Review of Kansahoujin 監査法人

Title: Kansahoujin 監査法人
Broadcast by: NHK
Theme song: Shinkaigyo 深海魚 by Yamazaki Masayoshi 山崎まさよし

Cast:
Wakasugi Kenji (Tsukamoto Takashi)
Yamanaka Akane (Matsushita Nao)
Onodera Naoto (Toyohara Kousuke)
Shinohara Yuzo (Hashizume Isamu)
Yoshino Yoshiharu (Katsumura Masanobu)
Master (Shimizu Shogo)
Inoue Ryo (Abe Sadao)

Episode Listing:

1) Are we destroying the company? (会社、つぶせますか)
Aired on 14 June 2008 - Ratings: 7.7%
2) The 80 billion underground books (８００億円の裏帳簿)
Aired on 21 June 2008 - Ratings: 8.6%
3) A series of window-dressings (粉飾の連鎖)
Aired on 28 June 2008 - Ratings: 8.4%
4) The overture to collapse (崩壊の序曲)
Aired on 5 July 2008 - Ratings: 8.5%
5) The price for dreams (夢の代償)
Aired on 12 July 2008 - Ratings: 6.3%
6) Can we save the company? (会社、救えますか)
Aired on 19 July 2008 - Ratings: 8.2%

This has got to be one of the best dramas from NHK which I've seen. Well, this excludes the Taiga dramas since they are so long that I can't sit through them. By making this statement, I'm just referring to their Saturday dramas. Being a national broadcaster, it seems like NHK is not so concerned about the bottomline (that's why they don't stick to romance or comedies to pull in ratings) when it comes to their Saturday dramas and is prepared to go a little further when handling controversial themes like this. Mind you, this topic can be considered as a taboo in Japanese society because of some points it raised in the story. I'm surprised that NHK can put this out in the open and get viewers to think which side of the argument is better.

To give you a rough idea of what this drama is all about, here's a summary of the story. Be warned about spoilers so you may wish to skip this post until you've watched the drama or are OK with knowing the plot.

Wakasugi Kenji and Yamanaka Akane are auditors at a major auditing firm, "Japan Auditors" where they come under the charge of a superior, Onodera Naoto who lives by the principle of strict auditing. However, the general business climate fosters the unspoken understanding that auditors should turn a blind eye to a certain degree of window-dressings in the accounts. This is to preserve the business relationship between the auditing firm and the company being audited (since the latter pays them auditing fees) and the auditing firm generally has no intention to destroy a company by being "overly-strict" on them.

Being under the influence of Onodera who also happens to be their mentor when they first joined the company, Wakasugi and Yamanaka try to stick to their principles but are faced with the dilemma of whether this is indeed the right way to go.

At the beginning of the story, we are presented with Onodera's decision to issue an adverse auditor opinion on a supermarket chain's financial reports. This leads to the company going bust in no time and the CEO to commit suicide. As a result, Wakasugi and Yamanaka start to doubt whether they were being too harsh.

They are then met with the next challenge of whether to issue an adverse opinion on a construction company which inflated their sales by counting apartments which have not been built or sold yet. (The common practice for such companies is to count sales only when the apartment is sold and ownership handed over to the buyer.) Although they would very much like to have things their way, their superior on the audit site, Tashiro wants to preserve the relationship with the client and decides to issue an unqualified opinion at the insistence of the audit firm's boss.

Towards the end of the first arc, you will see the fall of Japan Auditors which will be dragged down when the fact that they did not expose the window-dressings of some major corporations comes out into the open. This is supposedly to show what happens when prudent audit practices are not upheld.

However, in the second arc, you are presented with the pitfalls of what strict auditing practices can bring about. It is not such an ideal world after all even when Onodera & Co. have their way and establish Esperanza Auditors which has a tie-up with a foreign auditing firm. The new firm is still in the state of expansion but there is little manpower to handle the workload. Auditors are overworked. The boss i.e. Onodera gradually loses focus on his initial goal as he tries to grow the business. Wakasugi and Yamanaka will then make decisions on how to survive in this environment and find their ways out from the messy state of events.

This is the second economic-themed drama from NHK after Hagetaka (i've not been able to get this drama yet) and focuses on one of the top 3 most difficult qualifications to attain in Japan i.e. national recognized accountants. In case you are wondering, the other two are doctors and lawyers. People in these professions are always addressed as "sensei" out of respect. I'm not an expert in accounting but I read Japanese financial reports every day at work so the things they discuss are not exactly that foreign to me. It might be a challenge for those who don't know accounting at all or are turned off by serious themes.

I've always wondered why the conflict of interests exist between auditors and the companies being audited. To preserve a neutral stand, auditors should not get remuneration directly from the firm concerned, ideally. In real life, this is definitely not the case. Companies pay auditing firms to check their accounts so there is no way to ensure that the auditor's opinion is partial and not influenced by the remuneration it gets. That is why at the beginning of the story, Japan Auditors is prepared to let the window-dressing go instead of issuing an adverse opinion.

I think in the past, Japanese companies had this thinking that they should not make things difficult for one another for the sake of survival. That is why the audit firms were probably not that keen to cause the downfall of companies by issuing adverse opinions. However, due to a series of corporate scandals in America as a result of such lax auditing processes, the world started to promote the importance of strict auditing practices. As a result, in countries like Japan where corporate relationships were the essence of prosperity and survival, such changes were met with resistance as shown by Onodera being taken off from the audit sites by the boss as he continued to promote strict accounting. To the audit firm, preserving relationships with clients was more important.

Personally, I've not seen an adverse opinion so far in my work. There are four types of auditor opinions i.e. unqualified, unqualified with explanation, qualified and adverse. As such, if companies do get an adverse opinion (this is extremely serious), this could lead to them being taken off the stock exchange and the company going down in no time. That's why companies which did window-dressing were so afraid of being exposed by the auditors during the checks. I pity those auditors in a way too...they were being regarded as the plague when they were just paid to do their jobs.

This drama will set you thinking: is the ideal of strict accounting practices feasible in the real world? Are we prepared for the repercussions that will come by? Although some parts of the story may be a little exaggerated i.e. covering up for the window-dressing when it had snowballed to an enormous figure or when it was already easily seen by everyone, you can take a good look at how the industry works.

As for the casting, I think Tsukamoto Takashi isn't that suitable to play this role. Well, I think he's an OK actor but then, his image doesn't fit the character. And when it came to some of the more emotional scenes, there wasn't much variation in his expressions. Another thing is, his red lips really got on my nerves. Is he like this naturally or the makeup staff put too much lipstick on him?

The supporting cast were generally good and the most outstanding, in my opinion was Toyohara Kousuke who played Onodera. As the role was developed throughout the drama, Toyohara had the chance of showing the contrast between the idealistic and realistic Onodera. Hashizume Isamu was good too but in the second part of the story, he didn't appear much since his character was behind bars. Matsushita Nao was fine in this drama and has shown improvement ever since I saw her in her debut drama.

The theme song, Shinkaigyo is good mainly because of Yamazaki Masayoshi's soulful rendition. What a pity that there are no plans to release this on CD yet!

On the whole, I would recommend this drama to those who:
- like occupation-dramas
- prefer serious-themed stories (there's no romance and only a bit of family-stuff)
- are fans of the two leads

This is definitely not for people who are looking for light-hearted entertainment so don't say I didn't warn you if you felt bored or fell asleep while watching this.