The Workplace Drama

Japanese drama has a lineage that puts the workplace itself in the leading role. No crime, no romance required. Simply showing how the job turns over, day after day, is enough for a series. What makes this current interesting is that the shows reflect the working conditions of their moment almost in real time. Haken no Hinkaku (2007) arrived as temp work was spreading, and deliberately made its heroine a temp more capable than anyone else. Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu. (2019) came in the year that work-style reform became law, and put leaving the office on time at the centre of the story. In a little over ten years, what was seen as the problem in Japanese workplaces shows up in those two titles. The difference from the neighbouring Sunday Theatre & the Payback Drama is whether anyone wins. That one is about answering back to the organization and winning. This one is about people who go in to work again tomorrow without winning. The challenge here is whether the ordinary days of the side that never gets its payback can still be made interesting.