On August 22nd, Fuji TV announced another fall drama titled 'Kekkon Shinai', co-starring actresses Kanno Miho and Amami Yuki.

The drama will be all about the lives of a woman in her mid 30's (Kanno) and an 'over-40' woman (Amami) who either can't or don't want to get married. It will also focus on their friendship with each other, and their various struggles with love. Actor Tamaki Hiroshi is going to round out the main cast as one of many herbivore men who already suffer from a mental overload just by thinking about marriage.

In Japan, the number of unmarried women around the age of thirty and forty keeps on increasing rapidly and the drama is said to reflect the situation of those women as authentically as possible. It's almost like an 'adult version' of last year's Fuji TV drama 'Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu', which focused on women in their twenties and their love problems.

Kanno portrays the 34-year-old 'Chiharu' who's working as a contract employee and hasn't had a boyfriend for five years. Although her 35th birthday is coming up very soon, she's still living at her parents' place. She does want to get married, but she's too worried that it will end up in failure sooner than later. 'Chiharu' is a representative of women in their thirties who can't get married. Kanno expressed her joy to be working together with Amami for the first time, "It's such an honor". She's also at the same age as her character and continued, "I hope I'll be able to portray the image of women these days in a proper yet humorous way. I'd like to focus all my energy on this project."

Amami, on the other hand, portrays a representative of women in their forties who just don't want to get married. The woman she plays is called 'Haruko', who is a very successful landscape gardening planner. She has been in an affair with her boss for a very long time, which is one of the reasons why she can't seem to warm toward the idea of getting married and having children. Amami stated regarding her co-star Kanno, "It's going to be so much fun." She continued, "I hope that everyone will be able to discover a part of themselves (in those characters)."

'Chiharu' and 'Haruko' happen to meet each other for the first time at the wedding of Chiharu's sister, where they it off right away and decided to move together at Haruko's place. They are very different in terms of personality and age, which leads to a very delightful interaction between the two. Of course they frequently fight with each other, but they also support each other as much as they can.

One man (Tamaki) is going to influence their current way of life. He's 32 years old, has a kind heart, and is working part-time as a florist, but unfortunately he's a so-called 'herbivore', another social phenomena in Japan. Although he does seem to have all the qualities to become a good husband, he himself doesn't think that he's mentally and economically prepared for marriage and therefore tries to avoid it altogether. He commented on the two actresses, "I'm looking forward to feel the chemistry between those two."

Fuji TV is planning to air 'Kekkon Shinai' every Thursday at 10:00 pm starting sometime in October.

Source: Sanspo (1,2)