Tsugunai: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

Hidaka Eisuke used to be a hotshot brain surgeon with a promising future. He even married a professor's daughter, Hiroe to stay ahead in the hospital's career track. As time passed, he no longer felt the significance of marriage and neglected his family. Meanwhile, his son died of an illness. Blaming herself for his death, Hiroe committed suicide. At the same time, Hidaka accepted responsibility for a medical error in the hospital and resigned as a doctor.

With all hope lost, he became a recluse and eventually degenerated into a homeless man. Suspected by the police to be the culprit in a case of arson in one of the streets he wanders, Hidaka is questioned. At the discretion of a detective, Hidaka's former girlfriend, the psychiatrist Nagasawa Miwako, arrives as his guarantor. As if by fate, Hidaka meets Kusanagi Masato, a youth that he had saved from sexual abuse 12 years earlier, on the streets and begins to feel fatherly. Masato has an uncanny ability to "hear people crying in their hearts". As Hidaka and Masato support each other, Hidaka finds the hope to live, but gradually struggles with the possibility that Masato may be the criminal behind the spate of serial murders targeting the socially vulnerable on these streets...

Series details

• Title: Tsugunai
• Format: Scripted
• Language: Japanese
• Genres: Drama
• Premiere date: 2012-11-17
• Final broadcast date listed: 2012-12-01
• Status in TVmaze: Ended
• Network listed by TVmaze: NHK BS Premium
• Network country: Japan
• Typical episode runtime: 60 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 37525

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 2012-11-17; final listed air date 2012-12-01.

Source and licence

Adapted from Tsugunai on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.