Japanese drama’s overwhelming popularity at home is no secret. The most recent surprise is the revival of Tokyo Broadcasting System’s 2023 hit “Vivant” S1 on Netflix, riding the S2 release on multiple platforms other than Netflix. The still-unanswered question is whether there is a path to global audiences.

Season two of Tokyo Broadcasting System’s (TBS) original drama action spy thriller “Vivant” returned with a vengeance in August, reaching an estimated 15.1 million viewers in Japan, and another 500,000 elsewhere in the region led by TrueID in Thailand, according to Media Partners Asia’s ampd measurement platform.

The new season also pulled season one back into Netflix’s domestic series Top 10 for another 12 weeks, giving the series a total of 16 weeks on Netflix Japan’s Top 10, most recently at #5 (14-20 September).  The original season released on Netflix in December 2023 following its TBS broadcast from 16 July-17 September 2023.  

The drama airs in TBS’ prime-time Sunday Theater slot and is thought to be TBS’ most expensive original yet, with an estimated production budget of ¥100 million (US$714,000 at average 2023 exchange rate) per episode for season one and ¥120 million (US$792,000 at average 2024 exchange rate) per episode for season two. That puts the 20-episode series at ¥2.2 billion (US$15 million).

Season two picks up the story from the end of season one, when Yusuke Nogi, a meek employee of a trading company in Tokyo, is falsely accused of orchestrating a US$100-million corporate overpayment error. As he attempts to track down the money, it becomes clear that Nogi is not quite who he says he is.

ampd’s measurement platform showed “Vivant” as only the third title to cross 10 million on a single platform in one market in one month. The results so astonished the platform that it put out a special note in September, talking about distribution strategy and saying 10.2 million watched the show on domestic catch-up platform TVer.  

In addition to its free-TV slot, season two was released on catch-up service TVer for free, with paid VOD exclusive to U-Next, within an hour of the 9pm Sunday broadcast.

Netflix aired season one in select territories in 2023. Three years later, and very likely on the back of the season two launch, the first series returned to Netflix’s Japan Top 10 at #9 (22-28 June 2026), rising to #2 for the week of 27 July-2 August, #1 for the following week (3-9 August), and in all adding 11 weeks to the show’s presence on the domestic Top 10.   

The streamer, which runs ahead of U-Next in Japan, hasn’t talked about adding season two to its line-up yet.

If “Vivant” made waves domestically, there are scant signs that Japanese drama series are being given rapturous welcomes in other markets. No Japanese title of any kind – anime, drama or reality – reached #1 on the global TV chart in weeks 1 to 38, so no drama did either.

So far this year, Netflix’s best-performing Japanese drama has been original series “Straight to Hell”, which appeared on the Top 10 for three weeks, peaking at #4 and attracting just over 60 million hours viewed in the three weeks. “Viral Hit” season one reached #3 in its two weeks on the rankings (22.1 million hours viewed / 4.5 million views).  

The title in the spotlight in the run-up to MIPCOM is psychological medical drama “Plastic Beauty”, which ranked #5 for the week from 14-20 September in the first week of its release. 

The best-performing Japanese genre for 2026 is likely to be anime, which had six titles on the global Top 10 for the year to 20 September. Three anime titles rose to #2 – “Jujutsu Kaisen” season three, “BAKI-DOU: The Invincible Samurai” season one, and “STEEL BALL RUN JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: 1st STAGE”. 

Published in ContentAsia's Oct/Nov 2026 Magazine