Next month, Fuji TV will launch another batch of up-to-the-minute trendy drama series. Among them is one called "Koi ni Ochitara/Boku no Seiko no Himitsu (Falling in Love/The Secret of My Success)" starring SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as a young man who, after his small family-run factory goes bankrupt, becomes a money-making firebrand in a hip IT company.
Actually, the original title was "Hills ni Koishite," which translates as "Loving the Hills," the "Hills" being Roppongi Hills. However, according to the weekly magazine Aera, Fuji TV's publicity department says that the producers have now decided to stress romance, and that when they initially called it "Hills" before they actually wanted people to think of Beverly Hills, despite the fact that the drama really does take place in Roppongi Hills.
This PR tweaking fooled nobody. It will be obvious to anyone who tunes in that the series was inspired, at least in part, by Taka- fumi Horie, the president of the Internet service provider Livedoor, whose headquarters is Roppongi Hills. And it's also apparent that, prior to Horie's bid to buy controlling shares in Nippon Broadcasting System, which holds Fuji TV stock, the network was going to try its best to link the show in people's minds to the Horie brand name.