''Long Vacation'' (, also known as ) is a

Japanese television drama , also called or J-drama, are television programs that are a staple of Television in Japan, Japanese television and are broadcast daily. Format All major Television networks, TV networks in Japan produce a variety of Drama (genre), drama serie ...

series from

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

, first shown in Japan from 15 April to 24 June 1996. The show's high ratings in Japan made

Takuya Kimura is a Japanese actor, singer, and radio personality. He is regarded as a Japanese icon after achieving success as an actor. He was also a popular member of SMAP, one of the best-selling boy bands in Asia. In the media, he is known as a huge hea ...

popular in the Asia-Pacific region and is known as "The King of Ratings". It also made Tomoko Yamaguchi a known actress in Japan. The characters in the series have something in common: if not jobless, they can do no better than secure a temporary job. This is a portrayal of a time when Japan was plagued by deep recession, when its people suffered profound depression from constant failure to earn a stable income. The series also portrays how relationships are made and broken, and explores how people come to depend on each other for solace.

Plot

Minami and Sena meet when Sena's apartment-mate, Asakura, jilts Minami on their wedding day. Minami learns from Sena that Asakura has left, whereabouts unknown. Sena allows Minami to move into the apartment, since she is penniless, having given all her money to Asakura, and cannot pay the rent on her apartment. This is the beginning of a romance between Sena and Minami. Minami and Sena confide in and console each other about their relationship problems and their lack of success in life. Sena has a crush on his junior, Ryoko. However, Ryoko does not feel the same, instead, she falls for Minami's little brother Shinji. Minami meets a professional photographer, Sugisaki, who proposes marriage. Although Sugisaki fits Minami's ideal, she feels unsure about her feeling. Meanwhile, Sena has a chance of winning a piano competition and going to Boston, joining the symphony orchestra. After he wins the contest, he proposes Minami to marry and go with him to Boston.

Cast

as * Tomoko Yamaguchi as *

Yutaka Takenouchi is a Japanese actor. His on-screen acting debut was in the drama ''「ボクの就職」 (Boku no Syūshoku)'' in 1994, after winning a modeling contest. He also appeared in commercials. Filmography TV series * ''My First Job'' ( TBS, 1994), S ...

as *

Takako Matsu (born on June 10, 1977) is a Japanese actress and pop singer. Personal life Matsu was born to a family of buyō and kabuki actors, including her father Matsumoto Hakuō II, her mother and businesswoman Noriko Fujima, her uncle, Nakamura ...

as *

Izumi Inamori is a Japanese actress signed to Burning Production. Biography Izumi Inamori was born and grew up in Kagoshima Prefecture. After finished from the local high school, Inamori went to University of Texas at Arlington to study English abroad. Aft ...

as *

Ryō The was a gold currency unit in the shakkanhō system in pre- Meiji Japan. It was eventually replaced with a system based on the '' yen''. Origins The ''ryō'' was originally a unit of weight from China, the ''tael.'' It came into use in Ja ...

as * Leo Morimoto as *

Ryōko Hirosue is a Japanese actress and singer, best known to international audiences for her roles in the Luc Besson-produced ''Wasabi'' (2001) and the Academy Award-winning Japanese film '' Departures'' (2008). She also starred in the 2008 comedy series '' ...

as * Kosuke Toyohara as

Episodes

Production

The theme song was '' La La La Love Song'' by Toshinobu Kubota and features

Naomi Campbell Naomi Elaine Campbell (born 22 May 1970) is a British supermodel. Beginning her career at the age of eight, Campbell was one of six models of her generation declared supermodels by the fashion industry and the international press. She was th ...

Media

''Long Vacation'' was released on DVD in Japan on 21 November 2001. At the time it was released, it had a limited edition booklet released alongside the first 5,000 DVD copies.

Novel

A novelization of ''Long Vacation'' was written by Eriko Kitagawa.

Broadcast

It was formerly broadcast in Hong Kong. In the US, it was formerly aired via

KTSF KTSF (channel 26) is an independent television station in San Francisco, California, United States, broadcasting in a variety of languages, most notably Chinese. The station is owned by the Lincoln Broadcasting Company and maintains studios ...

TV with English subtitles. On 22 July 2020, Viu announced that they have acquired the streaming rights to broadcast Long Vacation to Southeast Asia with regional subtitles alongside ''Love Generation'', ''A Sleeping Forest'', ''The Ordinary People'', ''Hundred Million Stars From The Sky'' and the Hero series.

Reception

When the series debuted in Japan, it was so popular with the female audience that the expression was used to highlight its fanbase. This was because the series was broadcast on Monday evenings. The episodes had an average rating of 29.5% of viewers, with the final episode reaching 36.7%. According to a research study conducted by NHK in 2009, the bulk of viewers were those who were teenagers (13 or older), at 40% of viewers, the second group were from those in their twenties at 34%. The series was popular with viewers in Hong Kong thanks to pirated

VCD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video), (not to be confused with CD Video which is a type of LaserDisc, Laserdisc) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical di ...

copies sold there before the show was legally broadcast. On 11 November 2019, Fuji TV announced that photos and props from the show were on display at Fuji TV's Headquarters in Odaiba to highlight the most popular dramas viewed through the Heisei Era in an exhibit until January 2020. According to ''Television, Japan and Globalization'', the themes of finding happiness are embodied through Minami when she mentions of her right to seek happiness by herself instead of getting married. This view is centered on people's lives when they look for existential meaning.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Official Fuji TV website
* {{Authority control 1996 Japanese television series debuts 1996 Japanese television series endings Japanese drama television series Television series about vacationing Works about pianos and pianists Fuji Television dramas