Supposedly, you can tell a lot about a person by his or her blood type, and there is a cottage publishing industry in Japan dedicated to the subject. Certain blood types indicate particular personality traits, and some combinations of types are more romantically compatible than others.
Compatibility is the premise of four new dramas airing on consecutive nights this week titled, "Ketsuekigata-betsu Onna ga Kekkon suru Hoho" ("How Women of Certain Blood Types Marry") (Fuji, Mon-Thurs., 11 p.m.). On Monday night, Rosa Kato, as an A-type woman, and Naoki Okubo, as an O-type man, fall in love at their workplace. Yumiko Shaku represents B-type women on Tuesday night as a popular scriptwriter who has an affair with TV props man Hiroyuki Miyasaku, who's an AB. Then, on Wednesday, Yu Kashii, an O, plays a furniture store clerk who has to take care of a visiting designer from Taiwan with A-type blood played by Wilson Chen. And on Thursday, Asami Mizukawa is an engineering student with AB blood who gets a lesson in love from associate professor Shigeru Joshima.
This week, the medical variety show "Takeshi no Honto wa Kowai Katei no Igaku" ("Takeshi's Really Scary Home Medicine") (TV Asahi, Tues., 8 p.m.) talks about smoking. The guests include a group of celebrities who smoke but want to stop.