This summer's crop of drama series is dominated by young female leads as opposed to the usual bunch of cute boys. In its most crucial time slot, Monday at 9 p.m., Fuji TV is offering up "First Kiss," which is about a pair of siblings who were separated as small children when their parents divorced.
Mio (Mao Inoue) has grown up in Los Angeles with her mother, a career woman who has remained in Southern California because she believes it offers better medical care for her daughter, who suffers from a heart disorder. Mio requires a risky operation, and after she turns 20 she decides to visit her older brother, Kazuki (Hideaki Ito), who lives in Japan, because it may be the last time she will have a chance to reunite with him. She is also going to seek romance, as if there weren't enough eligible young men in Los Angeles.
'Hotaru no Hikari" (Nihon TV, Wednesday, 10 p.m.) can be translated as "Firefly's Light," but in the case of this new comedy Hotaru is the name of the female protagonist played by Haruka Ayase.