Fumo Chitai 1.01

aka The Waste Land

Episode 1

Lieutenant Colonel Tadashi Iki an officer in the Japanese Army during the Second World War, returns home after spending 11 years in a Russian prison camp in Siberia. He was captured by the Russians while he was in Manchuria. He had the opportunity to return to Japan but chose to stay as the Russians closed in and captured the Japanese Army.

Iki was pressured to  testify by the Russians who wanted to prove that the Japanese Emperor was personally responsible for the way the Japanese Army conducted the war. Iki and two other high ranking officers agreed to testify.

The Russians decide not to make Iki testify after General Akitsu, one of the two other officers, kills himself. Iki was instead put on trial in Russia and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in Siberia. He saw others die and commit suicide while in Siberia.

It takes Iki some time to adjust to life back in Japan once he was repatriated in 1956. He eventually took a job with Kinki Trading, a firm that manufactures equipment including aircraft for the defense industry. He doesn't want to use his contacts in the military in the course of business.

Ichizo Daimon, the president of Kinki, promises to honor Iki's wish. Iki accompanies Daimon on a trip to the United States. He encounters Isao Kawamata, an old friend from his days in the army, who still works in the Japanese Defense Department. Kawamata asks Iki to help him, as a member of Kinki's aircraft division, to fight corruption in the Japanese Defense Department. Iki doesn't want to do it but by the end of the episode he informs Daimon that he will. 

Thoughts

The first half of this episode focuses mostly on the 11 years that Iki spent in Siberia. The second half focuses mostly on his early days at Kinki Trading.

Iki is a straight arrow. He gets pulled in a number of directions as he starts to work at Kinki Trading. He brings lunch with him to the office. He doesn't go out at night with his coworkers.

There are two women, in addition to his wife who are introduced in this episode. The first is Chisato Akitsu, the adult daughter of General Akitsu. The second is Beniko Hamanaka, the daughter of a nightclub owner. Both seem to express an interest in being his friend. Chisato's interest in Tadashi seems more innocent than Beniko's. I suspect that relationships with both women will cause trouble for Tadashi at some point in future episodes.

So far so good. I enjoyed watching this episode. I wasn't blown away by it although there were some moments that got me a bit emotional. I'm curious to see where things go from here. From what I have read online I think this series covers Iki's life from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s.

Notes

This is a TV show that first aired in Japan in 2009. It is based on a novel of the same name written by Toyoko Yamasaki in the 1970s. It was made into a movie that starred Tatsuya Nakadai in 1976. The story was first made into a miniseries in 1979.

The title Fumo Chitai translates to Barren Zone (Wikipedia) or Wasted Land (IMDb). The movie on Letterboxd is titled The Corporation but on IMDb is it listed under the title of The Barren Zone.

The first episode is almost two hours long but the other 18 episodes in this series are 45-50 minutes each.