Zenryoku Shissou

Official Website
www.nhk.or.jp/pd/zenryoku

Broadcast
From 10.00 p.m., Sundays, 3 September 2017

Station
NHK BS Premium

Story
Isoyama Takeshi is a contract employee who has been offered a contract with an indefinite term by his company which dashes his hopes of becoming a full-time employee. At home, he is condescendingly told what to do by his wife Seiko and scorned by their 6-year-old daughter Nanami every day. To make matters worse, his speculation in real estate which he began without the knowledge of his wife with the aim of turning his fortunes around, is performing badly, and the interest on the money he borrowed from loan sharks to cover his debt is ballooning. One day, Isoyama gets shut out of the house in an unexpected turn of events. He happens to encounter a mysterious old lady who bestows him with a book. After reading it, Isoyama decides to escape reality by completely disappearing for the seven years required for him to be considered dead in a quest for a new and different life.

Characters
Harada Taizo as Isoyama Takeshi
A contract employee of a Tokyo food wholesaler since four years ago because the company he switched to went bust. He is a good-natured man but cannot make progress in his work. Before marriage, he was not seen as a man by his wife Seiko. But they had a shotgun marriage after an unexpected turn of events and he has been henpecked ever since. Even his daughter Nanami disdains him. He speculates in real estate without Seiko’s knowledge. However, he has to borrow money from loan sharks to repay the loan and is stuck with no way out. He ends up wandering across the country as a missing person.

Ogawa Tamaki as Isoyama Seiko
Isoyama Takeshi’s wife. They met through work and dated him with the disposition of an elder sister. Even after marriage, she tries to take care of him with a condescending attitude. She continues working at a travel company after childbirth but is extremely unhappy about her husband’s uselessness and tamps down her childhood dream of being a baker.

Katsumura Masanobu as Serizawa Keisuke
Isoyama Seiko’s divorced boss at the travel company where she works. He is a womaniser and pretends to pay attention to Seiko as he begins to invite her out so that the two of them will be alone.

Suzuki Rio as Isoyama Nanami
Isoyama Takeshi’s only daughter. A sixth grade elementary school student. She keeps being told by her mother Seiko to work hard for a private junior high school entrance exams every day and is weary of it. After the disappearance of her father, Seiko’s meddling is focused all on her and she gets overstressed. She learns that she was born because of a shotgun marriage and thinks that it is better if she was not born.

Tezuka Toru as Takamine Toshio
A debt collector for a loan shark’s loan. He lent Isoyama Takeshi 1 million yen but because Isoyama is behind on his payment, he tacks on 10% interest more every month so the amount balloons.

Tsuji Kazunaga as Isoyama Koichi
Isoyama Takeshi’s father. After suffering from a stroke, he is not able to speak well and is admitted to a home for the elderly. Isoyama’s younger sister Eriko often comes to take care of him but her true motive is that she wants to sell the family home which her brother and sister-in-law own.

Enami Kyoko as Mysterious old woman
A woman who seems to be the proprietress of a bar called Disappearance. However, it is unclear if she is visible to the people around her. She is able to see troubles like those of Isoyama Takeshi’s. She hands Isoyama a book which is a manual on complete disappearance and this becomes his purpose.

Scriptwriters
Shimada Ureha (Koekoi, Sumika Sumire, Kekkonshiki no Zenjitsu ni)
Yamaura Masahiro (Umi ni Furu, Roosevelt Game)

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