On Monday, NHK will broadcast the winners of the 36th annual "Nihon-sho" (Japan Prize; NHK-E, 6-8 p.m.), which awards outstanding domestic and international contributions to educational television.
Since 2008, the Japan Prize is also given to so-called nonlinear content, such as Web sites, educational games and interactive products. This year, NHK received 324 entries from 196 organizations comprising 65 countries or regions. Categories are broken down into school-age groups (pre-school, primary school, youth, continuing education, welfare education) and cover both actual produced television series and proposals for programs, mainly from countries with limited broadcasting means. As part of its 50th anniversary commemoration, TBS will present a three-hour docudrama on Nara's 1,200-year-old Tosho Daiji Temple called "Tenpyo wo Kakenuketa Otoko to Onna-tachi" (The Men and Women Who Spanned an Era; Tues., 7:55 p.m.).
The temple was built in 759 by the Chinese priest Ganjin, who had been invited to Japan by the Imperial family to promote Buddhism. Ganjin (Katsuo Nakamura) goes through great hardships in order to come to Japan and becomes blind in the process. He is given a house in Nara by the Emperor and, with the help of his monk assistant, Nyoho (Shido Nakamura), starts building the great structure on the site where his house stands. Ganjin died in 763, but his work was continued by Nyoho.
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