when Okinawa was returned to Japan from the U.S. Eleven years later, Kamimura Shizuko and her two sons, Kazuya and Fumiya, come from Tokyo to stay as the guests of a small inn run by Eri’s family. Eri’s fun-loving, yet eccentric family welcomes them warmly.

However, Eri is shocked to hear one of the sons, Kazuya is terminally ill and Shizuko and her sons came to Okinawa to spend his last moment together in beautiful nature. Fumiya, Kazuya’s younger brother, and Eri promise to marry each other someday. However, after Kazuya’s death, Fumiya and his mother leave the island to go back to Tokyo. Years later, they are reunited, Eri as a nurse and Fumiya, a doctor, working at the same hospital in Tokyo.

The story's settings include Okinawa, Naha, and Tokyo.

In 30th Television Academy Awards, the Drama won awards for Best Scriptwriter, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress.

Three apparently unrelated suicides occur on the same day in Tokyo. One involves a young athlete, one a groom at his wedding reception, and the third an elderly man celebrating his wife's birthday. A middle aged detective investigating one of the cases begins to suspect a connection between the three when he discovers that each person mentioned a "green monkey" before they died. With the help of a young psychiatrist he formulates the theory that hypnosis is somehow involved. In the mean time other bizarre "suicides" are reported and the mystery intensifies. Who will be next? What is the truth? Can more deaths be prevented? Written by Infofreak.

"Falling into the Evening" tells the story of a young woman’s confusion when her boyfriend starts a relationship with another. Rica and Kengo have been living together for the past four years. It’s been a very happy time for Rica; the only dark spot being an accident she caused during a shoot for a commercial in which Kengo’s good friend, Shibata, nearly lost his life. The memory of this event weighs heavily on Rica’s conscience. One night Kengo tells Rica that he has fallen in love with a charming but „inscrutable“ woman named Hanako. Kengo moves out of their apartment and, although Rica is terribly hurt and confused, she cannot bring herself to hate Kengo. Nevertheless, she suffers a great deal as a result of their separation. She cannot believe her eyes when Hanako suddenly appears at her door, but this is not nearly as baffling as when Kengo also turns up at Rica’s apartment looking for his new lover. For a while this threesome co-habit in a kind of Ménage à trois, but then Hanako starts staying away for nights on end – without telling either of them where she goes. Kengo soon tires of the situation; Rica, however, decides to find out what’s going on once and for all.

This drama is an adaptation of the manga by Junko Karube about a deaf woman and her struggles with love, family and everyday life.

This is made of 5 special episodes, aired one per year.

After graduating from college, Yuuji lands the job of his dreams at the company that manufactures his favorite running shoes. The complete sincerity and selflessness that Yuuji shows everyone he meets causes many to dismiss him as naive or simply stupid. But when his good deeds start paying off, his co-workers begin to come around to the idea that nice guys don't have to finish last.Theme song: Serori (Celery) by SMAP, adapted from manga "Ii Hito " by TAKAHASHI Shin.