On April 13th, it was announced that actress Sawajiri Erika had finished filming her first TV drama in five years.

Sawajiri's first TV drama (since a special episode of '1 Litre no Namida' in 2007) is a live-action adaptation of Ariyoshi Sawako mystery novel "Akujo ni Tsuite", which will air under the same title on TBS later this month.

The drama portrays 25 years in the stormy life of a very talented businesswoman called 'Tominokoji Kimiko', who is often being labeled as a 'queen of affectations' or a 'devilish woman' by the people around her. 'Kimiko' gains an enormous amount of wealth during the rapid economic growth of Japan and possesses an incredible charm that men cannot resit. In fact, she has relationships with three men at the same time. Even when she becomes pregnant, she continues to toy with them and tells each of them that they are the father.

The drama starts when she's at the age of 15, featuring Sawajiri in a school uniform again, and ends with her mysterious death at the age of 40.



She commented about her role, stating, "You cannot simply describe her as this or that kind of person, which makes it a very deep drama." Moreover she revealed that she was very intrigued by the original novel, and together with director Tsuruhashi Yasuo, she discovered that 90% of the role's image, she already sees in herself. "However," she said, "I cannot think of parts where our lives and actions are overlapping right now, but it still felt very natural to play as her."

She also added, "Everything went incredibly smooth and the teamwork was great. It was a really great project."

"Akujo ni Tsuite" is produced by Yagi Yasuo, who has already produced many hit dramas such as 'Uchi no Ko ni Kagitte...' and 'Papa wa Newscaster'. He also stated, T"here wouldn't have been anyone more suitable for this role than Sawajiri Erika."

TBS will air "Akujo ni Tsuite" on April 30th.

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Source: Oricon, Sponichi