The Nurse Nurse Matsunaga Yukiko is devastated when she finds out her lover Makino whom she thought would marry her in fact has a fiancee. She jumps off the hospital rooftop to kill herself and as she falls, the referees suddenly appear and her loss-time begins. But she has no idea what soccer rules are and having no desire to live, she brushes aside the referees and returns to the rooftop. There she finds Omoto Yuzo just about ready to jump to his death.
Cast: * Ueno Juri as Matsunaga Yukiko * Shitara Osamu (設楽統) as Makino * Rokkaku Seiji * Oshima Yoko * Muto Akiko (武藤晃子) * Nukumizu Youichi as Omoto Yuzo * Hachisuka Yuuichi (蜂須賀祐一)
Synopsis: This 2 night special takes off during their graduation, where Chiaki-senpai & Nodame left for Europe. The first special centered on Chiaki’s story, the story tells about Chiaki’s dream to be a conductor. Nodame on the other hand attended the conservatory to attain her dream to one-day play the piano for Chiaki. After her hard work, Nodame was given a chance to have a mini recital. During the recital, Chiaki saw her worth and realized that he cannot go on with out her.
Cast: * Ueno Juri as Noda Megumi aka Nodame * Tamaki Hiroshi as Chiaki Shinichi * Eita as Mine Ryutaro * Mizukawa Asami as Miki Kiyora * Koide Keisuke as Okuyama Masumi * Wentz Eiji as Lantoine Frank * Becky as Vishnyova Tanya * Yamaguchi Sayaka as Namiki Yuko * Giry Vincent (ジリ・ヴァンソン) as Jean Donnadieu * Ishii Masanori as Katahira Hajime * Fukushi Seiji as Kuroki Yasunori * Takenaka Naoto as Franz Stresemann * Kichise Michiko as Elize * Yamada Yu as Son Rui (ep2) * Ibu Masato as Mine Tatsumi * Endo Yuya as Okochi Mamoru * Kondo Koen (近藤公園) as Tamaki Keiji * Sakamoto Makoto as Hashimoto Yohei * Matsuoka Rinako as Suzuki Moe * Matsuoka Emiko as Suzuki Kaoru * Kimura Ryo as Takahashi Noriyuki * Hashizume Ryo as Kimura Tomohito * Sakurai Chizu as Aizawa Maiko * Yamanaka Takashi as Iwai Kazushi * Kobayashi Kinako as Kinjo Shizuka * Fukada Aki as Inoue Yuki * Kojima Tenten (小嶌天天)
Synopsis: A forty-year-old man has married a pretty woman 20 years younger than he is. However, with their marriage as a turning point, his fate dramatically changes. The mother of his newly-wed bride is his old lover! What is worse, the mother voluntarily moves herself in with the newly weds. Their newly married life, which would have been honey-sweet, is becoming a roller-coaster ride. This is a comical drama portraying the triangle with reason of these three people.
Megumi Noda, or “Nodame” is a piano student at Momogaoka College of Music. An extremely talented pianist who wants to be a kindergarten teacher, she prefers playing by ear rather than reading the music score. She is messy and disorganized, takes baths several days apart and loves to eat, sometimes stealing her friend’s lunchbox when it is filled with delicacies.
Shinichi Chiaki, is Momogaoka’s top student. Born into a musical family, he is talented in piano and violin and has secret ambitions to become a conductor. An arrogant multi-lingual perfectionist who once lived abroad in the music capitals of the world as a young boy, he feels mired in Japan because of a childhood phobia.
They meet by accident. Nodame quickly falls in love, but it takes much longer for Chiaki to even begin to appreciate Nodame’s unusual qualities. Their relationship causes them both to develop and grow. Because of Nodame, Chiaki got the opportunity to lead a student orchestra and begins to have a broader appreciation of people's musical abilities. Because of Chiaki, Nodame faces her fears and enters a piano competition. Opportunities open up as both begin taking risks, stretching themselves far more than they ever thought possible.
Cast: * Ueno Juri as Noda Megumi aka Nodame (Piano) o Morisako Ei as young Nodame * Tamaki Hiroshi as Chiaki Shinichi (Piano/Violin/Conducting) o Fujita Reo (藤田玲央) as young Chiaki * Eita as Mine Ryutaro (Violin) * Koide Keisuke as Okuyama Masumi (Timpani) * Mizukawa Asami as Miki Kiyora (Violin) * Saeko as Saku Sakura (Contrabass) * Uehara Misa as Tagaya Saiko (Vocal) * Takenaka Naoto as Franz Strezemann (Milch Holstein by Nodame) * Akiyoshi Kumiko as Momodaira Minako * Endo Yuya as Okochi Mamoru (Conducting) * Iwasa Mayuko as Ishikawa Reina (Piano) * Takase Yukina (高瀬友規奈) as Tanaka Makiko (Piano) * Kondo Kouen as Tamaki Keiji (Clarinet) * Sakamoto Makoto as Hashimoto Yohei (Oboe) * Matsuoka Rinako as Suzuki Moe (Flute) * Matsuoka Emiko as Suzuki Kaoru (Clarinet) * Yamanaka Takashi as Iwai Kazushi (Contrabass) * Kobayashi Kinako as Kinjo Shizuka (Viola) * Fukada Aki as Inoue Yuki (Cello) * Kojima Tenten (小嶌天天) as Kanai Kento (Horn) * Inoue Yoshiko (井上佳子) as Suganuma Saya (Vocal) * Ibu Masato as Mine Tatsumi * Nishimura Masahiko as Tanioka Hajime * Toyohara Kosuke as Eto Kozo * Shiraishi Miho as Eto Kaori
* Fukushi Seiji as Kuroki Yasunori (Rising Star: Oboe) * Mukai Osamu as Kikuchi Toru (Rising Star: Cello] * Hashizume Ryo as Kimura Tomohito (Rising Star: Violin) * Namioka Kazuki as Katayama (Rising Star: Horn) * Sakurai Chizu as Aizawa Maiko (Rising Star: Flute) * Kimura Ryo as Takahashi Noriyuki (RS: Violin - new concert master) * Kuroda Chieko as Miyoshi Seiko (Chiaki's mom) * Hatano Hiroko as Kawano Keeko * Oikawa Mitsuhiro as Sakuma Manabu * Kichise Michiko as Elise * Ito Takahiro as Segawa Yuto (Nodame's childhood piano classmate) o Ogawa Koki (小川光樹) as young Segawa * Zdenek Macal as Sebastino Vieira * John Hesse as Kyle Dune (Kiyora's professor) * Manuel Doncel as Professor Auclair (Judge in Maradona Competition) * Iwamatsu Ryo as Noda Tatsuo (Nodame's dad) * Miyazaki Yoshiko as Noda Yoko (Nodame's mom) * Betto Yuki (別當優輝) as Noda Yoshitaka (Nodame's brother) * Eto Kansai (江藤漢斉) as Noda Saburo (Nodame's grandpa) * Ohkata Hisako (大方斐紗子) as Noda Shizuyo (Nodame's grandma) * Yashiba Toshihiro as Momogaoka teacher * Masuda Keita * Nagaoka Mami (photo stills)
Synopsis: TBS' Boku Tachi no Senso (Sept. 17, 9 p.m.) features a fictional young man, Kenta (Mirai Moriyama), who accidentally slips back in time from 2006 to 1944 shortly after seeing a sudden lightning flash while surfing. Soon he finds he has mysteriously traded places with a young soldier, Goichi (also Moriyama), who was doing flight training over the same area of the sea where Kenta was surfing.
Kenta, as a soldier, is then sent to an Imperial Japanese Navy base, where he is assigned to be a pilot for one of the manned torpedoes called Kaiten.
SLOT Shimojou Ryoko (Ueno Juri) makes her living by playing slot machines. Abandoned by her parents when she was very young, Ryoko moved from one relationship to another, always seeking permanency and always disappointed. One day she woke up to find a small boy, Kentai, sitting in her room with a note from her boyfriend Kenji. Kenji, a host, asked Ryoko to take care of the boy for a few days. Ryoko, the person who has always wanted to be loved, is about to find out what loving someone is about.
Jiro Kanzaki is an F3000 test driver blessed with acute sensitivity and breathtaking driving techniques. He's a daredevil who feels no fear driving at speeds that even top racers dare not attempt. But unexpected trouble forces this world-famous racer to leave his team and return to Japan for the first time in years. Until he finds a new job as a racer, Jiro decides to stay with his parents. What awaits Jiro there is his hardheaded father, his nagging sister, the 12 children of the foster home his father runs, a snobbish male nurse, and a stubborn female nurse who likes to daydream about her life.
Jiro's return home brings a breath of fresh air that influences the people around him. However, he is still unaware that he too will eventually be influenced to change the way he thinks and lives.
Ozu gets hired on to be a temporary teacher at a private high school in Tokyo. There is a major problem though...he hates kids. Actually the problem is worse than that, he hates people. He has come to not be able to trust people anymore, so he doesn't even see them as people. Which pretty much makes teaching anything to anyone out of the question. To make things worse, the kids at the school have lost all of their ambition. This teacher can't teach children, and he can't be taught.
This story is depicted with a comedic touch, as Ozu and the students go through some violent, yet funny times on the way to his learning some valuable lessons from them.
Synopsis: Kai Yuuki (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is in his senior year at university studying social welfare psychology. At present, he is in the middle of job-hunting season. He is finding it difficult with no job offers so far. One day, he meets a girl who is playing violin in the campus. She is Sae Hagio (Kou Shibasaki). In marked contrast to her beautiful tone and attractive looks, her personality is somewhat impertinent. And to top it off, she communicates through very vulgar sign language. Four years ago, she lost the most important thing for a violinist - her hearing. As a result Sae closed off her inner self from the outside world. Kai finds himself on a date with Sae, in place of his best friend. Unexpectedly, he comes into contact with Sae's private side. Love, job-hunting, friendship... Setting a campus in spring as a dorama`s backdrop, it's the start of a glittering youth drama.
Synopsis: The 69th NHK Asadora Drama is Teruteru Kazoku. Locations include Ikeda, Osaka and Sasebo, Nagasaki. The story, based on Rei Nakanishi's novel, is about the Iwata family living in Ikeda, Osaka City between 1950’s and 1960’s. The story is told through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Fuyuko (16). The family runs a bakery. The mother, Teruko, is a very energetic woman who is determined to make her dreams come true. Responding to Teruko’s expectations, the eldest daughter becomes a figure skater and the second daughter becomes a very famous professional singer. In contrast, Fuyuko finds her joy in bread making...
Cast: Ishihara Satomi as Iwata Fuyuko (heroine, age 16) Uehara Takako as Natsuko Konno Mahiru as Haruko Ueno Juri as Akiko Asano Yuko as Teruko (Fuyuko's mother) Kishitani Goro Omura Kon (大村崑) Fujimura Shiho Moriguchi Hiroko Nakamura Baijaku Nishikido Ryo Adachi Yumika Kurenai Manko Denden Ezawa Moeko Honkon Hori Akari Ishida Ayumi Kinouchi Akiko Sugiura Taiyo Tachibana Misato Osawa Akane Maya Miki Kawaoka Daijiro
Synopsis: This series is set in downtown Tokyo. Tamayo, the wife in the Aramaki family, who wants to go her own way in life, is living together with her mother-in-law Yoshie, a strong-willed woman, in an environment that's like a continuous knockdown drag-out battle. Although he's at the mercy of their constant arguments, Ryosuke is a breadwinner in the family who manages to prevail upon the two of them to get along with each other. But if the man they both love? either as husband or as son? should suddenly disappear? Now these two woman, so different in character and like strangers to each other, are forced to live under the same roof. In a series of stops and starts, will they eventually get to understand each other and become a real family? Here's a moving home drama with a generous portion of laughs and tears.
A playful 11-year-old girl named Haruna has been friends with a quiet boy named Hiroyuki for years. After entering the fifth grade, the two meet one spring day at the park where they have always played together. However, the unexpected occurs, and Haruna later realizes after a sex education class that she has become pregnant.
A little Shaolin/Kung-fu genius, Kung Fu is blown away to Japan by his master from China to defeat the "last opponent" in order to be conferred full Mastership of Kung Fu. Appealed by his spirit and charm, Tai Chi skilled Izumi and her grand daughter Reiko take care of Kung Fu, as he searches for his last opponent. When Reiko is abducted by evil organization, Kung Fu finally finds out who his last opponent is.
Cast: Pinko Izumi Mari Yaguchi Zhang Zhuang - Kung Fu-kun Yakkun Sakurazuka Mayumi Sada Juri Ueno
A female manga artist named Asako experiences writer's block when he cat dies suddenly. However, the appearance of a new kitten named Gou-Gou helps her get over her loss and inspires her to continue her work.
Cast: Kyoko Koizumi Juri Ueno Ryo Kase Chieko Matsubara
Plot Synopsis: Based on Sakata Nobuhiro and Nakahara Yu's popular manga, Naoko pairs two of Japan's hottest young stars - sweetheart actress Ueno Juri from Nodame Cantabile and Swing Girls and rising heartthrob Miura Haruma from Koizora and 14 Sai no Haha. Directed by Furumaya Tomoyuki (Robokon), the film tells a heartrending story of dreams and reconciliation as a young runner comes to terms with uncertain relationships and the track that lies ahead. Miura Haruma stars as Yusuke, a young man with a gift for running. His father passed away at sea three years ago while trying to save a girl, and Yusuke is determined to continue the dream his father left behind. The race gains a few more twists and turns when the girl his father saved, Naoko, unexpectedly appears in his life again as the new manager of his track and field team.
Cast: Juri Ueno Haruma Miura Shofukutei Tsurubei Ken Mitsuishi Yorie Yamashita Aimi Satsukawa Tokio Emoto Kaoru Okunuki
Every high school has its misfits, its square pegs, its rebels. St. Michael’s Academy, nestled on an impossibly pretty and strangely remote Japanese island, is no exception. In fact, given the atmosphere of strictness, propriety and even subtle menace looming over the elite, aristocratic, Catholic boarding school, it’s no wonder Fumio, Kazune and Yuzuko quickly bond over their dislike of the place (and their mutual love of chicken ramen noodles… how déclassé!). With rumours of rich girls being kidnapped in the region, the wards—and even more so, their legal guardians, including the school’s enigmatic headmaster, Mr. Lawrence, and Fumio’s stoic, controlling brother Kazuomi—are suspicious and on alert. Then an accidental and inexplicable unleashing of magic power infuses the girls with spectacular abilities. When the truth about the kidnappings is revealed, they’re going to need them!
Sayuri is a shy, timid and clumsy girl who has always romanticized about meeting her prince. As a child she obsessively read a manga centered around the town of Lisbon, Portugal. While reading those comics she realized her hometown of Nagasaki was similar to Lisbon in features. Her favorite street in the comic was July 24th Avenue and the street she imagined to be 24th Avenue in her hometown of Nagaski is where she first meets her prince. Will Sayuri have the courage to make her dreams come true?
Harried production assistant Kishida Tomoya (Ichihara Hayato) spends most of his working hours making mistakes and being yelled at. Recalling his college days, he messages a picture of a rainbow to his longtime friend Aoi (Ueno Juri), only to find out later that she has passed away in a plane crash. Tomoya and Aoi met in college, developing a close relationship that seemingly went beyond friendship, but neither ever voiced their true feelings to each other. Devastated by the news of her death, he thinks back to their days together, revisiting the love they never had.
Cast: Hayato Ichihara - Tomoya Kishida Juri Ueno - Aoi Sato Yû Aoi - Kana Sato Wakana Sakai - Kyoko Asakura Ami Suzuki - Sayumi Kubo Shoko Aida - Chizuru Morikawa Fumiyo Kohinata - Yasujiro Sato Kuranosuke Sasaki - Shinsuke Higuchi Hiroyuki Onoue - Jiro Hattori Kei Tanaka - Gakuto Ogata
Fed up with her stubborn father Seichiro (Sawada) and his unprofitable small-town electric appliance store, Inada Rei (Ueno) leaves home for the big city to become a fledgling designer. However, she subsequently becomes disillusioned with her new career and lifestyle, and is contemplating her next move when she learns that her father has broken his leg. Rei returns home to help out with the store, and is reunited with her earnest older sister Hitomi (Honjo Manami) and boyish younger sister Kaori (Nakamura Shizuka). As she reluctantly readjusts to her new job and her family, she begins to realise the affection felt toward her father by the local community, as well as the love and strong connections that bind her family together.
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The Inada family runs a small electrical appliances shop in the quiet town of Tanabe in Wakuyama-ken. Rei, the second of three sisters, was not happy with her boring life and ran off to Tokyo after finishing high school, where she became an apprentice designer.
One day she received a phone call from her younger sister Kaoru, asking her to come home as their eldest sister, Hitomi, was admitted to the hospital. When Rei got home she found out in was, in fact, her father Shinichirou who was admitted to the hospital with a broken arm. As Hitomi was pregnant and Kaoru was too young, Rei was asked to take up the family business until their father recovered.
During this spell of running the appliance shop Rei learned what her father's motto: "Treat you customers right and they'll be back with more business." really meant.
Koji Namiki, a talented young pitcher, who had won the National High School Baseball Championships enters university, but soon afterwards injures his elbow. He and his teammates work hard to get back on the field placing all his hopes on a new slow-ball, "the magic pitch." However, the outbreak of WWII wipes out the baseball ambitions from everyone. They join the military and in the navy undergo the severe training that prepares them for death. Death awaits them in a "kaiten" (special attack submarine or "human torpedo") within the gloomy ocean depths, but Koji never gives up his dream of the "magic pitch."
Cast: Shinosuke Ichikawa - Koji Namiki Yusuke Iseya - Katsuya Kita Juri Ueno - Minako Narumi Shun Shioya - Nobuo Ito Teruyuki Kagawa - Kashima Yûko Kotegawa - Mitsue Namiki Tomokazu Miura - Toshiaki Namiki
Summer Time Machine Blues is based around a group of friends in a science-fiction club who spend their days fooling around at the club house. The boys decide to play a game of baseball as their friend Yui Ito takes pictures of them nearby. After the game, the boys return to the clubhouse and head off to the bathhouse leaving the girls, Yui and Haruka to develop their pictures. While they bathe, Niimi gets angry because he thinks someone stole his Vidal Sassoon shampoo. On their way back, Takuma decides to sneak off to buy tickets at the theater for a sci-fi B movie. He hopes that he can ask Haruka out. But when he returns to the clubhouse, his friends act very strangely as to where he has been. They make him explain what happened, but through a series of chain events, Daigo accidentally spills Coke all over the air-conditioner remote control after being hit in the face. Everyone rushes to try to clean the remote off, but it's too late. The remote is broken and they cannot turn on the air-conditioner. This immediately becomes a problem as the day becomes hotter.
A couple of the boys try to fix the remote and try to find replacement fan while they wait. In their search for a new fan, the boys discover a strange machine. They fool around discovering that it is a time machine as they travel into the past. Around the same time, a strange traveler appears and greets himself. He dresses strangely and states that he is from another year, but no one believes him. Meanwhile, the scientist the boys gave the remote control to broke it completely. The boys have no choice but to go into the past to steal the remote control before it was broken and bring it back to the present. But as soon as they step back one day, they run into problems beyond their control.
Cast: Eita - Takuma Komoto Juri Ueno - Haruka Shibata Yoshiaki Yoza - Masaru Niimi Daijiro Kawaoka - Shunsuke Koizumi Munenori Nagano - Atsushi Soga Yoko Maki - Yui Ito Tsuyoshi Muro - Daigo Ishimatsu Riki Honda - Akira Tamura Takeshi Masu Ichiro Mikami - The Theatre Maneger Kaoru Kusumi - The Public Bath Clerk Kuranosuke Sasaki - Professor Kohtaro Hozumi Taiyo Kawashita - The Janitor
Suzume is an ordinary young housewife. Her husband is currently working abroad, so she lives by herself except for a pet turtle. Everyone treats her like nothing. Even her husband often seems to forget about her.
She asks for herself “Am I invisible? Is this all that I am? Nothing happens in my life till the end?”
But one day she finds an ad: “Spy Wanted!”
The advertisers seem to be ordinary married couple. They claim they are spies working for some foreign country, and an ordinary person like Suzume is exactly what a spy should be. They almost force her to be a spy, and give her 5,000,000 Yen as necessary expenses.
While all they want her is leading an “ordinary” life so that none pays attention, her life slowly changes to be rather extraordinary…
Swing Girls is a feel-good comedy following Yaguchi’s familiar formula of novices starting a new and slightly unusual activity, suffering various problems and set-backs on the way, but finally triumphing in the final reel. The films starts with a group of girls having to spend their summer vacation in catch-up mathematics lessons with a boring teacher. One day they are given the chance to escape the lessons by delivering lunch boxes to members of the school's brass band club. When the band members become ill, the girls realise that they can permanently skip mathematics lessons if they take the place of the sick band members. The film then follows the various problems and situations they encounter, from exercise regimes, learning to play their instruments, raising money, finding a teacher and entering a local music competition. What started as an excuse to miss lessons becomes a passion, and they finally win glory in the concert hall.
In 1977 in the port city of Shimonoseki, Ikuko (Yuri Mizutani) is an entrant in a track and field meet being held as a goodwill event with South Korean sister city Pusan. There she meets and falls in love with South Korean boy An Tei Hou (Junpei), a fellow high jump competitor. A year later on the day of the Tanabata festival (known as “Chirusoku†in Korean), the young lovers are reunited and vow to meet again in four years time. Some twenty-six years later, Ikuko has become a high school P.E. teacher and fondly remembers her youthful love affair. The track and field event she competed in has not been held since the onset of Japan’s economic recession, but is to be revived this year. Ikuko participates as a coach, and she comes to know that a Korean man is the sponsor to make this event happen again.
Following up on his 2003 hit 'Resurrection,' Isshin Inudo has hit an offbeat, art house home run with 'Josee, the Tiger and the Fish' - a romantic drama about an ordinary college boy named Tsuneo (Satoshi Tsumabuki) working part time at a mahjong parlor who falls in love with an extraordinary girl called Josee (Chizuru Ikewaki) who has cerebral palsy.
At Tsuneo's workplace, a frequent topic of conversation is the old woman who walks around town pushing a buggy, the contents of which nobody knows. As Tsuneo is out walking his boss's dog one morning, he runs across the old woman and her runaway buggy, which he stops, giving him the chance to look inside. Much to his surprise, the buggy contains a girl who, unhappy that her secret has been exposed, pulls a knife on him.
Despite the inauspicious introduction, Josee's grandmother invites Tsuneo to her house, where Josee has lived since she was a child, and the seeds of a relationship are planted.
As Tsuneo and Josee become friends, and eventually lovers, she begins to open up, but as their relationship deepens, it becomes apparent that the differences between them could be greater than they thought...
Cast Satoshi Tsumabuki - Tsuneo Chizuru Ikewaki - Joze (Kumiko) Juri Ueno - Kanae Hirofumi Arai - Koji
Ueno made her television debut in 2002 at the age of 16 in NHK series, Seizon, before making her first film major appearance in 2003 in Chirosoku no Natsu which won her the Sponichi Grand Prize New Talent Award at the Mainichi Film Awards along with her performance in the 2004 film, Swing Girls. Swing Girls proved to be a breakthrough when she received critical acclaim and awards for Best Newcomer at the Yokohama Film Festival (she was also honored for her performance in Joze to Tora to Sakana Tachi) and the Japanese Academy Awards.
Ueno's popularity rose further when she was cast as Megumi Noda ("Nodame") in the 2006 live-action television adaptation of the popular manga, Nodame Cantabile. Co-starring opposite Hiroshi Tamaki, the series' 11-episode run was a success with an average viewership rating of 18.79% with the season finalé garnering 21.7% of the viewership share for its timeslot. Ueno's portrayal as the eccentric and disorganized but yet extremely affable and talented pianist won her "Best Lead Actress" at the 51st Television Drama Academy Awards while the show won "Best Drama". The show was also recognized overseas at the 2nd Seoul Drama Festival where it was awarded "Best Miniseries". Ueno and Tamaki reprised their roles in 2007 in the two-part special, Nodame Cantabile Shinshun Special in Europe, which chronicles their individual struggles to achieve success on Europe's storied classical music stage whilst being away from each other.
In 2008, Ueno reunited with Nodame co-stars, Eita and Asami Mizukawa, in Fuji TV's drama, Last Friends, as Ruka Kishimoto, a talented motocross racer with a hidden secret she cannot discuss with friends or family. Taeko Asano, the scriptwriter of Last Friends praised Ueno's acting of Ruka, stating that Ueno is a "natural genius" and that she became "the character itself". Ueno won "Best Supporting Actress" at the 12th Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix for her role.
