For the first time in her acting career Aya Ueto will be playing as a detective in Absolute Zero Point ~ Unsolved Cases Special Investigation. The new drama will begin airing in Japan Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. starting April 13.

Ueto said, “I hope I can show a totally new face to everyone.”

I’m sure Ueto fans will agree with me that it’s great enough to see her on a weekly basis. Well, if you live in Japan. Probably better to see her in person more often. Better than nothing.

Source: Japan Today

Masaki Aiba (26) is set to take on his first lead role in a drama series this fall. He will star in TV Asahi’s My Girl, his first series since Yankee Bokou ni Kaeru in 2003.

Aiba, who is more known for appearing in variety shows than in dramas, said that he wants to show his fans a “completely different Masaki Aiba” from his usual self.

“My Girl” is based on a manga by Mizu Sahara (an alternate pen name of mangaka Sumomo Yumeka), currently being serialized in Shinchosha’s Weekly Comic Bunch. The comic is described as an “ultimate love story” about a young man named Masamune Kazama (Aiba). During high school, he had a girlfriend four years older than him, but she suddenly left one day. Six years later, he receives news that she has passed away. In addition, she secretly gave birth to Masamune’s child, whom he finally meets and decides to raise.

TV Asahi will broadcast My Girl in its Friday 11:15pm time slot, starting in October.

Source: tokyograph

The TV Asahi drama series Koshonin will be coming back, but instead of the TV screens it’ll be heading to the silver screens instead. Ryoko Yonekura will star once again as a police negotiator, Reiko Usagi. She will have take on a new challenge that may be her most difficult one yet as she’s one of the hostages on a hijacked planes 10,000 meter above the ground without her colleagues.

Expect to see the same cast from the original drama, as well as some popular guests. The movie begins filming next month and will be out in theaters in February 2010.

Source: tokyograph

The cover of the latest issue of Big Comic Original magazine announces that Yaro Abe’s acclaimed manga series “Shinya Shokudo” will get a live action TV drama adaptation this fall. The ongoing manga premiered in 2007 and was nominated for the Manga Taisho award earlier this year.

Shinya Shokudo is a story about an unusual restaurant only open late at night. The restaurant has no set menu. Instead, the chef tells customers, “If I can do it, I’ll make it.”

Source: Tokyograph

Hirmoi Iwasaki will be starring in a new Fuji TV afternoon drama titled Arashi ga Kureta Mono. This will be Iwasaki’s first time to perform in a daytime drama.

Arashi ga Kureta Mono focuses on the love between a mother and child. Iwasaki’s character is a mother whose family falls victim to the Typhoon Vera in September 1959. The aftermath causes over 4,500 deaths and 600 people missing. Iwasaki’s character’s husband and daughter disappeared in the typhoon and she finds an orphan while taking refuge; afterwards, she raises the orphan as her own child. Ten years later, Iwasaki’s character discovers her once lost husband and daughter are alive and living their own separate lives.

The new drama will premiere on August 31 at 1:30 p.m. on Fuji TV; it consists of 44 episodes.

Source: tokyograph
Image source: “>CDJapan

TBS, Tokyo Broadcasting System, announced recently that Beat Takeshi will appear in the pilot episode of a new show titled Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsujo (This Is the Police Station in Front of Kameari Park in Katsushika Ward in English. However, Takeshi is not the star of the show.

Shingo Katori, of JPop group SMAP, is the star of Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsujo.

The TV show is based on a popular manga by Osamu Akimoto. Takeshi will play the role of a mysterious man “Kitano,” who barges into the police station where Kankichi Ryotsu, the protagonist played by Katori, works, and acts as if he owns the place. The pilot will air on Saturday Aug 1 from 7:56 p.m.

Source: Japan Today