Beautiful Life,” “Hanzawa Naoki,” and more… The top 10 best Sunday theater shows of all time that have moved everyone!

Sunday Gekijo” has undergone changes

Takahiko Kageyama (Media Critic) “Sunday Gekijo” has been broadcast on TBS since 1956 and is the oldest drama series in Japan. Until September 2002, it was provided by one company, Toshiba, and was known as “Toshiba Sunday Theater. I was involved as an assistant producer at Mainichi Broadcasting System, an affiliate of TBS, around 1990, and it had a special existence for us production people as a traditional signature drama slot. This time, the three of us have gathered to decide the “strongest Sunday Gekijo” by limiting our selection to productions from the year 2000 onward.

Oyama Kumao (Writer): Until ” Onna no Ie ” on March 28, ’93, you used to broadcast complete drama episodes. During the one-shot drama era, I had the impression that there were many home dramas starring women and watched by women. In April of the same year, the drama became a serial drama format and the theme changed completely. The mainstream dramas were those that featured male leads in love or work, such as ……, which soothed old men, and starred big names such as Masakazu Tamura and Koji Yakusho (68). This changed further in the ’00s.’ The first film of the ’00s was ” Beautiful Life ” (’00), starring Takuya Kimura (51) and Takako Tokiwa (52), both in their 20s at the time. The pure love love story between an unpopular hairdresser and a wheelchair-bound woman suffering from an incurable disease achieved an average rating of 32.3% for all episodes, the highest in Sunday theater history. Following this explosive hit, the Sunday theater turned into a drama for young people.

Mai Imai (Writer) Goro Inagaki (50) in ” Hypnosis” (’00) and“The Tragedy of M” (’05), Tsuyoshi Domoto (45) in “Gakko no Sensei” (’01) and“Motokare” (’03), and other popular actors from the old Johnny’s were selected one after another for the lead roles. The next turning point was in 2001, when the “Gakko no Sensei” (2001) and “Motokare” (2003) were made by popular members of the former Johnny’s group.
The next turning point came in 2001. The next turning point came in 2001, when “Hanzawa Naoki” set the course for the current common perception that “this is what we think of when we think of Sunday theater. The most appealing aspect of the show is the “good versus evil” aspect. Of course, we can enjoy the elements of harassment, but the famous line, “If you get beat up, you get beat back, double payback! and the bad guys, such as the boss, are defeated in every episode. It makes me feel great. The final episode recorded a 42.2% viewer rating, and “double payback” became a social phenomenon, winning the “buzzword of the year” award.

Kageyama: The director said in an interview that the production team did not expect “ Hanzawa Naoki, “ a gritty story set in a bank, to be a huge success. After Hanzawa, dramas based on Jun Ikeido’s novel, such as “Shitamachi Rocket” (’15 and ’18) and“Rikuoh” (’17), became a string of hits. It has become an indispensable part of the Sunday theater. The common theme of these dramas is that weak people face various difficulties and accomplish great things. I too enjoyed watching them every time, but as one would expect after several in a row, I began to think, “Oh no, not again. It is not that “it was good because the ratings exceeded 20%,” but that the viewers must consider the fact that they will get tired of it someday. It is not enough to say, “There are three loaches under the willow tree.

Oyama: I like “Rikuoh,” though!　It is a ″royal road″ pattern of a small business facing difficulties, but it is a down-to-earth story. A countryside company making footwear that is on the verge of going under revives itself by making running shoes, and it tries to grasp its dream while guffawing at small villains like the sales manager of a rival company who is trying to sabotage the company. There are no missions that seem to have been forced to be made up to make the story more exciting, and the story makes sense. The balance of the work is good.
In recent years, “Ship of Theseus” (’20),“My Family” (’22), “VIVANT” (’23), and others have generated a lot of excitement on social networking sites with people wondering who the mastermind behind the story was. The ratings were not bad, but they did not stick with me. For example, in “Ship of Theseus,” the main character travels back in time and works hard to clear his father’s false accusation, but in the process of searching for the real culprit, he changes the fate of his mother and wife who live in the present day. The film is so full of various elements that it is confusing to the viewer. Moreover, all the characters were made to look suspicious, and it seemed as if the story was structured for the purpose of having the viewer ponder about the culprit. In the end, I did not get the message of what the production team wanted to convey at all.