Aiba Masaki to star in FujiTV Spring 2014 Gekku "Youkoso, Wagaya e"

Arashi's Aiba Masaki will be starring in the FujiTV Spring 2014 Gekku drama "Youkoso, Wagaya e" (Welcome to My Home) which will begin its run from April in the Mondays 9pm timeslot. He is the third Arashi member to take on a Gekku drama after Matsumoto Jun and Ohno Satoshi. The drama is based on the same-titled suspense novel by Ikeido Jun whose works have been made into dramas like "Hanzawa Naoki" and "Roosevelt Game" and has accumulated sales of 500,000 copies to date. Although the lead character in the novel is the father of the Kurata family, the focus of the drama version will be the son and there will be some changes to the story and addition of original characters.

Aiba plays the role of Kurata Kenta, a meek commercial designer who finds himself becoming harassed by an unknown stalker after warning a man about his action of jumping queue at a train station. At the same time, his father Taiichi played by Terao Akira who is a salaryman, finds out about a wrongdoing in his company and has to deal with the pressure of being forced to keep quiet about it while his mother Keiko played by Minami Kaho becomes embroiled in a jealousy spiral among the students in a pottery class she is attending. His younger sister Nana played by Arimura Kasumi is being relentlessly pursued by a former boyfriend. With the entire family being subjected to harassment from an unknown stalker (s), Kenta tries to find out who exactly is responsible for it and combat the horrors of dealing with the stalker's antics.

Aiba commented that he is deeply honoured to be able to act in a Gekku drama and to take part in a production based on Ikeido's novel. Ikeido who is having his novel made into a drama shown on FujiTV for the first time, stated that as the drama is not restricted by the novel's structure and has introduced new characters and developments, he hopes that this will bring an improved and more interesting drama for the viewers.

Filming begins in early March.

Source: Sanspo 1 / Sanspo 2 / Yomiuri Hochi / Sponichi