Novelist Toyoko Yamazaki has been called the Arthur Haley of Japan for her sprawling melodramas, which usually contain large casts of characters. With "Nyokei Kazoku" (The Female Line) she tackled the sprawling Japanese family saga. Focusing as it does on a well-to-do Osaka merchant family whose lineage is passed on exclusively through daughters, the novel is similar in tone to Junichiro Tanizaki's classic "Sasameyuki (The Makioka Sisters)."
TBS will launch an 11-part TV dramatization of the book (Thursday., 9 p.m.) that updates it to the present and moves the family kimono business from Osaka to Tokyo. Because the Yajima clan has no sons, the husbands of the eldest daughter, Fujiyo (Reiko Takashima), and second daughter, Chizu ( Asaka Seto), have taken the family name in order to take over the business. There is also a third daughter who is unmarried. The sisters' mother died years ago and they were mostly raised by an aunt
In the opening episode, the sisters' father dies and leaves behind a will that mentions a mistress whom no one knew about, thus setting into motion a complicated and vicious fight over the Yajima fortunes.