It was announced on November 21st that comedian Bakarhythm will be writing the script for the NHK Asadora drama series "Mawaru Swan" for the first half of 2027. At a press conference held at the NHK Broadcasting Center in Shibuya, Tokyo on the same day, Bakarhythm spoke about his feelings upon receiving the offer and his enthusiasm for writing the script.
"Meguru Swan," the 116th installment of the NHK morning drama series, is set in modern-day Nagano Prefecture. The human comedy follows a protagonist who aspires to be a detective and becomes a police officer, but is assigned to the "Community Safety Division." It depicts her journey as she goes about her ordinary daily life and eventually finds her way in "protecting an ordinary life where nothing happens."Misato Morita stars in the drama.
Bakarhythm, who is writing his first NHK drama, explained his reason for choosing the subject matter: "The setting is a police station, but it's not the detective division that is often featured in dramas, but the community safety division. From what I've heard, it's a department that has hardly ever been featured in dramas before. It's the only department in the police station that prevents crimes from happening, so it's unlikely that any incidents worthy of a drama will occur there. Or rather, the fact that no incidents occur is considered an achievement, so it's rarely been made into a drama. I found that very appealing."
He said he received the offer before last summer, and recalled, "It requires writing a lot of stories over a long period of time, and I usually appear on variety shows, so I thought it might be a bit difficult to fit it into my schedule."
However, he said, "Opportunities like this don't come around often, and the fact that I received an offer, and the phenomenon of a comedian writing a script for a Asadora, is interesting," and revealed the reason he decided to write it, saying, "Since I've been given this opportunity, I thought I'd like to do it."
After receiving the offer, he submitted many ideas for the drama's setting. Bakarhythm explained, "I submitted dozens of different settings, some of which were a bit fantastical. But it was hard to find something that would last for six months. If it were 10 episodes, I could go with outlandish ideas or fantastical settings, but six months is a first for me. After going through a lot of it, I finally decided to depict everyday life."
He said he plans to start writing after the New Year, and added, "The most important thing is to strictly adhere to deadlines. As an actor, I've been inconvenienced by late scripts in the past, and in those situations, the person who wrote the script gets a lot of bad things said about them. I've witnessed that firsthand, so I thought, if I'm going to get talked about like this, I'm definitely going to meet deadlines," which drew laughter from the audience.
Executive producer Tomohiro Kuwano explained the reason for casting Bakarhythm, saying, "When it was decided that I would be producing the show, the first thing I thought was that I wanted a drama that would make people laugh and feel cheerful every morning, and naturally Bakarhythm came to mind. Looking at Bakarhythm's style, in his past works people tend to focus on sci-fi elements such as time travel and aliens, but he also depicts everyday life in an interesting way, and I thought that the direction we were aiming for and the format of a Asadora were a very good match, so I offered him the role."
