Wowow Unveils Six-Part 'Aosawa Murders' Series
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- Wowow is producing a six-episode live-action series adapting Riku Onda's 2005 mystery novel 'The Aosawa Murders' (Japanese title: Eugenia), set to premiere Sunday, November 8 with weekly airings and streaming.
- Yukino Kishii, whose credits include Cannes Un Certain Regard title 'All The Lovers In The Night' and Japan Academy Film Prize Best Actress for 'Small, Slow But Steady' (2022), stars in her first Wowow role as Makiko Saiga — a woman who witnessed a family mass poisoning at age 11 and later wrote a novel about it.
- Naoko Adachi ('What Did You Eat Yesterday?') scripts the series, with Go Furukawa ('Kaneko's Commissary') as lead director and Hayato Kawai (Disney+'s 'Gannibal') also directing; Kadokawa Daiei Studio co-produces with Wowow, with publisher Kadokawa bringing the project.
- The novel 'Eugenia' won the 59th Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel, has sold 380,000 copies in Japan, has been translated into six languages, and was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2020.
- The series opens with a mass poisoning at a prominent family's coastal home and threads three perspectives — novelist Makiko, the blind sole survivor, and a freelance writer investigating the case.
- The adaptation is timed to the novel's 20th anniversary, coinciding with publication of the complete edition; Wowow Chief Producer Masaki Yamada framed it as exploring why people remain 'driven mad and damaged' by the case rather than solving the mystery.
Why it matters: Yukino Kishii lands a flagship dramatic role on Wowow fresh off Cannes recognition, while Kadokawa greenlights adaptation of a 2005 novel that has sold 380,000 copies and been translated into six languages — a 20-year-later bet that literary mysteries with international reach still carry premium-TV value.
