<figure id="attachment_244754" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1000px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-244754"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="962ca980"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/05/yamap.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-244754" class="wp-caption-text">Yamapo, who has been based overseas for a short time, stoically working out in Japan.</figcaption></figure>
This season&#8217;s spring dramas have been criticized for being &#8220;all out&#8221;. Among them, the blind spot winner is &#8220;Honest Real Estate&#8221; (NHK), starring Tomohisa Yamashita (37), a.k.a. Yamapa.
The story is about Nagase Zaichi (Yamashita Tomohisa), an ace salesman for a real estate company who has won contracts by telling lies, but when he gets knocked up for destroying a certain land shrine, he is unable to tell any more lies. However, his honesty ultimately leads to the happiness of his clients. &#8230;&#8230;
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To put it bluntly, it&#8217;s a pretty ridiculous setup, but it has been well-received as &#8220;silly and funny. The reputation of the show gradually spread by word of mouth, and requests to &#8220;watch it again&#8221; poured in from those who had missed it. The show has already been rerun for a second time.
Tomohisa Yamashita&#8217;s scandal reported two years ago had put his show business career in jeopardy. Perhaps because of this, he left the Johnny&#8217;s office and moved his activities mainly overseas. This drama was his return to Japan after a long absence, and it was a true showcase of Yamapo&#8217;s bottom-line strength.
<h2>Special Circumstances that Make the Drama Popular Even with Low Viewer Ratings</h2>
Why is it that Yamapo&#8217;s popularity is so strong? We asked a number of reporters and writers familiar with the entertainment industry.
 First of all, let me preface this by saying that the ratings for &#8220;Honest Real Estate&#8221; are not that good. In the first half, the ratings were hovering around 5%, but they did not give the impression that it was doing too poorly, perhaps because NHK did not actively disclose the ratings.
 In the meantime, word of mouth started talking about it as &#8216;actually the most interesting,&#8217; etc., and a second rerun was decided. From there, the show gained momentum at once. It can be said that the fact that he chose to appear in an NHK drama this time turned out to be a fortunate turn of events.
However, if the work is not interesting, a poor performance will remain a poor performance. The fact that Yamashita was able to bounce back after an initial slow start probably means that his performance was that good. In fact, there were many comments on the Internet, such as &#8220;It&#8217;s been a while since I&#8217;ve seen Yamapa, he&#8217;s still so cool! and &#8220;I&#8217;m glad this role was played by Yamashita P.&#8221; Many people pointed out that Yamashita&#8217;s performance was so good that it was interesting.
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It can be said that the popularity of &#8220;Honest Fudosan&#8221; was due to the fact that Yamashita played the lead role. In our interviews, we found that there were two main reasons for the popularity of the film.
 The first is that it had been a while since Yamashita had been active in Japan. After the scandal, Yamashita moved his activities overseas and was rarely seen on Japanese television. In the meantime, a Japan-Europe co-produced drama distributed by Hulu was released, but it has been three years since it became a terrestrial drama in Japan. It has been four years since &#8220;Code Blue: Doctor Helicopter Emergency Rescue&#8221; was released in 2006, and he has not starred in a movie since. Moreover, the upcoming films are all produced overseas and broadcast on distribution sites. Once again, his exposure in Japan is expected to decrease.
 In addition, he tended not to appear in variety shows. In addition to not being a presence that could be seen at any time to begin with, his appearances in Japanese dramas and movies had also decreased dramatically, greatly increasing the sense of scarcity. In such an environment, this was the first drama in a long time that had a gutsy Japanese focus, which may have led to the impression that &#8216;Yamapo is great after all'&#8221; (interview writer).
The second reason for the popularity of the drama was largely due to Yamashita&#8217;s own personality.
 In this drama, Yamashita plays an honest real estate salesman who can&#8217;t tell a lie, and I think this fits his true image perfectly. This is because Yamashita is a Youtube of Yoshikazu Higashitani, a.k.a. Garcy, who has been shaking up the entertainment world recently, who says, &#8216;He is just gentle with women. I have never heard a bad review. He was even praised as &#8216;God. While many actors have had their images tarnished by his revelations, Yamashita is one who has unusually blown up his image.
 Because of this girshy effect, even when he plays an honest salesman, there is a sense of truth in his performance, as if to say, &#8216;If it really were Yamapo, he would respond in such a gentle way. The fact that the drama can be watched without any sense of discomfort may be one of the reasons why the popularity of the drama is increasing.
It seems that the popularity of &#8220;Masanao Yamapo&#8221; will continue.

 Sota Shima

 Born in Ehime Prefecture. After working at a broadcasting station, she became a freelance writer. She specializes in interviews with celebrities and analysis of popular events, and is always on the lookout for serial dramas and popular Japanese movies. She is a well-known beautiful writer in the magazine industry.

 Nanako

 Spring dramas are all losing their ratings. The only winner is NHK's "Masanao Fudosan" starring Tomohisa Yamashita. Why did Yamashita win? We find out the surprising circumstances based on the work, his character, and the public's view of him.

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