This article from FRIDAY gives a pretty detailed account on the background story leading to the birth of Kansai TV Autumn 2022 drama "Elpis - Kibou, arui wa sawai -" which has been attracting attention because of its daring take on taboos in TV stations and the head-on battle against the dark side of power. Although the story is set in a fictitious TV station, the drama incorporated elements like obvious references to those in power, past political scandals and claims which were later found to be untrue which was considered very surprising for a primetime drama shown on a private terrestrial TV network.
* It took a long 6 years before the drama could see the light of day because its production process from the planning stage was fraught with difficulties and setbacks.
* Everything started from the spring of 2016 when TV producer Sano Ayumi went to visit scriptwriter Watanabe Aya for a discussion on an upcoming project about a love comedy. However, the conversation was getting stale and heading nowhere until they suddenly talked about people falsely accused of crimes that they did not commit. It turned out that Sano who graduated from the law faculty, had developed the habit of going to trials opened to the public after she read the diary of a convict on death role while she was still in university. As they talked about how easy it was for people to be punished on false charges in Japan and that there were many people who still hadn't been released despite their cases having clear loopholes or there were some which had some degree of suspicion as to whether these people were indeed guilty, Watanabe was convinced that if they were to do something about a false charge case which was still unresolved, it would definitely be good material for a drama.
* However, such a project would mean making an enemy out of the police and the judiciary so it was deemed to be impossible for TBS where Sano was working at then. Unable to give up on the idea, she requested Watanabe to go ahead to create the script with her so they managed to produce up to 3 episodes' worth of content and offered the lead role of Ena to Nagasawa Masami who agreed to it readily after reading the script.
* At that time, Sano had a illustrious career and was also involved in the production of hit drama "Quartet". Despite so, being caught up in the office politics then and going against the tide caused Sano to be transferred to the overseas business department. As a result, Sano who insisted that she didn't want to leave the drama production department and wanted to press on with the production of "Elpis", decided to leave TBS.
* After going around to pitch the drama to various TV stations, it was Kansai TV which came to the rescue in the end and prevented the project from going down the drain. Sano herself also joined Kansai TV and managed to mark her revival in the drama production industry with "Oomameda Towako to sannin no motto otto" last year.
* The Mondays 10pm timeslot was newly-created in autumn 2021 with the intention of taking on challenging and controversial productions. Ayano Go's "Avalanche" got the ball rolling with its story about people who took on the evil who were unable to be punished by the law through publishing their crimes for all to see on the Internet. As such, "Elpis" was arranged to be shown during this timeslot in line and even had its world premiere in Cannes.
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