Tobosha (Runaway)

[Excerpt from Televiews, June 17, 2004, Wm. Penn]: Somewhere in the great metropolis tonight, 200 probably exhausted "extras" will be pondering their TV debuts and eagerly awaiting the July 18 arrival of Tobosha (Runaway, Sundays at 9 p.m. on TBS). It is the story of a man falsely accused of killing his wife. He feels his only choice is to flee the cops, who are hot on his trail. Sound familiar?

For some reason, deja vu visions of David Janssen in the 1960s ABC hit series The Fugitive are dancing in my head. Remember, he too was falsely accused of murdering his wife and went on the run to find the villain who really did the dastardly deed. The 1967 finale, in which he nabbed the one-armed man, drew more viewers than any other drama episode in previous TV history. The record held until viewers tuned in in droves to find out who shot J.R. in Dallas in 1980.

It is unlikely Tobosha will reach such heights, but it does sport a strong cast, including Yosuke Eguchi as the lovable fugitive and Hiroshi Abe as a police officer out to get him. (Abe now is enjoying an impressive ratings performance in At Home Dad, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on the Fuji TV network, the spring season's surprise success story.)

For better or worse, this version of the classic unsolved murder will be distinctly Japanized by the time it reaches our living rooms. I don't see any mention of a one-armed man, but there will be plenty of volunteer extras. The call went out over the TBS Web site for 200 people to participate in the June 17 filming of Episode 2.
Proximity to the stars, the thrill of the cameras and action, the dream of being discovered--there is definitely something about being an extra that attracts people.
Perhaps they will need more extras as Eguchi flees about the country. If you are interested, stay tuned to the Web site for further announcements.
The producer's message notes that a tunnel somewhere in the archipelago was closed for three days while they filmed the chase scene that serves as the exciting climax to Episode 1. With the affable Eguchi in the starring role, this series ought to be one of our better summer TV options.

Until the new season begins, there is not much to watch but the commercials, but they are definitely an art form too. The May-June issue of CM Now magazine introduces a commercial-related profession I had never heard of before--the ningyo (doll) animator. In commercials that use dolls or other miniature characters, these are the people employed to carefully arrange the characters on the set and continually move them, ever so slightly, as the filming progresses to give them an "animated" look. The magazine notes a 15-second commercial can take two to three days to film and a 30-second spot four days or more. The article pointed out one "moving steam iron" had to be adjusted 1,800 times in the filming process. Sounds like grueling work.

[Excerpt from Daily Yomiuri, Televiews, July 22, 2004]: Watching Yosuke Eguchi run just may be the best TV pursuit of the 2004 summer season. As Nagai in Tobosha (Runaway, Sundays, 9 p.m. on the TBS network), he has snared one of the best roles of his already long and stellar career. The series got off to an exciting start July 18 with some very slick camera work and special effects.

For plotline, just recall the 1960s David Janssen hit The Fugitive about a doctor falsely accused of killing his wife who goes on the run to find the one-armed murderer. Of course, Tobosha has been updated for the times. In this version, there is no one-armed man, and the murdered wife is the doctor.

Nagai is a dedicated juvenile probation counselor who is called away from home on his son's birthday. When he returns, he finds his wife dead and his son just clinging to life.

We have been shown an idyllic, happy family but after the murder, the police turn up a divorce form with her signature on it, a newly doubled life insurance policy worth 100 million yen with Nagai listed as the beneficiary and his fingerprints on the knife. The fact that Nagai killed someone in self-defense at age 15 also prejudices the police against him. The final straw comes when someone cuts his son's hospital tubes and they find his prints there too.

If the police had Miss Marple's help, they might realize all the puzzle pieces fit together just a little too well, but they don't. She is busy over at NHK, starring in a mediocre animated detective series Sundays 7:30 p.m.-8 p.m.
Instead, in Tobosha, Hiroshi Abe plays a nasty National Police Agency cop eager to pursue the case and Miki Mizuno, a Kanagawa Prefectural police officer with real jurisdiction.

While she is transferring Nagai to NPA custody, their van is caught in a tunnel fire. In the mayhem, he saves Mizuno's life as another inmate tries to shoot her. Then together, they carry a mother and child to safety after he convinces her to take off his handcuffs.

One would think all these good deeds would perhaps get the police to take another look at his case but instead he chooses to run--back toward the flames. We are asked to suspend disbelief and assume he can escape smoke inhalation, too.
He is on the run in search of the killer now. The first episode suggests he should track down the laborers cutting grass across the street from his home on the afternoon of the murder and then learn what all the doctors at the local hospital, his father-in-law included, were up to that day. The chief nurse (Nagisa Katahira, who also plays Tenka's mom in the NHK morning serial) seems to know something too. This one is a promising four-star thriller. Check it out.

STARRING: Eguchi Yosuke, Abe Hiroshi
THEME SONG:
NETWORK: TBS
DURATION: July through September 2004