Hanzawa Naoki (半沢直樹)

Completed this Japanese drama just very recently, I think Monday or Tuesday. The reason I watch this drama is because it had a high viewership in Japan, in fact, the highest in the Heisei Era (平成時代)! Secondly, it has only 10 episodes, easier for me to catch it.

The story talks about a guy called Hanzawa Naoki (半沢直樹) where he worked and climbed up the corporate ladder of a Japanese bank. But he faced lots of obstacles, could be due to the banking corporate culture in Japan or could be some doings by someone who is up up there in the ranking.

First part of the drama had the setting based in Osaka where Hanzawa Naoki was tasked to recover the 500 million yen from the bankrupt steel company which the bank loaned the amount to. Apparently, the bankrupt was an intentional move and the culprit was someone from the bank!

After about 5 episodes, the setting moved to Tokyo, where Hanzawa Naoki was assigned to try to salvage Iseshima Hotel which lost some 12 billion yen due to investment failure, in order to avoid the bank being pressured to place some 150 billion yen as some safety fund. While Hanzawa Naoki managed to reverse the situation, he found out that the culprit was another person from the bank!

故事高潮迭起，怎麼會錯過呢？

A character which I quite admired was Hanzawa Naoki's wife. She was super supportive of Hanzawa, almost all of the time, despite having some complaints here and there. 真的有妻子典範、賢妻的風範喔！她不是每個老公心目中的理想型老婆嗎？

This drama was planned to occupy the timeslots, rather than being a 大製作 or 重頭劇. The result was very unexpected until TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) decided to film its sequel. 我已經迫不及待要追看下去了！