It’s a bit of a cliche on a worldwide scale for any TV series or movies that deal with the subject of teenage life to have the theme of "popular" vs. "unpopular" – but in the new hit TV drama "Nobuta. wo Puroduusu"(eng. "Producing Nobuta"), currently being shown in Japan - and whose theme song is becoming popular as well - is somewhat different than those type of high school story.

Probably piggybacking on the usage of periods, like "Morning Musume." who of course is produced by musician Tsunku, the title of this TV drama also has a period (after Nobuta).  (Note: The original novel author said that he was actually inspired by how Morning Musume was created—making ordinary girls into top stars. Speaking of the original novel, [SPOILER!] in it, the main character, Shuji is more negative and ends up escaping from school (avoiding disorder) after failing to maintain his popularity.)

"Nobuta" is a secret nickname of a girl who is being bullied at school, and she has a look of darkness and eeriness, like the characters in Juon or Ringu.  Her real name is "Nobuko Kotani" and she picked that nickname by herself  (it means "Wild Pig" and sounds like Nobuko)

That "secret" is being shared by Shuji, a popular guy at school, and Akira, an eccentric loner.  Shuji is a handsome and cool dude who is well liked by everyone at school; but his whole attitude of "getting popular" is a facade, an act of necessity in order to survive the harsh reality of a high school life. The truth is that he is desperately tries not to be disliked by people around him, and whenever he senses an uneasy "air" around him, he never forgets to "warm up" the place, so that he is always "liked by his friends."
 

At the same time, Shuji doesn't get along with Akira – Akira has a frivolous personality; he is a son of a rich dad; he has a eccentric character, living at his own pace at school, not really paying attention to the world. He stands out in the class with his peculiar style and he is a loner, but he doesn't care, and he goes by day by day, minding his own business.

Just when the bullying of punk kogals toward Nobuta begins to escalate, it just so happens that Shuji and Akira both some how get involved in "producing" Nobuta to become the most popular girl in school, after a strange turn of events.

The way the story goes is that, Nobuta and Akira both have a sense of self-identity, and on top of that, they both have a type of personality that cannot "fit in" with the rest of the crowd....  Nobuta is so clumsy with people and she is convinced that she should not have any hope or expectation for any bright future and that she feels she cannot be accepted in the society no matter what. On the contrary, Akira is much more optimistic and straight minded; however, he also acknowledges that he is insubstantial and feels empty inside.... Shuji shrewdly lives by cleverly changing his interior and exterior "face" to the world; not liking himself, he slowly gets attracted to the two guys (Nobuta and Akira) who are not afraid to show their inner "self" to the rest of the world....

For the kids, the school is THE society. And whether or not you are "popular" or not in that society completely determines your whole identity, however small that society is.

Shuji calmly analyses this society that is being "produced", and he mentions, "The inside doesn't matter, if everyone says she's pretty, she's pretty, there are people who make this kind of things up in the world. They're constantly thinking of ways for us to spend more money. Even if it’s not a good song, it can be made a hit, a normal girl can become a star, or it can make a line in front of crappy restaurant. "

The things that are produced are not necessarily the "truth"; rather, it is often the case that it usually creates a "false image". However, in this drama, it cleverly creates both expectation and the sense of anxiety to the viewers, in that even if Nobuta is being "produced", it might end up revealing the hidden truth or goodness of people, or the anxiety that it might as well end up in producing a "virtual image".  On one hand, it makes viewers to think that it is a drama about a young man saving a girl who is weak and alienated, but it is actually about a guy (Shuji) who lives in the world of vanity and his internal turmoil in it.

Shuji puts on a mask in order to survive in a system where people are being tossed left and right by the force of false "images" or "popularity".  In truth, however, he is unknowingly being prompted to change, first by Nobuta who gradually finds herself by stepping forward to gain her confidence by her own will, and secondly by Akira who sees through false images and not to afraid to sees the truth of things.

Nobuta and Akira both value things that are important to themselves but not for anyone else.  Shuji slowly realizes that he has been constantly been influenced by the images created by "others" and overlooked his "own" value.  The story now becomes about how Shuji transforms himself and is torn between "falsehood" and "truth"....

The series seems to be partially inspired by the story of "Ningen Shikkaku" (eng. title "No Longer Human") by Osamu Dazai that depicts a man slowly mentally degenerating. He acts like a clown by hiding his own feeling out of the fear toward society. Dazai's "Hashire Meros" (eng. title "Run, Meros!") tells about pure friendship between the friends who believe in each other.  It is worthwhile to note that the work of the screenwriter, Izumi Kisara, is so exceptional in the use of advance hints that are so perfectly laid out and of course in the excellent script writing as well.

The island nation of Japan, whose inhabitants are strongly insular, is extremely intimidated by other's eyes, judgments, and the public favor. Japan is like that not simply because there are many people in a limited living space, but if you look at the history of Japan, it always had a system of being ostracized in a village or community, if you deviate from its rule or standards. In this kind of community or organization where people breathe and live right next to each other, the ironclad organizational rule is to go along with trends or common knowledge of the group no matter what.  Those who deviate from this rule are labeled as "A person who can not read the air", being laughed at, looked down upon, and eventually nobody would come and talk to you face to face.

In Japanese, foreigners are called "Gaijin" (in Chinese character of Gai (outside) Jin (people)) .  From the beginning, the "Gaijin" are outsiders, and the insiders don't expect to share the common awareness with the "outsiders". (However, the insiders expect the "outsiders" to behave the way the "outsiders" are supposed to behave.)

Maybe the reason why bullying is particularly harsh in Japanese school or why the village or group mentality is particularly strong in Japan might be from the fact that Japan is not a racial composite place and that they are pretty much all belong to the middle class and use the same language only in one nation.  These similar kinds of people live right next to each other, and the flip side of all this is the fact that there is a potential for Japanese to be extremely exclusive in being so.

This story describes the downside of high tech town—Tokyo. So many trends, and things get obsolete so fact, and there are whirlpools of information, that might easily guide you to get lost what to choose, what to put value.

This is a story about a life in school, but a guy like Shuji is a typical representation of millions of people in any modern society -- especially in Japan. Shuji says that he likes himself when he is with Nobuta and Akira (Those two who don't or can't belong to any groups). Shuji's struggle shows the mind that can't face real communications and only can handle certain person, place or things at a surface level will eventually choke up.

However, this drama does not describe the person, Shuji, who is a symbolic character of typical people, negatively as the original novel. The drama express the necessary and the kind reason of why he needs to behave that way, due to the care attention and sensitive feeling toward surroundings. "Nobuta wo Produce" is a kind of drama that you can't easily predict the story direction and make you realize the deep and complicated human nature. It is a highly recommended work.
 
The characters
Shuji is acted by Kazuya Kamenashi, who is getting popular recently, partially from being one of the new Johnny's groups called Kat-Tun. He's been acting skillfully two sides of Shuji's character very well. While showing the outside face as a popular guy in school, hanging out with two geeky friends at behind the scene speaking out his gloomy true intention.

Maki Horikita (Nobuko Kotani) is a girl who played the part of the sister of Densha Otoko drama. This sudden change of her performance is very interesting. She is slowly but surely showing the transformation of her character who has an extremely shy and dark personality, but single mindedly trying to change within by herself for her own value.

And the acting of Tomohisa Yamashita (from a leading idol of the Johnny's group "NewS") doing Akira has gotten attention since the show had started. In fact, he had been acing roles mainly as "a normal good young boy", and his reputation for his acting hasn't gotten much credit. However, Tomohisa has a unique presence, like "a guy who has dead fish eyes." And so his mysterious expression seems to be a right fit into this role of Akira. Akira is an interesting attractive character that sometime has a wild expression but also has a serious face.


Additional note : Theme song
It looks like a the theme song of "Nobuta wo Produce", called "Seishun Amigo (Youth Amigo)" sold more than one million copies in Japan on 11/29 and became the number one single CD sale of 2005.

This song, which I think is somewhat very Johnny's like, in another word, the world that completely ignored the present trend/reality (contains the hot friendship / a fight of men / a promise / death), has almost science fiction lyrics. Or perhaps I shall say, this is a great "Johnny's fiction world".

Such "Seishun Amigo" has Japanese typical Showa popular song-like melody, which became outstanding conspicuously in the recent R&B influenced (U.S.A. pop music influenced) Japanese music scene in this winter of 2005. This song heated up the recent boring JPOP scene.

However, what I was surprised of is that the lyric writer is a man of 25 years old who used to living in America. And the composition and arrangement are by Shusui of former "Canna" (a Japanese folk group member of Tatsuro Yamashita great admiration) and North European musicians, Jonas Engstrand, Ola Larsson, and Fredrik Hult.

It is very interesting that this song was created by people who mostly have a background from outside of Japan, they are expressing a precisely rare thing called J-idol, or whether you call a quality of Japanese-ness, and an unforgettable catchy song.