When studios in Japan suspended production of new programming due to concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic this past spring, TV stations turned to nostalgia to fill the suddenly vacant spaces on their nightly schedules. Reruns of dramas, in particular, proved successful, whether they were from a few years ago (“The Full-Time Wife Escapist,” 2016) or a decade back (“Jin,” 2009 to 2011). What better way to take a break from the terrors of 2020 than to slip into an idealized, scripted past.
This trend is continuing into autumn, and one new series is returning to the peak days of America’s “war on terror.”
“24 Japan,” which debuted on Oct. 9, airs on TV Asahi every Friday night at 11:15 p.m. Episodes are available on the streaming platform AbeMa TV as well. The show is based on (though, “nearly replicating” might be a better way to put it) “24,” the action-packed counterterrorism series that started its run in the fall of 2001 and became one of the defining American shows of George W. Bush’s presidency.