In 1980, a TV adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel “Shogun” wowed viewers overseas. The story of an English sailor navigating political machinations in feudal Japan sparked a fascination for all things related to the country.
Forty years later, a new adaptation of the same story once again spurred significant interest in Japan. The latest iteration of “Shogun,” created by American channel FX and made by a joint American-Japanese team, won over viewers around the world with its tale of cross-cultural intrigue after premiering in February. The series scored rave reviews and strong ratings before going on to clean up at the Emmy Awards, including becoming the first non-English-language winner for best drama. “It was an East-meets-West dream project,” said Hiroyuki Sanada in his acceptance speech for the lead actor in a drama series award.
The show’s success was the pinnacle of a year in which Japanese television, bolstered by support from streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+, revealed new creative ambitions both at home and abroad. The triumph of “Shogun” at the Emmys offered a moment akin to the South Korean film “Parasite” winning the Oscar for best picture in 2020. It was a significant achievement for everyone involved in the project, but it also served as an exclamation point for an industry that had already been creating great work.
Trans-Pacific partnerships
Prior to the 2020s, Japan-related TV was already enjoying overseas attention, mostly for its calming and laid-back nature via reality shows such as “Terrace House” and “Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey.” One of the biggest streaming hits in recent memory was “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo,” where conflict rarely rose above whether or not to relinquish a pair of socks to the trash. Though reviews were generally positive, there were also backhanded compliments describing programs like “Terrace House” as “a show in which nothing happens.”
Such low-stakes offerings felt at odds with the attention paid to Western prestige TV — the schemes of “Succession,” the excitement of “Game of Thrones” and, eventually, the brutality of South Korean hit “Squid Game.” Streaming originals like Netflix’s “Alice In Borderland,” which debuted its first season in January 2020, made some inroads into this kind of “blockbuster TV” territory, yet still felt overshadowed on the global stage.
That all changed with “Shogun,” which utilized the strengths of both Japan and Hollywood to create a bona fide smash that critics adored. It was this year’s defining Japan-centric stab at prestige TV, but it wasn’t the only one. The past 12 months also saw the second season of crime thriller “Tokyo Vice” air on Max, along with Netflix’s action-heavy “House of Ninjas.” Both series also involved trans-Pacific partnerships and, like “Shogun,” didn’t shy away from featuring a healthy dose of Japanese dialogue.
Shows like these hint at the aspirations of Japanese creators and actors to make their name abroad, open to assistance from Hollywood in creating the sort of epic series that can stand out in a deluge of streaming options. Japan’s entertainment industry seems to have been cured of its Galapagos syndrome. “Shogun,” in particular, underlined overseas audience’s emerging interest in deep dives into Japanese history. A second and third season of “Shogun” are already underway, and film studios like A24 are starting to look into samurai stories, too. If you have a script set during the Meiji Restoration, now’s the time to pitch.
Big swings
When it comes to Japanese TV, the year didn’t belong exclusively to Hollywood, however, as domestic productions also stepped up their game.
On paper, the concept for the TBS drama “Extremely Inappropriate!” (“Futekisetsu nimo Hodo ga Aru!”) is high concept. A chauvinistic school teacher from the 1980s accidentally boards a time-traveling bus that takes him to modern day Tokyo. There, he attempts to adjust to a world very different from the bubble era he knows so well. Oh, the show is also part musical.
The end result of this bonkers premise gave us one of the year’s best TV shows. “Extremely Inappropriate!” manages to be funny and emotionally rich, while offering commentary on past and present Japanese society. Entertainment news site U-Next Square ranked it as the best drama of the year’s first half, while Nikkei Trendy magazine dubbed it one of the “top entertainment trends” of 2024. The series’ abbreviated Japanese title, “Futehodo,” also gave us the top buzzword of the year, showing the extent of its cultural impact.
Buzzwords aside, the creative impact may be felt more behind the scenes as domestic television continues to take bigger swings. Besides “Extremely Inappropriate!,” the year’s most popular drama series include “Eye Love You,” which focuses on a Japanese-Korean romance with a main character boasting telekinetic powers, and “Antihero,” a court-centric offering featuring morally grey characters (a prestige TV staple!). It’s worth noting, both of those also come from TBS.
Streaming services, meanwhile, continue to create original series that resonate with domestic viewers and have the potential to gain attention abroad. Netflix Japan led the way in 2024 with three heavyweight offerings including “House of Ninjas.” This summer’s “Tokyo Swindlers” explored the world of real-estate con artists and delivered such a level of drama that binging the entire series seemed like the best way to consume it. A couple months later, Netflix rolled out “The Queen Of Villains,” a brutal biopic of sorts about female professional wrestler Kaoru “Dump” Matsumoto. Both shows offered the kind of character-driven, edge-of-your-couch pacing associated with modern prestige TV. After years of the cozy, here was a new wave of shows standing out for how tense they felt.
Tuning into new perspectives
But TV this year wasn’t just about imitating the big-budget prestige series that have been a hit in households overseas. Rather, 2024 saw a lot of voices represented on Japanese screens that had long been overlooked by broadcast offerings.
“Extremely Inappropriate!” may have pulled viewers in with Showa Era (1926-89) nostalgia and off-the-wall musical numbers, but it succeeded thanks to its character explorations of old-fashioned Showa men and the single mothers of today. “Eye Love You” relied on a familiar trope about people with psychic powers, but it was more about cross-cultural relationships. And as the year nears its end, one of the fall season’s breakouts has been TBS’ “Lion no Kakurega,” a series featuring a lead character on the autism spectrum, something rarely seen in a network drama.
The pursuit of new perspectives also carried into the reality show sphere this year. Netflix’s “The Boyfriend” unwinds at a similar pace as “Terrace House,” with a variety of young singles living together and working shifts at a coffee truck. Yet the rub is that every contestant is gay, making it the first LGBTQ dating show in Japan.
And, though it isn’t quite “The Golden Bachelor,” the second season of Netflix’s “Love Village” brings together people aged 35 and up for their “final” chance at love. Despite playing out in an idyllic Okinawan setting where the participants have ample free time, the series reminds viewers of the ups and down Japanese singles approaching 40 face as they make their way in the world rather than relegating them to roles as happily married moms and dads.
The era of calm Japanese TV was definitely a big help during the most uncertain days of the pandemic, when a lot of those shows were discovered or rewatched. As we strive to break away from that time period, though, TV has decided that life is worth living and Japanese stories — whether they’re from the 17th century or the 1980s — are worth telling.
Television's top hits of the decade so far
The first half of the 2020s has provided better access to Japanese TV — and more variety — thanks to a proliferation of streaming services. While that’s made tracking the top programs harder, there is now plenty of space for new ideas to flourish.
2020
Biggest show: “Alice In Borderland”
Writer’s choice: “Followers”
In 2020, Netflix got serious about offering high quality television, starting with its action-packed marquee offering “Alice In Borderland.” Yet it was “Followers,” a drama that had a fresh perspective on women’s lives in the social media age, that was just as telling about the streaming service’s ambitions and featured much more heart.
2021
Biggest show: “Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room”
Writer’s choice: “The Way of the Hot & Spicy”
2021 was easily the least exciting year for Japanese TV in the decade so far (if you ignore all the anime), but there were good reminders of what the nation’s entertainment industry does well. For many, that was medical dramas. For me, it was food shows focused on very specific topics, like extremely spicy dishes.
2022
Biggest show: “Silent”
Writer’s choice: “Old Enough!”
Late-year drama “Silent” proved to be a blockbuster domestically, centered on a romance between a deaf man and his former flame. It presented both classic J-drama theatrics and an empathetic point of view. Yet the global smash surprise was a re-cut version of a reality show where toddlers run errands on their own. “Old Enough!” had overseas audiences cooing over adorable antics and debating whether such a show would be possible in their own country.
2023
Biggest show: “Vivant”
Writer’s choice: “Brush Up Life”
TBS’ “Vivant” aimed for blockbuster TV, with a high budget, shooting locations in Mongolia and a plot involving corporate espionage and terrorism. The show’s over-the-top nature made it appointment viewing, but those looking for smarts and laughs had “Brush Up Life.” The story of a woman who keeps getting chances to redo her life was a high point of heady J-drama.
2024
Biggest show: “Shogun”
Writer’s choice: “Extremely Inappropriate!”
It’s tough to compete with “Shogun,” a trans-Pacific production that scored high ratings, critical acclaim and Emmy hardware. Yet nothing in Japan came close to the high-wire hijinks of “Extremely Inappropriate!,” a time-travel comedy and musical with surprisingly succinct takes on past and present Japanese society.
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