The first episode of the drama series "Caster," starring actor Hiroshi Abe, which airs on TBS's "Sunday Theater" slot (Sunday 9:00 p.m.) was broadcast on April 13. Abe's character, the unconventional newscaster Shindo Soichi, drew a lot of attention.
◇The following contains spoilers
Soichi Shindo, a man of conviction that "the truth moves the world!", is a social affairs reporter and newscaster at a public broadcasting station, but is poached by the president of the commercial television station JBN to become the main newscaster of the news program "Newsgate," which is suffering from low ratings. He will do anything to convey the truth, and with his overwhelming presence, he draws in those around him, including general director Hana Sakikubo (Mei Nagano) and rookie AD Yusuke Motohashi (Shunsuke Michieda), who aspires to be a journalist.
The first episode revolves around the emergency surgery of Chief Cabinet Secretary Tsuyoshi Hanyu (Kinya Kitaoji). It seems that the emergency surgery of Hanyu, who has a rare blood type, caused the failure of the surgery of a boy with the same blood type who suffers from an incurable disease, but Shindo changed the content just before the broadcast.
In reality, the surgeon tried to save both of them equally, but in the end, Hanyu survived and the boy died. It was true that Hanyu's son, Shinichi, had forced them to use the blood that had been collected for the boy, but the surgeon reveals that he had used the bare minimum of blood for both of them.
However, Shindo tells Hana that telling the boy's mother about this will not accomplish anything, and declares, "We in the media are not slaves to the truth," but Hana points out the fact that Shindo had received secret Cabinet funds from Hanyu and made a deal with him.
Viewers were excited by the twists and turns in the story. The final development left many in shock, with many asking, "What's going to happen next?" and "Did they receive secret funds from the Cabinet Secretariat?"
