Watch Beauty or Beast (2003) Episode 1 with English subtitles

About Beauty or Beast

After graduating from the Tokyo University School of Law, Takamiya Makoto (Matsushima Nanako) goes on to Harvard University where she earns an MBA. She later works at one of the "big three" networks in the United States as a news reporter. While covering a story on an international symposium in Paris, Makoto is scouted to work for JBC Television in Japan. The news producer at JBC wants to use Makoto to help raise low viewer ratings. He persuades her to work for him for an absurdly high salary, and also gives her the right to hire who she needs. While Makoto is being brought in to be the savior of the News Department, one man gets transferred from the Variety Department. His name is Nagase Hiromi (Fukuyama Masaharu). Since joining JBC Television, all he has done is variety programs. Although Hiromi has done everything he possibly could to ensure his programs are a success, his boss just could not take anymore of Hiromi's behavior which ranged from getting caught up in scandals with female television personalities, punching-out assistant directors, to taking kickbacks from production companies. His boss finally tells Hiromi to make a fresh start in the "hard nosed" News Department. So now the News Department has Makoto who thinks high ratings are the meaning of life, and Hiromi who values the success of a program as just a tool for the full enjoyment of life. These two totally different personalities mix it up and somehow reach a mutual understanding, creating a delightful "light comedy" for adults.