One of the most common themes in Japanese drama is the battle between yome and shutome -- brides and mothers-in-law. The new Nippon TV comedy series, "Honke no Yome (Bride of the Main House)" (Monday, 10 p.m.), stretches this concept by using a grandmother-in-law and updates the overall theme for an international era by making the bride a foreigner. In fact, the series is also being broadcast in Taiwan, the native land of singer Vivian Hsu, who plays Nozomi, the bride in question.

Nozomi, however, isn't completely a gaijin. Her father is Japanese. He met Nozomi's mother (Judy Ong) when he was stationed in New York on business, and that is where Nozomi was raised. Her parents, in fact, still live there, but Nozomi, who is trilingual, took a job in Taiwan working for a Chinese-language magazine. There she met and fell in love with Shinji Yamada (Shunsuke Nakamura), a transfer employee for a Japanese trading company.

Six months after they marry, however, Shinji's older brother and his wife flee the Yamada household back in Tokyo, and Shinji is summoned home to take up his familial responsibility as the de facto eldest grandson of the imposing Yamada clan.