Press conference of new NHK drama "Zenryoku Shissou"

The press conference of new NHK drama "Zenryoku Shissou" was held at the TV station's HQ in Shibuya, Tokyo, on 28 August which was attended by the cast Harada Taizo, Ogawa Tamaki and Suzuki Rio.  The drama which consists of 8 episodes, will be Harada's first leading role in a NHK drama and begin its run from 3 September.

The story features Harada as the lead character Isoyama Takeshi, who is a contractual employee at a company and gets informed by his employer that he will be on a perpetual contract i.e. he has no hope of being converted to a permanent employee. At home, he is belittled by his wife Seiko (Ogawa) and his 12-year-old daughter Nanami (Suzuki). To make things worse, the secret real estate investment he made without the knowledge of his wife turns out to go against his expectations thus causing him to be stuck with increasing interest payments which he can't make. When he meets a mysterious old woman (Enami Kyoko), he gets the idea to make himself "disappear" for 7 years so that he can be declared legally dead and restart his life.

Harada revealed that when he was offered this role, he was eager to give it a shot since most dramas would probably show the lead character trying to overcome his problems with hard work and taking responsibility for what happens. However, this drama allows his character to throw away all responsibilities and run away without a care so he thought that it would be very interesting. Coupled with the fact that this is his first leading role in a NHK drama, Harada said that his motivation was even higher than usual but he commented wryly that the feeling of being the lead hasn't sunk in yet even though the filming is going to be over soon. Despite so, Ogawa said that Harada has a very tight filming schedule usually stretching from the morning to night and worked so hard to play his character. As such, she felt that he is really dependable and very fun to work with especially because he was so engrossed in his character.

In line with the drama's theme of wanting to run away from something, Harada revealed that he was once in debt of JPY 1.5m when he was younger and wanted to run away from the debt collector. However, he didn't have to do that in the end because his parents paid it off for him so Harada said that he was a really lousy guy then. As for Suzuki, she said that she quarreled with her elder sister on the previous day because she had made fun of the latter's favourite song when her elder sister was singing it. In response, Harada advised her to make up with her sister and said that it is no good to make fun of someone when he or she is singing.

Sources: Eiga.com / Oricon