One of the best things to come out of the rise of streaming websites overseas has been an increase in productions that have featured great roles for women. This year alone we've seen some phenomenal acting from Elisabeth Moss on "The Handmaid's Tale" and powerful ensembles on Netflix's "Orange is ...
It's Monday night and the newly opened Brew La La craft beer bar in Tokyo's Shinbashi neighborhood is hopping. As ...
For fans of the ikemen (handsome dude), Wowow's new mini-series "Akira and Akira" is like manna from heaven. Kicking off ...
Vampires have been a staple of Western pop culture since Bram Stoker published his best-selling novel "Dracula" in 1897. The hit "Twilight" series of films (2008-12) made the monsters hot again as millions of teens swooned to the romance of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and ...
A newly compiled DVD features a dramatic re-enactment of how police coerced a man during interrogation in 1963 to confess to the murder of a 16-year-old high school girl in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture. The drama was based on the actual audio recordings of the police ...
There comes a moment of truth in every episode of reality-dating series "The Bachelor" when the handsome and wealthy bachelor must eliminate at least one of the 25 women vying for his affection during a "rose ceremony." In "The Bachelor Japan," the series' first rose ...
In the first episode of Japan's latest contribution to original Netflix programming, "Samurai Gourmet," Takeshi Kasumi enters a small teishoku (set meal) joint and grapples over whether to have a beer with lunch. Inspired by an imaginary samurai, he gets one. That's it. For viewers ...
As consumers move away from regular terrestrial TV toward online video content, it appears that the domestic TV industry itself needs to undergo its own paradigm shift.
What does it actually mean to be connected? To be unique and young in the country's biggest city? A new, self-proclaimed "neo documentary" on Amazon Prime Japan titled "Invisible Tokyo" has taken up the task to answer these ever-evolving questions. "Tokyo has a unique culture ...
Now that school is out summer is officially here, and NHK celebrates with a dramatization of Mitsuyo Tsunoda's novel, "Kidnap Tour" (NHK-G, Tues., 7:30 p.m.). Fifth-grader Haru (Hana Toyoshima) is about to enjoy her summer vacation when her father, Takashi (Satoshi Tsumabuki), shows up unexpectedly. ...
Thanks mainly to a first-person "biography" written by former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, there is renewed interest in disgraced former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. NHK is presenting a series of special programs, some of which are dramatizations, about the scandal that brought Tanaka down: ...
Ultraman has been defending humanity against monsters and aliens for half a century. We examine the superhero's enduring legacy.
Based on a true story, the new drama series "Aogeba Totoshi" ("Graduation Song"; TBS, Sun., 9 p.m.) takes place at a high school in Kanagawa Prefecture in the 1980s. Akira Terao plays Hikuma, a saxophone player who has lost his zest for life after an ...
Love vs. career is the theme of the new drama series "Seisei Suru Hodo Aishite Iru" ("I Absolutely Love You"; TBS, Tues., 10 p.m.), which is based on a popular manga. Saki Takei plays Mia, who is employed in the public-relations department of a company ...
Ryoko Yonekura returns as the genius freelance surgeon Dr. Michiko Daimon in a special two-hour installment of "Doctor X" (TV Asahi, Sun., 9 p.m.). Michiko happens to be in Kanazawa when national politician Aiko Ichinose (Kayako Kishimoto) collapses on the street after an intimate interlude ...
