About Shitamachi Rocket
Shitamachi Rocket is a Japanese television drama broadcast by TBS as part of its prestigious Sunday Theater (Nichiyo Gekijo) slot, adapting the best-selling novels of Ikeido Jun, whose source book won the Naoki Prize. The first series aired in 2015 across 10 episodes, and a second series followed in 2018 across 11 episodes, with director Katsuo Fukuzawa, also known for Hanzawa Naoki, helming the project. The story follows Kohei Tsukuda, a former rocket engineer who once worked on engine research before a launch failure pushed him to leave that world and take over his late father's small precision-parts factory, Tsukuda Seisaku, in a working-class downtown district of Tokyo.
The drama frames a recurring David-and-Goliath conflict in which a tiny family-run manufacturer must defend its hard-won patents and proprietary technology against far larger corporations that try to muscle it out or buy it off. In the first series the factory pursues a contract to supply a critical valve system for a domestic rocket engine, betting its survival on the precision and pride of its small workforce. The second series widens the canvas to agricultural machinery and life-saving medical devices, including an artificial heart valve, testing whether a shitamachi workshop can compete in fields where lives and livelihoods are on the line.
Anchored by Hiroshi Abe as the principled, sometimes stubborn Kohei Tsukuda, the series became one of TBS's signature uplifting dramas of the decade, praised for its earnest celebration of Japanese craftsmanship, monozukuri, and the dignity of skilled labor. Recurring themes of engineering excellence, corporate ethics, intellectual property, and loyalty to one's team give the show a workplace-procedural backbone while its courtroom-style confrontations and boardroom standoffs supply the tension. The combination of factory-floor heart and high-stakes business drama drew strong domestic ratings and helped cement the Ikeido Jun and Fukuzawa partnership as a reliable hitmaker for the network.
