Nippon TV, Japan’s leading multiplatform entertainment powerhouse, has announced that it will bring two brand-new scripted formats to MIPCOM 2026: 25 Years of You (10 x 60′), a romantic thriller of quiet devotion where a quarter-century secret bond is tested by corporate conspiracy and family secrets, and Punch-Drunk Woman (First season 10 x 60′ and second season 5 x 60′), a provocative romantic thriller tracing a disciplined prison officer’s emotional transformation and her choice to cross the line for love and her personal salvation.
Sayako Aoki, Head of International Sales, Content Business and Distribution, Nippon TV, said, “Both 25 Years of You and Punch-Drunk Woman deliver high-stakes suspense seamlessly blended with deep emotional romance. In these intense dramas driven by multi-layered character journeys, nothing is ever black and white. As shifting perspectives unfold, hidden truths emerge that constantly challenge what viewers believe, driving stronger audience engagement throughout the series. These two scripted formats offer global partners versatile, high-concept stories built for adaptation.“
25 Years of You is a romantic thriller centered on a 25-year bond of secret protection, blending an unsolved mystery with emotional relationship drama. Aired primetime on Nippon TV, the series garnered an average of 2.4 million views per episode* on the domestic AVOD platform TVer in Japan and is currently streaming worldwide on Netflix. Twenty-five years after a kidnapping attempt bound their fates, an awkward outsider has secretly devoted his life to protecting his childhood love. When her former kidnapper resurfaces and corporate rivals begin disappearing, he is drawn closer to protect her while attracting the scrutiny of a charismatic detective who considers him as a prime suspect. As she battles corporate threats and questions everyone’s motives, paranoia grows as she navigates a father tied to her abductor, a vengeful stepmother, and competing romantic interests. With long-buried secrets emerging and a killer closing in, her secret protector faces the ultimate choice to either remain in the shadows or step into the light to save her. *Average based on Ep 1–9. Ep 10 is excluded as it was recently released and has not completed its tracking period.
Punch-Drunk Woman is a provocative romantic thriller following a rigidly disciplined female prison officer whose ordered life unravels when a mysterious new inmate forces her to confront a buried past, spiraling into a high-stakes prison escape. Broadcast in primetime on Nippon TV, the first season of the series averaged 1.4 million views per episode on TVer in Japan. When the inmate arrives accused of brutally murdering his wealthy father, the officer discovers the victim was her former lover, and this reopens a long- buried trauma and pushes her into an increasingly dangerous relationship with the inmate. But just as he earns her trust, the inmate betrays her by joining a deadly cult’s prison break. When the initial escape attempt fails, she uncovers a shocking truth behind the murder charge against him, and a conspiracy far more powerful than either of them imagined.
Driven by this revelation, the officer crosses the line to engineer a daring escape. With her career, freedom, and safety gone, she must outrun a relentless manhunt alongside the man she was sworn to imprison, while exposing a political conspiracy that threatens to destroy them both.
The company also announced in this month three new unscripted formats developed by Gyokuro Studio for MIPCOM.
