Chinese government media and online opinion are intensifying their pushback against the second season of VIVANT, TBS's Sunday-night drama. A Chinese expert quoted in the coverage warns that Japanese broadcasters, TBS first among them, have been slow to guard their flank as Beijing hardens its stance.
The criticism is expected to grow louder around two broadcasts: the drama's final episode, scheduled to air on November 8, and, less obviously, NHK's New Year's Eve music program Kohaku Uta Gassen on December 31.
State media set the tone
China Central Television's news account, Yangshi Xinwen, published the first criticism of the drama in a commentary distributed on October 25. The next target was a collaboration between VIVANT and Hello Kitty, taken up in an article carried by the Global Times, which is part of the People's Daily group, the newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party.
The coverage follows an earlier wave in which Pokémon and My Hero Academia were also drawn into political dispute, part of what the reporting describes as a cognitive war.
A recurring rebuttal from Chinese commenters — that China produces its own glut of anti-Japanese war dramas — misses the point, according to the argument in the coverage.
The drama's cast has drawn attention in Japan as well. Tomisakae Doramu, 31, plays Doramu, a capable aide who handles every request from Nozaki, a Metropolitan Police Department public security investigator played by Hiroshi Abe. Doramu appears as a local fixer in the fictional Republic of Balka, bordering Mongolia, arranging reconnaissance, cars and food to help Nozaki get Sugata, played by Masato Sakai, out of the country.