Fuji TV to revive old Saturday drama time slot with new drama starring Okada Masaki
On February 16th, Fuji TV announced that they are going to revive their drama time slot on Saturday night, which already spawned many incredible series, such as ‘LIFE‘, ‘SP‘, and ‘LIAR GAME‘. The first drama to revive the time slot is titled, ‘Mirai Nikki -Another:World-‘ and is going to star young actor Okada Masaki.
The said drama time slot at 11:10 pm on Saturday had been quite popular since April of 2007 and recoded viewer ratings as high as 17.4% ('LIFE', starring Kitano Kii). In May of 2011 Fuji TV decided to give the time slot to the variety show 'Picaru no Teiri', but with the show ending next month, Fuji TV decided to fill that time slot with dramas once again. The target audience for this revived time slot will be young people between their late teens and the age of forty.
'Mirai Nikki -Another:World-' is based on a very popular manga of the same name, which is also currently being adapted into a TV anime series. The manga is about various young people, who are forced to participate in a survival game in which they obtain a special diary. In this diary they get to write down and predict events that are going to happen within the next 90 days. All the things written down in the diary become true, but the rules say that only one of the contestants can survive this game. The drama is going to feature an original character, 'Hoshino Arata' (Okada), but the premise should remain the same.
In 2009, Okada made his starring drama debut in 'Otomen', which also was a Saturday drama of Fuji TV. Therefore it has a special meaning for him to return to this time slot.
Fuji TV's producer stated, "We think that Okada has more than enough expressive power to portray the difficult role of an ordinary young man who gets dragged into an unimaginable situation, in which he has to bear getting toyed with and has to face his own fate."
Okada himself commented, "I hope we can turn it into such an exciting drama that people will be really anxious to find out what's going to happen in the next episode."
As it was already mentioned, Fuji TV is going to air 'Mirai Nikki -Another:World-' every Saturday at 11:10 pm.
source: TOKYOHIVE