The Television conducted an interview with Kuroiwa Tsutomu who won the best script category in the 122nd The Drama Academy Awards for "Zenryouiki ijou kaiketsushitsu". Here are some highlights from his interview which includes behind-the-scenes trivia about the production of this drama:
POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!
- To Kuroiwa, this drama was a brand new challenge for him as well since he had never attempted something like this in his career so far. In addition, since he made his debut as a scriptwriter in FujiTV, writing this drama felt like coming full circle back to his roots so he wanted to do something unlike the norm.
- As to why he decided to make this drama based on the theme of Japanese gods, he revealed that he had visited Ise Shrine several years ago and heard an introduction of Sarutahiko Shrine from his taxi driver at that time. He then learnt of the Sarume Shrine which honours Amenouzume no Mikoto (Hirose Arisu's character) and felt that there is a lot of interesting and deep stuff to uncover in Japanese mythology. As such, this was what led to the development of this drama.
- He commented that while many people would have heard of various Japanese gods' names, they probably wouldn't have known much beyond that. After discussing with the producer, they felt that this was an interesting topic to explore in this drama.
- As to the choice of gods to feature in the story, the first thing that was decided was to feature Sarutahiko no Kami (Sakoda Takaya's character) and Amenouzume no Mikoto as a married couple. With regard to Okitama no Kami (Fujiwara Tatsuya's character), this was because he is an enshrined deity in the inner hall of Ise Shrine and said to be considered as the same as Sarutahiko no Kami. This piqued Kuroiwa's interest and fitted the character setting of Okitama no Kami hiding his identity in the story. While thinking of the other characters, he decided to choose those who most people are familar with. As for viewer feedback that the gods had the Avengers vibe when they gathered together, Kuroiwa felt that it was good that his choices worked out well.
- Kuroiwa wrote the script with Fujiwara Tatsuya in mind as Okitama no Kami right from the start. He felt that there was nobody else besides Fujiwara who could play the role of a god and without him, this story wouldn't have been possible. He also cited how Fujiwara said the line "Boku mo kami desu" (I am also God) as simply terrific and felt that Fujiwara was so convincing in his portrayal of Okitama.
- With regard to the huge amount of lines for Okitama, Kuroiwa said that generally, he tries not to write more than three rows of lines for each character per round in his dialogues but he felt that since it was Fujiwara, he thought that longer lines would be of no issue for the latter. While Kuroiwa did feel somewhat apologetic to Fujiwara for giving him so many lines this time, he was also very impressed with how the actor was able to say his lines so effortlessly, clearly and smoothly.
- As for Hirose, he praised her for being such a cool and talented younger generation actress and wished that they can work together again in future. He cited the scene in the end when there was a confrontation between Koyume (Hirose) and Naobi Yoshimichi (Kakizawa Hayato) where she had to say the line "Detekoi" (Come out here) to him. Since this is a strong word which typically sounds awkward if said by a woman, there was a discussion with the producer as to whether they should opt for a softer-toned word to replace this. However, they decided to stick with what was in the script and felt that the effect with which Hirose delivered this was better than expected.
- The story took a sudden change in genre and direction at the end of Episode 5 when it was revealed that this was not just a police drama investigating supernatural phenomenon and that the members of Zenketsu were all gods. This was a calculated move from the start and considering that the drama consisted of 10 episodes, that was an appropriate timing for the turning point. However, the surprise would only work if viewers stayed on until Ep 5 so they had to leave various clues on a trial-and-error basis to see what worked in holding the viewers' attention and interest. He remarked that this approach probably succeeded in part due to the fact that viewers could go back to watching the drama on-demand when armed with the knowledge of later developments and could derive new joy in re-watching earlier episodes to uncover clues which they had missed previously. Unfortunately, even though Kuroiwa had told his mother to hold on until Ep 5, she actually gave up watching his drama before that so he jokingly said it was such a pity.
- Ultimately, this drama was a mystery story packaged as a police detective story until Ep 5 and revealed to be about Japanese gods from Ep 6 onwards. To prevent this from being a stale and old-fashioned mystery drama, he had to make sure that the script was in line with the times. He also felt that although there were some words of advice for mankind towards the end, that didn't feel like preaching thanks to the fact that it was the gods who said those lines, not human beings.
- In order to make the scenes where Okitama explained to Koyume about Japanese mythology and various gods more understandable and interesting to viewers, it was decided to make flash animations primarily based on ink paintings and supplemented with old articles and pages from the Nihon Shogi (The Chronicles of Japan - the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history). This was intended to make the viewers curious about Japanese mythology as they watched this drama.
- As for the deduction theories on social media after the broadcast, Kuroiwa was a bit concerned that some had mentioned about the characters' names incorporating that of Japanese gods right from Ep 1 but also didn't want the link to the real theme to be totally unnoticeable by viewers. It was thus hard to find the right balance along the way.
- Since there are some parts which haven't been fully depicted in the drama, he deliberately left those to the viewers' imagination and hoped to be able to cover these if there is ever going to be a sequel.
- Kuroiwa confirmed that Okitama had not erased Koyume's memory so she retained the memories of her 3 months spent in Zenketsu. However, her memories of her days as a god were still gone.
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