The setting of "The Sinking of Japan" is real?

▲Shun Oguri

(Cang Yu / Translation) Tbs' Sunday Theater (which starts every Sunday at 9 p.m.) has broadcast a number of popular works such as "Naoki Hanzawa" in recent years, and the currently staged work "Japan Sinks: A Man of Hope" has been well received since its broadcast. The first episode, which aired on October 10, and the second episode on October 17, both received ratings of over 15 percent. The most attractive thing about the show is the luxurious lineup.

The protagonist of the drama, an environmental ministry clerk who strives to fight against a disaster that has never occurred, is played by Shun Oguri, Kenichi Matsuyama plays his contemporary ministry of economy, trade and industry, Teruyuki Kagawa plays a seismologist who predicts that "the Kanto is going to sink", and Apricot plays a weekly magazine reporter who constantly tracks down the inside story of the Ministry of the Environment's corruption case, all of whom are familiar to the audience.

The original work of the play is Komatsu Sakyo's book "The Sinking of Japan". But unlike the original, the drama adapted the reason for The sinking of Japan into global warming, and this modern setting also made many viewers think that it was "too abrupt". Therefore, the reporter consulted the guidance expert of the play, Professor Koharu Yamaoka (Seismology) of the Graduate School of Nagoya University, on the opinion.

He replied, "The article published on the tbs official website is my answer. ”

There is such an article on the official website.

"The sinking of Japan itself is an impossible thing, but tbs said to me, 'I want to position the cause of Japan's sinking as global warming,' which makes it very difficult for me to do it." How to make up a more reasonable setting, I really have a headache. ”

It turned out that he had frankly expressed his troubles.

"It's very true that scholars are holding each other back."

However, these experts also seem to be frankly enjoying the TV series. Professor Emeritus (Earth Sciences) kamata at Kyoto University has seen not only the first film version released in 1973 and the TV drama version broadcast in 1974, but also the movie version released in 2006.

"This work, like any other story, I don't think it's so unreasonable. Scholars are dragging each other back, and in reality, it happens from time to time. ”

So what about the TV drama version compared to the original.

The novel carefully examines the model of the submarine plate and the mechanism of earthquake occurrence, so that the plate movement occurs earlier than reality, and Japan sinks as a result, depicting such a fictional story. This TV series is the same approach. Hypothetically, global warming causes sea levels to rise, putting enormous pressure on the oceanbed plates and causing earthquakes, is not entirely impossible in principle. It's just that sea level rises to the level that can cause earthquakes, which is difficult to achieve in reality. ”

The show also hopes to allow audiences who care about the setting of the story to take this opportunity to pay attention to many crises in reality.

"The South China Sea Trench earthquake is predicted to really occur in a range of plus or minus five years in 2035. The economic loss is expected to reach 220 trillion yen, which is 3.5 times the country's annual tax revenue. The death toll is expected to reach 320,000, 16 times the number of deaths in the 3.11 earthquake. It can be said that Japan sank. So what matters most now is the coping strategy and the corresponding preparation. ”

There is a line in the show's slogan: "Is there really a leader to be trusted, and the future will never disappear." "But the leaders in reality are very uneasy. The tragedy of hope exists only in novels and TV series.

Published in the October 28, 2021 issue of New Wave Weekly