Kimitachi ni Asu wa Nai

Official Website
www.nhk.or.jp/dodra/kimiasu

Broadcast
Saturdays, 9.00 p.m. – 9.55 p.m., from 16 January 2010

Station
NHK

Story
Murakami Shinsuke works at Nihon Human React. His present client is Morimatsu House, a manufacturer of building materials that is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. His objective is to force 200 employees to take “voluntary retirement”. It is a restructuring exercise that is good for the organisation. No matter how resentful they are, Murakami dispassionately induces his interviewees to take “voluntary retirement” in one interview after another. Then, the Sales Department’s Section Manager Hirayama Kazuaki appears at the interview room. There is a person specially singled out by the Human Resource Department that he would like Murakami to force into resigning. Before long, it is the turn of the deputy manager, Serizawa Yoko, to be interviewed but she refuses to retire. Seeing the image of his girlfriend Junko, who had suddenly gone missing two years ago, within Yoko, Murakami …

Characters
Sakaguchi Kenji as Murakami Shinsuke
He works for Nihon Human React, a company that undertakes corporate restructuring. He goes into companies which have been squeezed by the recession and are on the verge of collapse. A professional at conducting layoff interviews, he forces the candidates identified for restructuring to take “voluntary retirement” one after another through well-prepared and hard-nosed interview techniques. While he finds his job fulfilling, he at the same time feels doubts. He likes older women and when he finally meets Serizawa Yoko at an interview, he has a change of heart but …

Tanaka Misako as Serizawa Yoko
The deputy manager of Morimatsu House, a building materials manufacturer. She is a divorcee and has tasted life’s bitterness but works hard in the male-dominated world of the building materials business and is on the managerial track. However, she becomes a candidate for restructuring and meets Murakami. She firmly declares her refusal to retire until the projects she had planned and launched have concluded. Moreover, with the loan for her 2LDK apartment still not paid, she has absolutely no intention of being laid off. Murakami is charmed by Yoko’s devotion to her work.

Sakai Masaaki as Takahashi Eiichiro
The CEO of Nihon Human React. He had laid Murakami off from his former job at an advertising agency. However, valuing Murakami’s businesslike approach to his work, he hires him to work for his own company as a consultant. He takes the lead in handling work and is very strict. He trusts Murakami.

Aso Yumi as Junko
Murakami’s former girlfriend. She became acquainted with Murakami through a strange turn of events when she was running an antique shop, and they began dating. He was working at an advertising agency back then. She suddenly went missing on the night when he proposed marriage.

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