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Hagetaka (The Vulture)
I have a new (well, old but new to me) J-drama that I've fallen in love with: Hagetaka (The Vulture). The summary is: A business drama set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the bubble economy had collapsed and Japanese businesses with conventional management cultures were exposed to corporate buyouts by foreign investors. Masahiko Washizu, the leading character, is a businessman who once worked for a Japanese bank. He comes back to Tokyo as a New York-trained fund manger to buy out Japanese businesses. Through eight years for the man called "vulture," the drama depicts ambitions, struggles and hopes of those who are involved in corporate acquisitions.
I wasn't expecting to get excited about a show focusing on business and banking, but it's surprisingly intense and compelling. Plus, I'm finding myself unexpectedly shipping the main character with his very efficient young assistant. (Bronze Ribbons, this might appeal to you--I remember how much you liked Shiki from Love Control, and Shou from my Haru series.) More spoilery discussion below...
I'm only on the second episode, but I'm really hooked on the show. Washizu, the "vulture" of the title, seems cold and ruthless, and is naturally despised by the banks and companies whose debts he is buying for the equivalent of pennies on the dollar, to be resold at a high profit. However, we see through flashbacks that he was once an idealistic and compassionate young man. When his former boss at Mitsuba bank, Shibano, castizes him for taking an inn away from the family that owned it, Washizu replies that he's become what he is today because of what Shibano once told him. A client of his, a hardworking factory owner, committed suicide because he was about to lose his business due to being unable to repay the loan he owed to the bank. A weeping and devasted Washizu was told by Shibano that it wasn't his fault, that the bank can't stay in business unless it collects on its loans, and that though what happened was unfortunate, Japan is a capitilist country. He took Shibano's words to heart, and went to the US to study more about the capitilism Shibano spoke of. Now all he cares about is making money (or so he claims) because "justice is with the one who has the money". There's also a subplot about the daughter of late factory owner, who is now a reporter, and has been pursuing Washizu, wanting to know why he has become a vulture and what happened to the once kind man who wept and begged forgiveness for her father's death.
I don't know if Washizu will be redeemed by the end of the series, but it's pretty clear that his personality and goals made such an abrupt change because his idealism took such a harsh blow, and he makes a point of crediting--or blaming--Shibano for that change. I think that there's still a bit of compassion lurking beneath his cold exterior, though he's probably buried it deeply because he doesn't want to be hurt again. (And I am a complete sucker for those character types, as you guys may have noticed!)
For all the talk of vultures swooping down to feed on the corpses of failing Japanese businesses, I don't think that Washizu and his team of employees are deliberately cruel or malicious, just ruthlessly efficient. Their goal is to make a profit, and they ignore anything irrelevant to that, including the business owners' pleas for mercy. There's one scene that demonstrates their precise and almost scary efficiency in the first episode, where Washizu is negotiating to buy a bulk lot of bad loans from Mitsuba. He and his team are taken to a room filled with many, many thick binders of documents, and are asked if three days is enough to review them. Washizu replies that two hours will be sufficient, and immediately another team wheels in copy machines, and they start copying all the documents with assembly-line type speed and teamwork that leaves the Mitsuba employees stunned. "Your copy machines are inefficient," Washizu's assistant Alan Ward says with a hint of contempt, "and time is money."
And while initially the vultures appear to be the bad guys, it soon becomes obvious that the banks and companies are not blameless, either. Mitsuba tries to pull a fast one, sneaking debts into the bulk deal that aren't covered in the official listing, and which are essentially uncollectable because they belong to politicians or organized crime fronts. And the two businesses that we see Washizu try to take over have been driven to the point of bankruptcy by the owners' mismanagement and corruption. I'm not sure, but I think Washizu might have a higher goal than making a profit, that he wants to save Japan by cleansing it of its corrupt business practices. There are honest and compassionate employees like Washizu once was and Shibano still is, but they are only cogs in the machine, while the people in charge are corrupt.
Washizu has a team of employees working for him, mostly American, all acting with the same brisk, cold efficiency. He has one assistant in particular, the above-mentioned Alan, who's always at his side, and always ready with whatever Washizu needs, be it a business document or a briefcase full of cash. I've been hearing people mention having a "competency kink" in Yuletide discussions, and I think I'm starting to develop one myself. It doesn't hurt that the actor playing Alan is young and handsome, almost pretty. (It's not a very clear or large picture, but you can see him on his Twitter account--I'm not sure if it was fan-created, or something officially created for the show.) By the end of the second episode, I was totally shipping Alan and Washizu in my head--I don't see it as a romantic or fluffy arrangement, more like them being attracted to how ambitious and efficient the other is, maybe with a touch mentor/mentee admiration on Alan's part.
Of course, I need more plot bunnies like I need a hole in the head, especially since I'm supposed to be working on my Yuletide fic right now! And sadly, since this is an older show (originally aired in 2007), there probably isn't much if any discussion or fandom revolving around it. Still, if you do get a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it. Some googling has revealed that there was a movie sequel, so I may have to try and track that down.
I wasn't expecting to get excited about a show focusing on business and banking, but it's surprisingly intense and compelling. Plus, I'm finding myself unexpectedly shipping the main character with his very efficient young assistant. (Bronze Ribbons, this might appeal to you--I remember how much you liked Shiki from Love Control, and Shou from my Haru series.) More spoilery discussion below...
I'm only on the second episode, but I'm really hooked on the show. Washizu, the "vulture" of the title, seems cold and ruthless, and is naturally despised by the banks and companies whose debts he is buying for the equivalent of pennies on the dollar, to be resold at a high profit. However, we see through flashbacks that he was once an idealistic and compassionate young man. When his former boss at Mitsuba bank, Shibano, castizes him for taking an inn away from the family that owned it, Washizu replies that he's become what he is today because of what Shibano once told him. A client of his, a hardworking factory owner, committed suicide because he was about to lose his business due to being unable to repay the loan he owed to the bank. A weeping and devasted Washizu was told by Shibano that it wasn't his fault, that the bank can't stay in business unless it collects on its loans, and that though what happened was unfortunate, Japan is a capitilist country. He took Shibano's words to heart, and went to the US to study more about the capitilism Shibano spoke of. Now all he cares about is making money (or so he claims) because "justice is with the one who has the money". There's also a subplot about the daughter of late factory owner, who is now a reporter, and has been pursuing Washizu, wanting to know why he has become a vulture and what happened to the once kind man who wept and begged forgiveness for her father's death.
I don't know if Washizu will be redeemed by the end of the series, but it's pretty clear that his personality and goals made such an abrupt change because his idealism took such a harsh blow, and he makes a point of crediting--or blaming--Shibano for that change. I think that there's still a bit of compassion lurking beneath his cold exterior, though he's probably buried it deeply because he doesn't want to be hurt again. (And I am a complete sucker for those character types, as you guys may have noticed!)
For all the talk of vultures swooping down to feed on the corpses of failing Japanese businesses, I don't think that Washizu and his team of employees are deliberately cruel or malicious, just ruthlessly efficient. Their goal is to make a profit, and they ignore anything irrelevant to that, including the business owners' pleas for mercy. There's one scene that demonstrates their precise and almost scary efficiency in the first episode, where Washizu is negotiating to buy a bulk lot of bad loans from Mitsuba. He and his team are taken to a room filled with many, many thick binders of documents, and are asked if three days is enough to review them. Washizu replies that two hours will be sufficient, and immediately another team wheels in copy machines, and they start copying all the documents with assembly-line type speed and teamwork that leaves the Mitsuba employees stunned. "Your copy machines are inefficient," Washizu's assistant Alan Ward says with a hint of contempt, "and time is money."
And while initially the vultures appear to be the bad guys, it soon becomes obvious that the banks and companies are not blameless, either. Mitsuba tries to pull a fast one, sneaking debts into the bulk deal that aren't covered in the official listing, and which are essentially uncollectable because they belong to politicians or organized crime fronts. And the two businesses that we see Washizu try to take over have been driven to the point of bankruptcy by the owners' mismanagement and corruption. I'm not sure, but I think Washizu might have a higher goal than making a profit, that he wants to save Japan by cleansing it of its corrupt business practices. There are honest and compassionate employees like Washizu once was and Shibano still is, but they are only cogs in the machine, while the people in charge are corrupt.
Washizu has a team of employees working for him, mostly American, all acting with the same brisk, cold efficiency. He has one assistant in particular, the above-mentioned Alan, who's always at his side, and always ready with whatever Washizu needs, be it a business document or a briefcase full of cash. I've been hearing people mention having a "competency kink" in Yuletide discussions, and I think I'm starting to develop one myself. It doesn't hurt that the actor playing Alan is young and handsome, almost pretty. (It's not a very clear or large picture, but you can see him on his Twitter account--I'm not sure if it was fan-created, or something officially created for the show.) By the end of the second episode, I was totally shipping Alan and Washizu in my head--I don't see it as a romantic or fluffy arrangement, more like them being attracted to how ambitious and efficient the other is, maybe with a touch mentor/mentee admiration on Alan's part.
Of course, I need more plot bunnies like I need a hole in the head, especially since I'm supposed to be working on my Yuletide fic right now! And sadly, since this is an older show (originally aired in 2007), there probably isn't much if any discussion or fandom revolving around it. Still, if you do get a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it. Some googling has revealed that there was a movie sequel, so I may have to try and track that down.