Word: kitagawa
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...Eriko Kitagawa announces her presence in the lofty lobby of TBS television network's headquarters in Tokyo as a timid, ruffled-bloused housewife would: a small side step, brief eye contact and a nervous giggle. Soft curls, a conservative skirt and subtle makeup complete her outfit. Is this the scriptwriter who single-handedly brought Japanese television drama to the world stage and at the same time empowered the typically demure female lead? We sit down to?what else??tea, and instantly Kitagawa's sayonara-girl image snaps with her cocky first statement: "I always know what I'm writing will...
...Confident, outspoken and deceptively bold, Kitagawa turns out to be the embodiment of her characters?ladies who can take it on the chin and still look good in a skirt (and who are often accompanied by blue-collar stiffs with sensitive, yearning souls). Since she began writing in 1989, Kitagawa has become a one-woman production company?blend David Kelley's productivity with Oprah's sassiness and you approximate Kitagawa's flavor?conceiving and scripting 11 different drama series, including last year's The Smile Has Left Your Eyes and Beautiful Life. Her one-hour shows have been...
...make her characters memorable, Kitagawa incorporates in her scripts conversations and events from her own life. Bouncing a small rubber ball out of the window, as Minami and Sena (Takuya Kimura) do in Long Vacation, for instance, is what she and her brother used to do at home. "Some writers just write to attract an audience because they think the content will appeal and not because they're personally connected to the material," says the 41-year-old mother of one. "But in my case, every drama comes from...
...Other governors are proving to be even more radical. They are the Japan that can say no. Governor Shiro Asano of Miyagi prefecture broke a taboo in December 2000 when he allowed public access to police records as a means to make government more transparent. Governor Masayasu Kitagawa of Mie prefecture unilaterally canceled a major nuclear power plant, a project as dear to Tokyo's planners as Nagano's dams. And in Tokushima, Governor Tadashi Ota won re-election in April 2002 by promising to stop construction of a giant sluice dam on the Yoshino River. In a recent referendum...
...Ominously for mainstream parties, most of these leaders are fierce independents. "It may be rude to say it," observes Kitagawa, "but in the case of Chiba's Akiko Domoto, Nagano's Yasuo Tanaka, and myself as well, 'weirdos' became governor." Asano and Domoto both refused all party endorsements, yet won handily. Staying unattached and "weird" means freedom from the smoky backroom culture that is smothering Koizumi. Governor Asano wrote to candidate Domoto, "Please don't think of nonaffiliation as a means to gain advantage in the election. It's not a means; it's a policy...