If You're Interested in Horror Drama, Watch Shitamachi Rocket 下町ロケットの秘密

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Have you ever watched or heard about Shitamachi Rocket (Old Town Rocket)? This is a TV program aired by Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. (so-called TBS or channel 6 in Tokyo) on Sunday evening. The protagonist is Kohei Tsukuda, the president of a small precision machinery manufacturer in Ota-ward, Tokyo. He used to work as an engineer at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, but left there to succeed his father's business and now provides valves, a part of rockets, to a large rocket manufacturer.

This drama is about people working at this small factory. But it's also about manufacturing and engineering, M&As and patent infringements as well as family and friends. It's very popular and moving. However, watching this drama make me feel strange. It's like watching Leni Riefenstahl's films. They are beautiful and moving, but unreal.

Employees of the factory have no personal life. They always work together and long and don't care about doing a lot of overtime unpaid. When an employee left work on time (i.e., at 6 p.m.), he was accused by other employees of not working overtime. The drama portrays their long-hour "team" work as a virtue and I'm sure that many Japanese are moved by this. To tell the truth, I'm touched, too. But I also can't help but wonder if it isn't peer pressure? Isn't it a formula for karoshi, death by overwork?

There is another aspect we shouldn't ignore. Small factory workers can’t afford to not do overtime because they are always pressured by their parent companies or customers (i.e., big corporations) to cut cost and price. In reality, they have to work like slaves of large corporations or lose jobs.

I watch this program every Sunday and can see why the viewing rate of this human drama is so high. But as long as we, Japanese people, see find it beautiful, our real efficiency would never improve and karoshi, death of those who stay late at the office to work too much overtime every day or who take work home every day but are told by superiors to not report overtime and who end up being depressed and killing themselves, would increase.

I watch this program every week, but not because I like it, but because it's scary, showing the reason why we have so many karoshi.

下町ロケット流行ってますね。視聴率もいいようです。でも見ているといつも不思議な気持ちがいつもするのです。ヒトラーお抱えの映画監督レニ・リーフェンシュタールの映像を見てるみたい。きれいで感動的だけど、冷静に考えるとどうみてもおかしいでしょ。

だって、佃製作所の職員に個人の生活ありますか。いっつも一緒に長時間働いて、軽部さんが定時に帰ろうとした時もみんなに非難されてました。「チームワーク」という名の長時間労働を日本の美徳として描いているのは分かるのですが（実際私もうっかり感動したりしますが）、あれが正に同調圧力、過労死への道ではないのでしょうか。

それにもう一つ。中小企業が親会社や顧客からの値下げ圧力で苦しんでいて、奴隷のように働かないと倒産してしまうという現実も全然描かれていません。

こういうドラマに感動している限り、日本に真の効率化なんて起きないでしょうし、過労死も増え続けると思います。

実は毎週見ているのですが、好きだから見ているのではありません。恐怖ドラマだから見ています。過労死の原因が分かります。