Owing presumably to TV viewers' dwindling attention spans, drama series are becoming shorter. This week, Fuji TV presents a four-part dramatization of an award-winning novel over the course of four consecutive nights rather than four consecutive weeks.
"Isshun no Kaze ni Nare (Become the Wind in a Moment)" (Monday to Thursday, 11 p.m.) won the 2007 Bookstore Association's Grand Prize as well as the 28th Annual Eiji Yoshikawa Cultural Prize for New Writers. Idol singer Hiroki Uchi plays Shinji, whose older brother is a star high-school soccer player and Shinji's hero. However, when Shinji himself enters high school, he decides to follow a different path, and joins the track-and-field team. He becomes particularly obsessed with the 400-meter relay race.
Uchi's participation has already attracted interest in the series because it is his first acting job following a lengthy suspension by his management company after he was caught drinking as a minor more than a year ago.