The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbun
MAN’S BEST FRIEND
Drama series celebrates bonds forged among Shiba owners
It’s just the long-winded conversations of three middle-aged men in a park, nothing more. What they have in common is they all own Shiba dogs. The drama series “Shiba-Park” features an unusual setting. Currently shown on more than 10 stations across the nation, it is the 11th and latest work in the so-called “animal series” produced mainly by independent TV stations such as TVK in Kanagawa Prefecture. How did these drama series, a kind not likely to be created by major stations, come to be?
Many dog owners who recognize each other don’t know much about each other’s backgrounds — apart from their dogs’ names.
“Shiba-Park” features people like this — the “dads,” i.e., owners, of dogs Ataru (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), Jicchan (Shima Onishi) and Sachiko (Dronz Ishimoto).
These three men recently moved to a high-rise apartment building in an old town, and they’re all Shiba dog lovers. These coincidental similarities lead to them hitting it off, and they end up regularly hanging out together and chatting. However, they don’t know each other’s names.
“I’m not particularly obsessed with whether I play leading roles. But I was invited [to take part in this series], and the story looked interesting, so I decided to take a ride,” he said.
Shibukawa was tapped by the new series’ scriptwriter, Yuji Nagamori.
“I always write scripts with an actor for each role in mind. [For this work] I first pictured Shibukawa with a Shiba dog in a park and imagined what kind of chemistry would occur. It all came naturally,” Nagamori said.
The animal series, including “Shiba-Park,” is created by independent stations with limited financial resources and AMG Entertainment, a video production and distribution company. They’ve provided funds to make the TV series and their spin-off movies simultaneously.
Since the first series “Inugoe” in 2006, they’ve created popular TV series and movies, such as “Neko Taxi” and “Mameshiba,” which depict the relationships of middle-aged men with animals.
The creators’ aim is to produce a “counterculture” to sentimental animal films. “Instead of anthropomorphizing animals in a weird way, I wanted to portray them realistically,” Nagamori said.
“A good-looking guy playing with an animal doesn’t produce any chemistry. That’s why middle-aged men inevitably are the protagonists in our series.”
In the latest show, Nagamori uses Shiba dogs to highlight the differences between Shibukawa’s scary image and his charming personality in real life.
In “Mameshiba,” Jiro Sato played a middle-aged NEET whose life is at the mercy of a puppy. Like Shibukawa, it was Sato’s first lead role in a TV drama. Sato performed the role in a quirky way, seizing the opportunity to break through as an actor.
Sato is also one of the highlights of the latest series, appearing as the same character.
The combined production costs for the TV series and movies are slightly less than ¥100 million — a fraction of what key commercial TV stations would spend on producing a series. The shooting schedules are very tight, leaving no time for the actors and staff to wait for the animals to move exactly as the script dictates.
“Basically what we do is react whenever the dogs move. So we were like, ‘Please don’t miss the moment,’” Shibukawa said.
It’s a tough situation, but there are also advantages unique to the production as a result of the alliance of independent stations, Nagamori said. “If you care too much about viewer ratings, you start adding and subtracting a lot of things to create a show that no one will criticize. But isn’t that really boring?”
Based on the real experiences of Nagamori, who actually lives in a high-rise apartment building with a Shiba dog, the drama features casual conversations among the dog owners, such as discussions on whether it’s right or wrong to put clothes on dogs and the origins of their pets’ names. Such dialogue goes on and on, but it’s strangely appealing to viewers.
“Nothing dramatic happens. So there are probably some pros and cons,” Nagamori said. “But we’re hoping it becomes a show for a certain minority, not an unspecified large number of people.”