Satoshi Tsumabuki
An medical student unwillingly assists in human experiments on American POWs during WWII and gets sentenced to death in the Yokohama War Trials. His wife fights for a reduction of sentence.
Masashi (Kazunari Ninomiya) is a photographer. He has his parents and an older brother Yukihiro (Satoshi Tsumabuki). Through the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Masashi begins to take staged photos of his family.
Toko Suguri is married and they have a lovely daughter. She doesn't have any major problems in her life. One day, Toko Suguri meets her former lover, Akihiko Kurata, at a friend's wedding. They haven't seen each other in ten years. Toko Suguri indulges in a sexual relationship with Akihiko Kurata.
Following the excitement of first Bangkok and then New York, a big murder case takes place in Tokyo. Chinatown master detectives Tangren (Wang Baoqiang) and Qinfeng (Liu Haoren) are invited to take up the mystery. Adding to the excitement are the other detectives on the CRIMASTER international detective list as well as the current top rank, Q. Yet another hilarious battle of wits is set to take place...
Hakuro is single and works as a veterinarian. His father died when Hakuro was a child and his mother later remarried into the wealthy Yagami family. Although Hakuro was brought into the Yagami family through his mother's marriage, he does not feel like part of the Yagami family. Especially, when compared to his younger step-brother who possesses the same blood as his family. After the death of Hakuro's mother, Hakuro dropped Yagami from his name and broke off relations with that family. Hakuro has a strong sense of justice and sincerity in his actions. He is very susceptible to beautiful women. One day, he meets a woman. The woman introduces herself as the wife of his stepbrother and informs him that his stepbrother is missing. As Hakuro and the woman trace his stepbrother's whereabouts, Hakuro becomes involved in the Yagami family's fight over a three billion yen inheritance.
Takuminokami Asano is a handshu (lord) and he is ordered to kill himself due to a scheme by Kozukenosuke Kira. Having no time to mourn his lord’s death, Kuranosuke Oishi (Shinichi Tsutsumi) decides to take revenge on Kozukenosuke Kira. Kuranosuke Oishi plans an attack with the help of accountant Chosuke Yato (Takashi Okamura), but they don't have enough in their budget.
A young couple is devastated when their son is killed by a falling tree during a windstorm. As the distraught father begins to look for answers into his son’s death, what appears to be a tragic accident turns out to have been the result of multiple blunders by multiple people.
Wisecracking Makino shows up from Japan and meets Shima, a yakuza living quietly in Taipei. Makino says he knows about the incident that prompted Shima to come to Taiwan. Shima finds out that someone wants Makino dead, and they both head for Hualien, a city in eastern Taiwan.
At the Hirata home, three generations of their family live together. A crisis ensues when one afternoon, housewife Fumie falls asleep and wakes up to find a thief has stolen her secret money she kept hidden in the refrigerator.
Sasaki Shinichi looks at his childhood friend Tanaka Yukino in court. Yukino is sentenced to death. She went to her ex-boyfriend’s apartment and caused his wife and child to burn to death. Shinichi knows his childhood friend and perceives that she is innocent. He wants to save Yukino and meets people who knew her including her sister and former classmates. ~~Based on the novel "Innocent Days" by Kazumasa Hayami.
Driven by the desire for the huge reward, Tang Ren (by Wang Baoqiang) tricked Qin Feng (by Liu Haoran) to New York, to attend the World Detective Contest,. Later on, behind the crazy competition, Qin and Tang discovered the real hidden facts of this contest.
Tanaka is going through a tough time trying to support his younger sister Mitsuko, recently arrested and hold up in jail. As an investigative reporter, he immerses himself into a story about a shocking murder case gone cold; a family was brutally murdered a year ago and the case remains unsolved.
NODA MAP, led by Hideki Noda, broadcasts its 2017 performance of "Princess Footprints" . This work is a tribute to Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII.
Several years after Shuzo settled his wife’s birthday-surprise divorce proposal (What a Wonderful Family, 40th), the Hirata family faces new problems. Ignoring his family’s worry that he is too old to drive, Shuzo takes his old schoolmate for a spin after carousing. Soon, a new disturbance arises for the Hirata family. Veteran director Yamada Yoji continues his comedy about the “perfect“ Japanese family turned upside down in chaos, laughters and understanding. This time, with an additional taste of death.
Koroki is a 35-year old man who admires Japanese singer-songwriter Tamio Okuda and aspires to live like him. He works as an editor at the lifestyle magazine "Mare," where he meets Akari Amami, a mischievous fashion press writer, and falls in love with her at first sight.
Residents in a town have a hard time due to the land tax and forced labor. 9 people, including Juzaburo Kokutaya (Sadao Abe), worry about the future of their town. They then set up a plan to save the town. The plan is to lend large amounts of money to han (historical term for the estate of a warrior) and distribute the interest annually to the residents, but if they're caught they will lose their lives.
Haru (Toyoshima Hana) is a rather cool fifth-grade elementary school student who shares the same tastes as her mother’s younger sister Yuko (Kaho) and can tell Yuko what she really feels. On the first day of the summer vacation, Haru is kidnapped. The culprit is her free-spirited father Takashi (Tsumabuki Satoshi) who disappeared from home two months ago.
A husband and wife have been married for 50 years. For her birthday, the husband asks the wife what she wants for her birthday present. She replies that she wants a divorce. The wife's divorce announcement sends the entire family into chaos.
A female assassin during the Tang Dynasty who begins to question her loyalties when she falls in love with one of her targets.
For as long as she can remember, Haruko has wanted to be a geisha. Eager to start her career, she approaches a teahouse in one of Kyoto’s famous geisha districts to become an apprentice geisha, or maiko—only to be rejected due to her lack of references, country bumpkin dialect and uncultivated demeanor. By chance, her accent catches the interest of Professor Kyono, a linguistics specialist and regular patron at the teahouse. He strikes a deal with the teahouse proprietor, promising to transform Haruko’s strong dialect into ladylike speech within 6 months. But becoming a maiko is no easy feat: have the professor and Haruko underestimated the task ahead? Based loosely on the Audrey Hepburn classic My Fair Lady, Lady Maiko is a musical comedy that provides a window into the world of geisha and the dedication it takes to achieve your dreams.
In pre-WWII Vancouver, second-generation Japanese immigrants had it tough. Daily, they faced discrimination, hatred and injustice at the hands of their Caucasian counterparts. But one thing made their lives worth living: baseball. They may be the underdogs, but the Vancouver Asahi baseball team have a sense of fair play and smart tactics that set them apart from the brute force of their opponents. Under the guidance of new team captain Reggie Kasahara, can they be able to rise above all the negativity to win the tournament? This film is based on the true story of Vancouver Asahi, the Japanese-Canadian baseball team that was inducted into The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003.
Following the death of the unmarried and childless Taki, Takeshi, a young relative of hers, discovers several pages of closely written lines in which the old lady has recorded her memories. This is how he learns the truth about her youth working as a housemaid and nanny for the Hirai family in a little house in Tokyo with a red gabled roof.
The emotional journey of a four-member family that fails to recognize that it is rapidly growing apart until the mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Five siblings struggle to live together after their parents have passed away. Arguments are a norm, and each have their own problems with studying, finding a job, marriage, etc. But no matter how dysfunctional their family can be, blood is thicker than water and the ties that bind will keep them together through thick and thin.
In the suburbs of Tokyo some time ago, there lived a clumsy boy about 10 years old. There appeared in front of him named Sewashi, Nobita's descendant of four generations later from the 22nd century, and Doraemon, a 22nd century cat-type caretaker robot who helps people with its secret gadgets. Sewashi claims that his family is suffering from the debts Nobita made even to his generation, so in order to change this disastrous future, he brought along Doraemon as Nobita's caretaker to bring happiness to his future, although Doraemon is not happy about this. And so Sewashi installed an accomplishment program into Doraemon forcing him to take care of Nobita. Unless he makes Nobita happy, Doraemon can no longer go back to the 22nd century. This is how the life of Doraemon and Nobita begins. Will Doraemon succeed this mission and return to the 22nd century?
A major advertising festival is held each year to determine the best television commercial in the world. A rookie ad man at a big advertising company named Otan is selected as a judge on the festival jury. Meanwhile, a coworker also named Ota (although the Japanese characters are slightly different) poses as his wife so that he can attend an open party which is held nightly. Knowing that he’ll get fired if his company doesn’t win the Grand Prix, he’s forced to resort to a variety of desperate tactics.
When Kanako, a model daughter and a brilliant student, disappears, her mother asks her ex-husband, a violent former policeman, to find her. As his investigation progresses, his idealized image of Kanako cracks: the girl hides a dark life that her father can not even imagine.
After the forced suicide of Nobunaga Oda at the Incident at Honnō-ji, powerful figures Katsuie Shibata (Koji Yakusho), Hideyoshi Toyotomi (Yo Oizumi), Nagahide Niwa (Fumiyo Kohinata) and Tsuneoki Ikeda (Koichi Sato) meet to decide on a successor. The conference would become Japan's first group made political decision. The meeting was known as the Kiyosu Kaigi. --AsianWiki
In this film director Yoji Yamada bows down before his teacher and role model. Yamada was assistant director on Yazujirō Ozu’s Tōkyō monogatari, a moving family portrait set after the Second World War. In his remake, Yamada has made very few departures from Ozu’s masterpiece in order to update the story of ageing couple Shukichi and Tomiko to present day Japan. Once again, the pair decides to leave their quiet lives in the country to pay a visit to their children and grandchildren in Tokyo. Once there, they discover that neither their oldest son, a doctor named Koichi, nor their eldest daughter Shigeko - who runs a beauty parlour - has time for them: both are too busy attending to their everyday concerns. Even the youngest son went his own way. The old couple feel lonely and bewildered in the fast-paced metropolis.
11 mysteries, 11 actors. Japan's favorite mystery author, the world of Higashino Keigo comes to life on screen through an assortment of short stories.
Troubled high school student Makoto arrives in Tokyo to exact revenge from a past incident. He then falls in love at first sight with Ai (Emi Takei), a daughter raised in a wholesome family. Around Makoto and Ai are Iwashimizu (Takumi Saito), who has feelings for Ai and Gamuko (Sakura Ando), a gang member who eyes Makoto.
Kota (Satoshi Tsumabuki) hears about an impending 1.5 billion yen gold bar heist from his friend Kitagawa (Tadanobu Asano), a former college classmate, and decides to take part. The gold bar sits in the basement of the HQ of Sumita Bank. Helping Kota and Kitagawa are bank security employee Noda (Kenta Kiritani), a North Korean spy pretending to be a college student (Shim Chang-Min), Kitagawa's younger brother Haruki (Junpei Mizobata) and a former elevator engineer (Toshiyuki Nishida). These 6 men are about to carry the boldest of schemes to bypass the bank's high-tech defense system.
Drawing influence from the street musicians of Miyagi, four high school students form a band and spend their free time practicing for their school's upcoming festival. When the festival is abruptly concealed, they come up with a dimwitted strategy of faking a bomb threat to the school in order to force the principal to change his mind. Their plan seems to work at first, but when a real bomb goes off, the group is forced to take responsibility for the explosion and they are kicked out of school. Three years later, more details of the incident is revealed as the youth look back on the past.
In 1969, Sawada is filled with idealism that permeated that era and starts working as a gonzo journalist for a weekly magazine. Two years later, Sawada interviews activist Umeyama with senior reporter Nakahira. Umeyama boasts that his group will steal arms and take action in April. Sawada doubts Umeyama's claims but is attracted to his personality. An incident occurs... Sawada hears news that a man was killed at a army post...
Shimizu Yuichi (Tsumabuki Satoshi) is a shy and lonely day laborer looking for love. He aimlessly spends time corresponding with girls via telephone dating services and going on random encounters with girls looking for spending cash. His world is shattered one day when he is involved in the murder of one of his former encounters, the sweet-faced Ishibashi Yoshino (Mitsushima Hikari) who, after being jilted by playboy Masuo Keijo (Okada Masaki), berates and mocks the troubled loner.
Hyeong-gu (Ha Jung-Woo), a young Korean, visits Japan by boat three or four times a month to help with middle-aged Bo-gyung’s smuggling business. It is always Tooru (Satoshi Tsumabuki), a young Japanese man, who welcomes him there. Hyung-gu and Touru sacrifice themselves for the sake of their families, money, and friendship. One day, Bo-gyung orders them to kidnap a woman named Ji-su (Cha Su-Yeon) and take her to Japan, and this changes their future in an unexpected way.
ER doctor Tsuyoshi Matsuoka receives a patient with a virus unlike anything he's seen before. His symptoms include high fever, convulsions, vomiting of blood and multiple organ failure. Could this be a new form of influenza or is it some other variety of virus? As the situation worsens and more cases begin arriving, a medical officer from the World Health Organization named Eiko Kobayashi is dispatched to the area. At the rate the virus is spreading, the entire city’s transportation system and infrastructure would be brought to a halt within 3 months. Within 6 months it could spread to tens of millions of people--reaching a death toll far worse than any war.
Tenchijin is the 48th NHK Taiga drama. It airs on NHK from January 4, 2009 every Sunday from 20:00 to 20:44 JST to November 22, 2009 spanning 47 episodes. The story centers on the life of the 16th century samurai Naoe Kanetsugu. Production began on April 27, 2007. The story is based on the novel Tenchijin by Masashi Hisaka and was adapted for screen by scriptwriter Eriko Komatsu. The series' music composer was Michiru Oshima. The protagonist of the drama, Naoe Kanetsugu, was taught by Uesugi Kenshin in his youth that to conquer the world is a trifling matter, but what matters is to live one's life with righteousness. After Uesugi's death, Naoe supports Uesugi Kagekatsu, who holds the destiny of Echigo province.
This enticing period melodrama depicts a long-suffering woman's relationship with her brilliant but self-destructive writer husband in postwar Tokyo. Based on a semi-autobiographical 1947 novel by Osamu Dazai, the story centers less on the womanizing, heavy-drinking, suicidal hero than on the wife who loves him. Written by Palm Springs International Film Festival
A Middle-aged Japanese ex-pat journalist investigates child organ trafficking in Thailand and he uncovers a sinister network. In the darkest corners of Thailand, child prostitution and organ sales flourish. In order to save a child's life, another life must be taken. An outraged Japanese journalist and a passionate young Japanese NGO member attempt to save "children of the dark" from being consumed by arrogance and greed. However, the harsh realities of life intervene... Adapting Yan Sogil's book, which unflinchingly portrays the tragic realities unfolding today, filmmaker Junji Sakamoto directs a talented multinational cast to bring these stark events to life.
A young couple move into a friend's house in Tokyo with limited funds and short-term lodging.
There once was a hospital where patients and even doctors & nurses were all weird. Above all, Onuki, a patient who built up his company all by himself from scratch, is a super cranky old man. One day, he meets up a girl called Paco, who cannot retain memory beyond one day due to a car accident. She is reading the same picture book everyday. Onuki starts bonding with Paco after some incident, and begins to doubt his way of living. He starts wanting to do something for Paco with his remaining life, and comes up with a brilliant idea. This pleases Paco, but their fate is?
A hustler who gets in trouble with a gang boss in the port town of Sukago agrees to make good with the don by putting him in contact with a mysterious hitman -- an assassin the hustler has no idea how to contact. Instead, he hires an actor to play the role, though the thespian has no idea what he's getting into.
At a crucial point in his business life, executive Gondo learns that his son has been kidnapped and that the ransom demanded is near the amount Gondo has raised for a critical business deal. Gondo is prepared to pay the ransom - that is, until he learns that the kidnappers have mistakenly abducted not Gondo's son, but the child of Gondo's chauffeur. Now Gondo must decide whether the other man's child is equally worth saving.
A lowly but academically diligent warrior named Bessho Hikoshiro finds himself unable to move up in the world due to the stifling caste system of the Bakumatsu era. After being expelled from the household into which he was adopted through marriage and separated from his wife and son, he moves in with his disapproving elder brother and his wife. He meets his old class rival Enomoto Takeaki, now a commander of a naval ship, and is later told by a kindly noodle shop owner that Enomoto's rise in social status came about after he prayed at a shrine in Mukojima. Stumbling home drunk one night, Hikoshiro falls down a riverbank and comes across a small run-down shrine which he is convinced is affiliated to the one in Mukojima. Pressing his hands together in prayer, he unwittingly invites the unwanted attentions of the gods of poverty, pestilence and death..
28 year old freelance writer Sakura Asuka (Yuki Uchida) wakes up tied in a white room. The white room is a protected room located in an isolated ward of a psychiatric hospital. Sakura first became unconscious because of heavy alcohol use and a druge overdose. She’s confined in the single room because of her high risk of committing suicide. Sakura tried to talk to the nurses and doctors but they didn’t listen to her. Under the circumstances another patient Miki (Yu Aoi), who suffers from an eating disorder, leads her to understand the unknown world. But, Sakura is looking for the way to get back to the real world as soon as possible.
"Tokyo Rhapsody" consists of 11 short films all centered around the music genre known as "Kayokyoku". Kayokyoku is a catch-all term to describe the music that defined two generations of post-war Japan. Although the term survives, it has a strong connotation with a simpler, pre-"Economic Bubble" era when Japanese people shared a common identity in the reconstruction of their nation.
The hero, Hyakkimaru is a wandering "demon hunter" whose extra body parts -- 48 to be exact -- were grafted onto his head and trunk by a herb doctor who discovered him as an infant, in a process that echoes "Frankenstein" and "The Island of Dr. Moreau." His warlord father gave the originals to 48 demons in exchange for power. When Hyakkimaru kills a demon, he wins back a body part. He is spotted in one of these battles, with a giant spider demon, by Dororo, a scrappy female thief who is fascinated by not only Hyakkimaru's prowess with the sword blade poking out of his arm but the new leg he grows after dicing his opponent. Is he a man -- or a monster? After hearing his story from an old minstrel, she decides to join him on his travels and find out for herself.
Tears for You is a love story about two step-siblings, Yota (Satoshi Tsumabuki) and Kaoru (Masami Nagasawa). Long ago, Yota's mother (Kyoko Koizumi) married Kaoru's jazz-playing father (Tatsuya Nakamura), effectively merging the two families. Unfortunately, Kaoru's father skipped town, and Yota's mother passed away, but not before imparting a dying wish to her young son to take care of Kaoru. In the meantime, the two young children were raised by Yota's grandmother on a small island off the coast of Okinawa. When Yota came of age, he took on a role not just as a brother but as a surrogate father of sorts for Kaoru, al
In order to avoid a jail sentence, Sean Boswell heads to Tokyo to live with his military father. In a low-rent section of the city, Shaun gets caught up in the underground world of drift racing
A man who constantly applies the brake in his life, a woman who could do with a brake in her life. They have their careers but they are both failures in love. Afraid to face each other directly, instead of focusing on feelings, they choose to focus on their positions, meeting each other, falling in love!? They are already adults but still have some way to go when it comes to putting their foot on the ground. This summer, a feel-good love story...
A drama set during World War II where a submarine carrying a secret weapon attempts to stop a planned third atomic bombing of Japan. Based on Harutoshi Fukui's novel Shuusen no Lorelei.
Based on an award winning novel, It's Only Talk is about the life of Yuko, a 35 year old woman. She is single and unemployed, and suffers from manic depression. The movie begins with Yuko moving to Kamata Town.
A re-imagining of the classic Japanese comedy "Yaji and Kita's Travel Journey", this is the story of two samurai in Edo period Japan who are in love. One is married, the other is a drug addict. They decide to go on a trip to Ise Sanctuary, where it is presumed everything will be made right. What happens once they get on the road is as wild and wacky as anything your likely to see.
Based on the first novel, Spring Snow, of Mishima Yukio's Sea of Fertility tetralogy, it follows the troubled and illicit affair between two youngsters amongst the aristocracy and rich of early twentieth century Japan.
Hoping to catch a girl's attention, high school students Ken (Tsumabuki Satoshi) and Adama (Ando Masanobu) cook up an ambitious plan. They plan a festival that combines film, theater, and rock music, and develop their project into a school road block. This plan however catches the attention of television stations and newspapers, and soon even the cops became involved in this teenage adventure.
Takarada, a member of a group of swindlers which has reunited to pull off a big caper involving down comforters, shoddy encyclopedias, and a panda suit. However, the actual scam they’re about to run takes a back seat to the trust issues between the group.
Seven friends gather at a party in Kyoto to celebrate Masamichi's entry to graduate school. Maki & her boyfriend Nakazawa join the party and get drunk easily after the friendship reunion. Kate has a crush on one of the cute guy who doesn't have any interests on her though. The cheerful and unforgettable night is full of joy while the whales and the thief incidents also attract the attention of them. Before the sunrise, seven friends meet again on the beach so as to witness the fade of youth days.
Teru Aoki (青木 輝) is on a train to Tokyo after a school trip. A disaster occurs which partially destroys the train and blocks a tunnel. When Teru awakes, he finds all his classmates and teachers are dead.
Tsuneo is a university student working part-time in a mah-jong parlour. Lately the customers have been talking about an old lady who pushes a baby carriage through the streets. They say she is carrying something for a crime syndicate, and they wonder what it is she has in the carriage... Money? Drugs? One day, the owner of the mah-jong parlour sends Tsuneo out to walk his dog. A baby carriage comes rolling down a hill and crashes into a guard rail. The old lady asks him to look into the carriage, where he finds a young woman clutching a knife. This is how Tsuneo first meets the girl who calls herself Josée.
Based on a true story set in Matsumoto city, Nagano, during 1960s. A stray dog wanders into a high school's grounds. The dog, named Kuro, stays at the school and becomes a special friend to everyone.
It's January 7, just after the New Year begins. Make up classes are being held for students that aren't keeping up with their daily studies; anxious students are there to discuss their exams; and club activities are still in progress. Asami Akio, a teacher, finds himself at the gate of the school with Misaki Yuka, a woman he met long ago and had lost contact with. Before he can explain their disconnect, a group shudders as an earthquakes rocks the school. When it subsides... nothing is the same.
Lunch no Joō is a Japanese drama series aired in Japan on Fuji TV in 2002. It stars Yuko Takeuchi, Yōsuke Eguchi, Satoshi Tsumabuki, and Shinichi Tsutsumi. Natsumi loves lunchtime and food. Nothing excites her more than to walk down the street thinking about where she'll eat lunch. One day, a man Kennichiro interrupts Natsumi as she's about to eat her favorite rice omelet and drags her outside and begs her to come home with him so that he can introduce her to his family. He explains to her that his father is sick and after leaving on bad terms, the only way he'll be allowed back home is to return with a fianceé. Natsumi is left with quite the predicament.
Young art student Hideo paints an unnerving portrait of Tomie, who whispers that she loves him. Inexplicably, he reacts by stabbing her to death with a painting trowel. Two friends, Takumi and Shunichi, arrive on the scene and help him dispose of the body. To cheer him up, the boys take the unwitting murderer to the nearest bar for a party... but a mysterious girl named Tomie shows up, bearing a few odd physical resemblances to the dead girl in the ground. Soon Hideo winds up a bloody mess in the bathroom stall, and his two compatriots are assaulted with a series of bizarre events in which Tomie possesses other girls' bodies, winds up a yammering severed head with claw-like arms, and taunts them no matter how often they kill her.
Ryunosuke, who directs commercials, receives a phone call. On the other end of the phone is a friend from his college days inviting Ryunosuke to come out to the beach. Ryunosuke first turns down the offer because of his workload, but when he learns that some girls are coming, he says yes. Several months later, he hears from Chiyo – a girl he had met at the beach that day – that she is pregnant with his child. Although the news bewilders Ryunosuke at first, he ultimately decides to raise the baby. However, he will later have to face the strong objections from Chiyo’s father, the ever-changing situation at work, and many other obstacles. With help from friends and family, Ryunosuke and Chiyo take a step forward on their way to marriage and the birth of their baby.
Tokiwa stars as Tamura Nozumi, with a cheerful outlook in life, always choosing to believe in everyone. Fukatsu stars as Sakada Chiharu, an amanuensis (daisho) but goes way beyond her jobscope in carrying out her work. The duo met in a clinic where Sakada helps Nozumi get back at her boss for sexual harassment. Sakada sees a flair in Nozumi to be in the same line of work, but Nozumi is content with her job as a waitress.
During Japan's feudal period, a noble lord was treacherously killed by a rival. His 47 samurai retainers took their revenge on their master's killer after scattering into society for several years, so as not to be detected. Having completed their task, all 47 then committed ritual suicide. This series, of which this TV movie is the pilot, follows the adventures of one of these samurai as he patiently waits for the chance to fulfill his destiny.
Ikebukuro West Gate Park was a wildly popular, highly influential Japanese television drama by screenwriter Kankuro Kudo, based on a novel by Ira Ishida, that initially aired on the Tokyo Broadcasting System during the summer of 2000, and directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi. The success of the television series would launch a manga adaptation the following year. In a break from traditional Japanese programming, the series used edgy graphics and scene breaks to highlight a story involving themes drawn from the underbelly of modern Japanese society: hip-hop youth gang warfare, juvenile delinquency, prostitution, drug abuse, the Yakuza, rape and murder. Notable among the cast are Tokio lead singer Tomoya Nagase, film star Ken Watanabe, and future stars Koyuki, Satoshi Tsumabuki, and Tomohisa Yamashita of Johnny's Jimusho idol group NEWS. The series is also credited for bringing up the profile of actor Yosuke Kubozuka.
