Over-reliance on the unusual? - A look at FujiTV's perceived dependence on dramas featuring characters with special or supernatural powers

Amid the media frenzy surrounding FujiTV's troubles from the Nakai Masahiro incident, this article from FLASH caught my attention for highlighting an interesting observation about their dramas of late.

Apparently, FujiTV has been dishing out quite a number of primetime dramas featuring characters with special or supernatural powers and/or the use of special technology to the extent that there is concern expressed over their over-reliance on this genre and the supposed lack of creativity. In particular, the concentration of such dramas in the Winter 2025 season was highlighted as too coincidental to be true i.e. 3 out of 5 primetime offerings:

• "Aishii ~ Shunkan kioku sousa Hiiragi han ~" - the lead character played by Haru has the "camera eye" ability which allows her to make use of her photographic memory i.e. remember everything she sees to solve cases.
• "119 Emergency Call" - the lead character played by Seino Nana has the ability to remember everything she hears and uses it for her work as a command centre officer in the fire department.
• "Himitsu ~ THE TOP SECRET ~" - a special MRI technology is used to create images of the deceased's brains while they were still alive.

In addition, the previous season i.e. Autumn 2024 featured two dramas of a similar nature:

• "Usotoki Rhetoric" - the lead character played by Matsumoto Honoka has the ability to differentiate lies from the truth based on what people are saying.
• "Zenryouiki ijou kaiketsushitsu" - the gods make use of their special powers to solve cases related to strange phenomenon.

In view of these examples, this has led to comments wondering about FujiTV's dependence on this "fantastical or deviating from reality" genre and its tendency to portray women as those who can't get ahead in life unless they have a special power. To be fair though, we should also consider if the dramas are original productions or adaptations from existing material in other formats. In the case of "Himitsu" and "Usotoki Rhetoric", they are adaptations while the others are original stories. As such, this trend may have been due to one or a combination of two factors i.e. deliberately creating originals in similar formats and/or consciously picking original material with such elements. 

One reason cited in the article to explain this tendency of FujiTV was said to be the use of directors who have been in the industry for a long time and them relying on tried-and-tested formulas to play safe. For example, the director for "Aishii" is said to have about 30 years' experience since being active from the 1990s. Even with creative input from the younger staff members on the production sets, the overall direction of the work still depends on the directors so the likelihood of duplicated themes and styles is assumed to be higher. In contrast, FLASH quoted the example of TBS' highly-praised Sunday dramas and noted that the directors tend to be different people thus resulting in varying directing styles and a more refreshing slate of content offerings.

Although it does look like FujiTV has a higher concentration of dramas featuring special or supernatural abilities of late, that's not to say that other TV stations are not serving up dramas of a similar nature. Fairly recent examples which I can think of include:

• "Eye Love You" (TBS - Winter 2024) - the lead character can hear people's real thoughts.
• "Gifted" (FujiTV & WOWOW - Summer & Autumn 2023) - A senior high school student who can see whether someone is a murderer and teams up with a police detective to solve cases.
• "Okutou ~ Kanjou sousakan Shinno Akari ~ Season 2" (NTV - Autumn 2024) - A police detective can see the colours of emotions in people and uses this to help her solve cases.
• "Oichi Fushigi gatari" (NHK - Summer 2024) - The lead character in this period drama can see how the deceased looked just by hearing their voices.
• "30-sai made doutei dato mahoutsukai ni narerurashii" (TV Tokyo - Autumn 2020) - A salaryman acquires the ability to read people's thoughts just by touching them when he turns 30 years old.
• "Kishibe Rohan wa ugokanai" (NHK - 2020 onwards) - The lead character has the ability to read people's thoughts and life history through a book

And of course, there are the oldtime classics like the "SPEC" series (TBS), "BORDER" (TV Asahi) or "Psychometrer Eiji" (NTV).

While I think that the argument about the recent concentration of this genre in FujiTV's dramas may be true to a certain extent, to say that the competitors aren't doing it at all is also not entirely correct. However, if such stories can be spread out more evenly across the seasons, it might reduce the perception of over-reliance on super powers in the dramas.

On a personal note, I am not really a fan of stories featuring people with extraordinary powers especially if the story setting doesn't really call for it. For example, the overall settings in "SPEC" and "Zenryouiki ijou kaiketsushitsu" do warrant having lots of characters with special powers so I'm generally fine with these. If not, my acceptance of such stories is comparatively higher when we are talking about more "believable" powers such as people's five senses being more sensitive than others or that they are just more observant. That being said, things which border on exaggeration can turn me off.

As for the point regarding how "normal" people or even women cannot get ahead in life without such special powers, I think it reflects how real life is like to a certain extent. You do have to display something different from the rest in order to distinguish yourself from the competition which is especially evident in "Aishii" because of the male-dominated environment which the lead character is in. However, having special powers that seem way too good to be true does reduce how realistic a story comes across and can alienate viewers to a certain extent if it's too far-fetched. How to strike a balance between logic and fiction is not an easy task at all.

In relation to this point about over-reliance on a single genre or story setting in dramas, one other thing which actually annoys me more these days is the overuse of the term "genius". It does seem like in order to make a character more appealing or charismatic, the person has to deviate from the norm by being much smarter than everyone else or achieve things beyond the usual person in the same age group. And every time I see the term "genius-XXX", it gets on my nerves so much because the over-concentration of geniuses in Japanese dramas and movies makes it feel as if ordinary people have become the rarity in dramaland. Especially if the description of how genius-like the person is gets too ridiculous, I tend to avoid such stories from the onset. It makes me wonder - most of us do not encounter that many geniuses in real life at such a high frequency so why does the J-dramaland feel like it's overflowing with so many of them?