Fuji TV pretty much has the Monday night, 9 p.m. time slot all to itself. Traditionally, the network has saved its hottest "trendy" dramas for this time period, and whenever it has a series starring perennial heartthrob Takuya Kimura, who recently topped a magazine's annual poll for the "celebrity you most want to sleep with" for the 12th year in a row, it gets the "getsukyu (Monday-nine)" treatment.
This week, Fuji fills the slot with the premiere of Kimutaku's latest series, "Engine." The SMAP star plays Jiro, a professional racing driver who has spent five years in Europe on the Formula 3000 circuit. As with all Kimura characters, Jiro has a short fuse, and after getting into a fight with his teammates he's fired.
He decides to return to Japan to see if he can get a racing gig there, and goes to see Inchinose (Shigeru Izumi), the leader of his old racing team. While waiting for an answer he hangs out at home, which happens to be an orphanage run by his father. At the moment 12 kids with various problems are living in the orphanage, and Jiro can't help but get involved.