<figure id="attachment_469049" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-469049" style="width: 1014px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="c65e7ce6"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/6d2078f2c1565abfea8e8c4e0beeba8e.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-469049" class="wp-caption-text">GIFT / Kasumi Arimura (33) Kasumi Arimura&#8217;s role is that of a magazine reporter who is ordered by her boss to write a series on wheelchair rugby. Through her coverage, her destiny begins to unfold in a big way.</figcaption></figure>
 The viewers who have developed the habit of watching all the episodes in one sitting due to the spread of original dramas distributed by TV networks have found it difficult to find value in watching dramas in real time, which has been a headwind for terrestrial drama series. However, not a few drama watchers have commented, &#8220;Although the casts are modest, they are all talented. There are many good hidden works, and I feel that this season is rather a bumper crop.
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 Part 1: <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/469040">Even though viewer ratings have been slow, the &#8220;must-see spring dramas&#8221; that have had the experts buzzing are revealing their secret stories and data!</a>
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<h2> Sympathy&#8221; for the bewildered Nagasaku</h2>
 The number of views for the fourth episode of the series increased 100,000 times from the previous episode, and &#8221; Toki Already Oshi! ( TBS ) is showing a fierce growth.
 The story is about a mother who has finished raising her children and enters a sushi academy to become a sushi chef, but the characters are well-defined and the conversation is well-paced, making it fun to watch. The film is also in line with the social theme of middle-aged people trying again, and the casting of Hiromi Nagasaku, whose actual age is 55, as the protagonist, who is set to be 50, is also well done.
 Yumiko Arido, who invites Nagasaku to join the Sushi Academy, is also a 57-year-old member of the bubble generation. Ruri Hyodo, who wrote the screenplay, is a disciple of Yuji Sakamoto, the writer of &#8220;Quartet&#8221; (TBS) and &#8220;Soyada, Tomoko and Her Three Former Husbands&#8221; (Fuji), and is a brilliant writer who won the Kuniko Mukoda Award only five years after her debut. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of works he will create in the future,&#8221; said Oyama.
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 With a cast of such a wide range of ages, Mr. Kawada also gives his assurance that &#8220;there is a cast of characters that men and women of all ages can relate to.
 The main character played by Nagasaku is a mother who has finished raising her child and is at a loss as to what to do. In addition to the many points of view that will appeal to the volume zone of drama viewers, the comedy also has an addictive charm.
 I also recommend &#8220;Saba Can, Uchu e Ikiru&#8221; (Fuji), in which a high school teacher and her students take on the challenge of developing space food. This is a drama with a different taste from the romance dramas that have been a staple of the Gekijuku series, and the characters are young, and it could be called &#8220;Shitamachi Rocket&#8221; or &#8220;Rikuou&#8221;. You can enjoy the atmosphere of a Sunday drama starting on Monday.&#8221;
 The director of the production company appreciates the fact that the main location for &#8220;Reborn&#8221; and the opening location for &#8220;A Vote for the Galaxy&#8221; were shot in the Joyful Minowa Shopping Arcade (Arakawa Ward), while this film was shot in Fukui.
 The director of the production company evaluated the film&#8217;s location in Fukui, saying, &#8220;It is true that this is a standard shopping district location spot, and I understand that the budget is tight, but I don&#8217;t think it is a good idea to cover such an important scene. The freshness of the picture is another good thing about &#8216;Saba Can.'&#8221;
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 On the other hand, &#8221; GIFT &#8221; ( TBS ), which is said to be struggling, is also struggling, perhaps because of the unfamiliar subject of wheelchair rugby, but &#8220;The beginning was slow and polite, but gradually the development became hot, as is typical of Sunday theater. In terms of image, it is similar to &#8220;No Side Game,&#8221; &#8220;Gekkokujo Kyuji,&#8221; and &#8220;The Royal Family,&#8221; which is said to have played a key role in the Arimakinen reaching the 70 billion yen mark for the first time in 26 years. I would recommend it to those who are into this area,&#8221; said Kawada.
 GIFT,&#8221; featuring Shinichi Tsutsumi ( 61 ), Yuki Yamada ( 35 ), Ken Yasuda ( 52), and Michiko Kichise ( 51), is off to a good start, topping both the household and core viewership ratings. The third season of the new series &#8221; Unsolved Woman: Keishicho Documents Investigator &#8221; ( TV Asahi) also ranked second in households for the first time, and the third season of the new series has been getting solid numbers.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Viewership ratings alone are not the only measure."></div>
<h2>Video Views</h2>
 While the weak impact of the cast has been pointed out, &#8221; Married Couple Detective &#8221; ( Fuji Network ) is attracting attention for the unusual husband and wife roles of Jiro Sato ( 57) and Ai Hashimoto ( 30 ).
 Hashimoto, who has always had an image of being transparent and sensitive, gives a good performance this time as a boyish, slightly clumsy, but firm detective. It is also wonderful that they do not get caught up in the pace of Sato, who tends to play with a strong sense of humor, but instead return the favor in a cool and well-paced manner, making for a unique married couple.
 The script was written by Koichi Yajima, who runs the theater company &#8220;Tokyo Mahalo. Many of the company&#8217;s writers are good at writing scripts that suit the cast, and Hashimoto, who is inexperienced in full-fledged comedies and playing a detective for the first time, seems to enjoy playing the role with a lot of energy.
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 In terms of TVer favorite registrations and views, &#8221; Tsukiya Gyoro -The Answer is in the Masterpiece&#8221; (NTV) is by far the most popular. A producer at a key station said, &#8220;Nippon TV is making productions with an eye on distribution, and its drama strategy has reached a turning point where it cannot be measured only by viewer ratings.
 TBS is increasingly focusing on viewing time spent per viewer (playback time) in addition to viewer ratings and number of views for distribution. This is a strategy to deeply engage customers and guide them to merchandise and real events. Fuji is &#8220;attacking with quantity. Fuji&#8217;s strategy is to increase the number of productions and increase the total number of views. However, it cannot be said that the production system is keeping up. The scriptwriter of &#8220;Loved One&#8221; had a disagreement with the director and dropped out. The script for the final episode had not been submitted until May, and the production was in a slump from start to finish.
 TV Asahi, which has turned to a strategy of &#8220;setting a trend by introducing high-profile productions,&#8221; such as &#8220;Shiawase na Kekkon&#8221; and &#8220;Chotto Dake Esper,&#8221; is also placing importance on revenue from video distribution services such as TVer, Netflix, and U-NEXT,&#8221; a person in charge of programming at a commercial TV station reveals.
 It is important to introduce productions that will be popular on social networking services and the Internet.
 Nippon TV, which was one of the first companies to use core viewer ratings as a compass for its productions, has accelerated its efforts to target young viewers. The main engine of this strategy is &#8220;the introduction of works with a strong element of consideration,&#8221; according to a producer at a key station.
 Reboot,&#8221; which was the biggest hit of the previous season and continued to gain views after its broadcast, had elements in common with other hit dramas in recent years. The first is that it is an original script.
 While popular original dramas are expected to draw an initial response from fans, the downside is that the ending and development of the story are already known. On the other hand, an original screenplay is suitable for discussion and social networking because the future is unpredictable.
 Another is that there is a &#8220;mystery that makes you want to talk about it,&#8221; &#8220;foreshadowing that makes you want to watch it again,&#8221; and &#8220;a pull that makes you want to talk about it with someone before the next episode. This is the secret to keeping viewers&#8217; enthusiasm long-lasting,&#8221; said Aida.
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 What is a hit?&#8221;
 Amidst the dramatic changes in the environment surrounding drama viewing, we hope to savor this season&#8217;s labor of love, created through trial and error by TV professionals.
<figure id="attachment_469050" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-469050" style="width: 1895px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b0f31fd9"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/90c6a362adeb73b30687b78cdcdc288f.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-469050" class="wp-caption-text"> Unsolved Woman Keishicho Documentary Investigator Season 3/Yuna Kuroshima (29) This is the first new series in six years. Kuroshima plays the role of a unique Police Agency careerist who is assigned as the boss of the lead actress, Kyoka Suzuki (57).</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_469051" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-469051" style="width: 1570px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a5b44dc8"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/74c51f1c99559358d47dac143fdd4320.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-469051" class="wp-caption-text"> Error/Meiku Hata (24) Hata shoots a scene in which she and Mirai Shida (33) look at each other in a residential area in Chiba Prefecture in mid-April. This is her first starring role in a prime time terrestrial television production.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_469054" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-469054" style="width: 2500px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="9301e266"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/5c5043ed005138944501d68b528ce59a-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-469054" class="wp-caption-text"> TVer Favorite Viewer Registrations&#8221; and &#8220;Household &amp; Core Viewer Ratings&#8221; List</figcaption></figure>
 From the June 5 and 12, 2026 issue of FRIDAY

 Kumataro Arai

 Drama strategies have come to place importance not only on viewer ratings, but also on the number of views of distribution, time spent watching, and revenue from distribution. In this dramatically changing viewing environment, we would like to savor this season's laborious works, which were created through trial and error by TV people!

 Part 2: Hiromi Nagasaku starring in "Time is Already Running Out! The distribution of "GIFT" has been growing! Miscalculation" and "Counterattack" of "GIFT" and "Saba Can, Space Odyssey" are "Monday's Sunday Theater

Kasumi Arimura is a magazine reporter..! A large selection of &#8220;Spring Dramas to Watch&#8221; that show the trial and error of TV people despite the sluggish viewer ratings!

Kasumi Arimura is a magazine reporter..! A large selection of “Spring Dramas to Watch” that show the trial and error of TV people despite the sluggish viewer ratings!

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