Members of the idol collective AKB48 are now participating in a serial drama that runs nine consecutive nights on Nihon TV. "Sakura Kara no Tegami" ("Letter From a Cherry Tree"; nightly through Mar. 6, 11:58 p.m.) contains 17 intertwined story lines built upon the theme of graduation. Each night, threads of three or four of the stories are presented.
Monday is night No. 3, and introduces a story line titled "Mayu no Kiken no Yujo" ("Mayu's Dangerous Friendship"). High school students Mayu (Mayu Watanabe) and Sae (Sae Miyazawa) are best friends forever. They do everything together, and have no interest in boys, or at least that is what they say until Sae falls in love with a fellow fourth-year student and declares him her boyfriend. Ayu can't understand why Sae is avoiding her now.
Tokyo is built on landfill. Before people started living in the areas west of what is now called Tokyo Bay, the topography of those areas was highland promontories interlaced with marshy valleys. When population centers materialized during the Edo Period (1603-1868), people lived on higher pieces of land and threw their refuse into the lowlands. The city basically expanded on garbage.