It has been revealed that actor Ryuhei Matsuda will star in the TV Asahi Friday night drama "Detective-san, Your Backpack is Open," which will air from January 2026. This will be Matsuda's first lead role in a TV Asahi drama, and he will play the lead role of a detective and inventor who follows in his father's footsteps.
Not only will Matsuda play the lead role, but he has also been involved in the project from the planning stage. The project began with Matsuda's suggestion that "if it's a mystery, a detective story would be good," and he has now been joined by screenwriter and director Shuichi Okita, who will be teaming up for the third time after "Hikan Returns Home" (2016) and "0.5 Man" (2023). Set in a rural hot spring town, the detective and inventor played by Matsuda receives a slightly strange request that he solves in an equally unconventional way, making it a heartwarming story that is full of "looseness," but will also make you laugh and cry at times.
Matsuda plays Ichinose Yosuke, a detective and inventor who took over his father's detective business after his disappearance, while also devoting himself to inventions. Yosuke has a habit of forgetting to zip up his backpack when he goes out, but he once conducted research in the United States on converting "negative emotions" into energy and achieved great success. When Yosuke returns to Japan, Nishigaya Onsen has become a slightly unusual hot spring town where mysterious vehicles are somehow seen coming and going, and the story follows him as he rushes around solving strange requests from unique clients.
Matsuda said, "Sometimes they solve the problems with the items they invent, and sometimes they give up, so I hope people will enjoy the show as if they were taking a bath in the hot springs while peeking into the lives of the people of Nishigaya Onsen."
"Detective, Your Backpack is Open" will air every Friday at 11:15 p.m. starting in January 2026.
◇Comment from Ryuhei Matsuda
This time, I was allowed to participate from the planning stage, and I had heard that it would be a mystery, so I thought a detective story would be good, and I tried to imagine my own image of a detective. I'm glad that Director Okita's participation has made it possible to make it a reality.
I started out by thinking, "I won't get too excited," but once filming began, I realized that this was exactly why I had to do it carefully.
Yosuke is a detective and inventor, but I thought it was interesting that his background and character gradually become apparent through conversations with the residents of Nishigaya Onsen who surround him. I'm having fun playing the role.
I guess you could call this work a heartwarming human mystery. Most of the mysteries are solved or abandoned with invented items, so I hope you'll enjoy it as if you were taking a dip in the hot springs while peeking into the lives of the people of Nishigaya Onsen.
◇ Comment from Shuichi Okita (director and screenwriter)
I had always wanted to try my hand at a detective story. Not something with a laid-back atmosphere, but something serious and hard-boiled. That's when Matsuda-san gave me an idea for a detective like this. He wrote that the character would be a detective, but also an inventor. It wasn't hard-boiled, but I was excited at the thought of creating something new and a little mysterious in a detective story.
I created the story freely from scratch and didn't think about anything difficult. It ended up being a bit loose, after all. But that's okay. I'm approaching this drama with a sense of childhood, just like a child playing. I'm filming while cherishing a sense of playfulness.
