This year's NHK Sunday evening drama has already entered the history books for one, perhaps inauspicious, reason. On March 12, a day after the Great East Japan Earthquake, NHK announced that the following day's broadcast of "Go," as the show is titled, would be canceled to make way for news coverage. It was the first time an episode of the public broadcaster's annual yearlong drama series had been axed since 1989, when Emperor Showa died.

Whether "Go," the tale of a princess who lived through the turbulent Sengoku (Warring States) Period (15th-16th centuries), can achieve distinction for more positive reasons now appears to hinge on the appeal of a young actor named Osamu Mukai. This month, Mukai moves to center stage in the drama, playing the role of Tokugawa Hidetada, the man who will become the third husband of Go (Juri Ueno) and then, later, the second Tokugawa shogun of Japan.

Mukai is quite a trump card for NHK to be able to play at this stage. Last year, the 29-year-old was one of GQ Japan's "men of the year" (alongside the likes of soccer player Keisuke Honda). He has also recently been voted by Japanese men as possessing one of the best male faces — and by women as being an ideal groom. Last month, he was on just about every magazine cover and television program there is and, by the end of 2011, he will have appeared in four major films in the last two years.