<figure id="attachment_219871" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 711px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-219871"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="ca5cb926"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2021/12/2013091800499.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-219871" class="wp-caption-text">Yuriko Yoshitaka plays the lead role in &#8220;Beloved&#8221;. It&#8217;s been a year since she starred in a drama, so she&#8217;s been getting a lot of attention even before it aired.</figcaption></figure>
The TBS drama &#8221; Saiai&#8221; will have its final episode on December 17, episode 10. Every week before and after the episode airs, the drama becomes a trending topic on Twitter, making it one of the most popular fall 2021 dramas.
The structure of the drama is to go back and forth between 15 years ago and the present in order to unravel the truth of the two murders, and new facts are revealed in every episode. Who is the real murderer? In terms of viewership ratings, &#8220;Doctor&#8221; is a drama that makes viewers wonder who the real murderer is, and it is a drama that makes viewers anxious to see the rest of the story.
In terms of viewership ratings, the seventh season of &#8220;Doctor X: Surgeon Daimon Michiko&#8221; (TV Asahi) and &#8220;Sinking Japan: A Man of Hope&#8221; (TBS) are leading the pack, but in these days of diversified viewing styles, it is too early to say whether a drama is good or bad or popular or unpopular based on viewership ratings alone. However, in these days of diversified viewing styles, it is also too early to say whether a film is good or bad or popular or unpopular based on its ratings alone. In fact, the missed distribution of the first episode of &#8220;Saiai&#8221; is said to have set a record for the number of free first-time distribution of a TBS drama (2.87 million times).
The interesting thing about &#8220;Saiai&#8221; is that it has been carefully &#8220;targeted&#8221; not only in the way it attracts viewers with its storyline, but also in the casting and detailed direction.
In other words, it is a very smart work that accurately understands the psychology of the fans and continues to give the viewers something to be excited about. I would like to reanalyze the &#8220;work&#8221; of this work, in which the art of survival in the battlefield of terrestrial drama can be felt everywhere.
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Saiai&#8221; stars Yuriko Yoshitaka, is written by Sadoko Okudera and Yukako Shimizu, produced by Junko Arai, and directed by Ayuko Tsukahara. As you can see from the &#8220;bite&#8221; of the first episode, this work attracted a lot of attention even before it started airing. Okudera, Arai, and Tsukahara (plus musician Katsu Yokoyama) are members of &#8220;N no tame ni&#8221; (For the sake of N), which aired in 2014 and created many &#8220;loss viewers&#8221;.
Okudera and Shimizu have also produced a number of high quality mysteries, mainly dramas based on Kanae Minato&#8217;s original works, including &#8220;Yo-kyo Kisshusha&#8221; (13) and &#8220;Rebirth&#8221; (17). Okudera, Shimizu, Arai and Yoshitaka are also working together on &#8220;I&#8217;m Going Home on Time. Also, Okudera, Shimizu, Arai and Yoshitaka are working together on &#8220;Watashi, Tadaji de kaerumasu. Arai and Tsukahara are a duo that has released popular works one after another such as &#8220;Unnatural&#8221; (18), &#8220;Chugakusei Nikki&#8221; (18), and &#8220;MIU 404&#8221; (20). In other words, they are a team with a solid base of individual fans.
Not only did the members of this team come together to create a completely original work, but the fans must have been more than stimulated to watch it. In addition, watching the episodes that have been aired so far, &#8220;Saiai&#8221; contains many elements reminiscent of &#8220;For the sake of N,&#8221; and I feel that there are some &#8220;extras&#8221; that will please the viewers who have been following the series for a long time.
For example, there is a structure that moves back and forth between the past and the present, a love suspense that contains a sadness that could be called &#8220;sharing of sins,&#8221; and the darkness that each character carries. In terms of details, even the slow direction and the use of Utada Hikaru&#8217;s theme song &#8220;Kimi ni Madoka&#8221; are designed to overlap.
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This kind of &#8220;playfulness&#8221; can be attributed to the creators&#8217; thorough understanding of the &#8220;TBS Friday drama&#8221; demographic. In this sense, it can be seen as a drama aimed at viewers who have grown up with the series rather than attracting new viewers.
Many of the dramas produced by this crew have a high reach to the F2 demographic (women aged 35-49), and &#8220;Saiai&#8221; seems to have been designed to reach viewers who are in the F3 demographic (women aged 50 and above). One of them is the male cast members.)
One of them is the use of male cast members: Kohei Matsushita, who drew attention for his role in the NHK TV series &#8220;Scarlet&#8221; (19), and Fumiya Takahashi, a rider actor, as the main members of the cast, who are fresh and have a high affinity with the audience. Arata Iura, an actor who boasts stable popularity among his generation (and who is known for his role in &#8220;Unnatural&#8221;), has been added to the cast. These three actors are also in charge of the love (drama) part, and their support for this work is very strong. Most of the words that trend around the time of the broadcast are their names or the names of their roles.
Mitsuhiro Oikawa, popular voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda (who also appeared as a narrator in the 2020 NHK TV series &#8220;Yale&#8221;), and Eita Okuno, who is well known among movie lovers, were introduced as a kind of challenge. Near the final episode, Amane Okayama was added to the cast, and they were made to play a central role in the suspense part. The presence of these characters, who can be both good and bad, also plays an important role.
In addition, it is important to be able to sympathize with the main character played by Yuriko Yoshitaka, who is at the center of the film, or to be able to &#8220;recommend&#8221; her.
The gap between the main character&#8217;s on-again, off-again life is clearly expressed through makeup and styling, and the casting of Minami Tanaka as a reporter and Yui Sakuma as a detective as opposing characters (the difference in styling is also well done). (The styling is also well done.) You can feel the attention to detail and attention to detail in how the same sex viewers will feel.
With the rise of video distribution services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney Plus, as well as YouTube and TikTok, the glut of content is accelerating by the day. In a structure where people are competing for viewers more than ever, the question is whether or not you can create a localized popularity that is &#8220;narrow and deep&#8221; rather than &#8220;broad and shallow&#8221;-in other words, a small elite of enthusiastic &#8220;deep&#8221; viewers, or a &#8220;swamp feeling. In this sense, &#8220;Saiai&#8221; is one of the keys to success in today&#8217;s video content.
In this sense, I have the impression that &#8220;Saiai&#8221; is not only of high quality, but also has a really modern and clever fighting style.
According to Producer Arai, there are likely to be more plans after the last episode, so we will have to keep a close eye on how this &#8220;fever&#8221; will move in the future.

 Film writer, born in Fukui Prefecture in 1987. Born in Fukui Prefecture in 1987. Studied film and theatrical expression at Tokyo Gakugei University. After graduating from university, worked for a film magazine editing production company before becoming a film writer. Has worked on a wide range of projects including interviews, reviews, news articles, columns, event reports, and recommendation comments.

 SYO

 The TBS drama "Saiai," which will have its final episode on December 17, has been trending on social networking sites every week and has become one of the most popular fall dramas of 2021. -- (Japanese only)

Why does “Saiai” attract so many viewers? Amazing calculated “strategy”.

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