Turkish Spin on a Japanese Tale

TV Drama catches up with the teams at Nippon TV and MF Yapim to learn about how the Japanese drama Mother became the Star TV Turkish hit Anne.

In Turkey’s ultra-competitive, frenetic drama landscape, the search is on for compelling stories that can cut through the clutter. Well, that search has been on for some time, with the country having adapted drama formats from a number of markets, including the U.S., Italy and Korea. This year for the first time a Japanese script has been remade in Turkey, with Nippon TV’s Mother serving as the basis for Anne, which cracked The WIT’s list of the top ten most buzzed-about premieres in social media across the globe in October. Viewers were quickly taken by the story line, about a teacher forced to take drastic steps to protect one of her young students, who is being abused.

Faruk Bayhan, the president of MF Yapim, which produces Anne (sold as a finished tape by Global Agency), was also taken in by the show’s premise. “We have done Korean formats in the past. We had meetings about ***Image***international formats and we came across Mother. I was interested in it especially because it’s a social project as well. We are facing many child abuse issues in Turkey, so it’s universal. I believe this will bring some light to people in Turkey.”

In the adaptation process, Bayhan says that he and his writing team stayed close to the original story line, “because the subject and the emotions are so strong. Of course we didn’t translate it. There are some differences between the cultures. We tried to make the characters Turkish as best as possible.”

That process, Bayhan continued, wasn’t too difficult, “because the Japanese culture is so close to Turkish culture when it comes to family ties. So we didn’t struggle that much. There is this respect issue in Turkey as well. It was easy for us to adapt in that way.” Nevertheless, the adaptation and writing process took about a year, Bayhan says, adding that the company was happy to make that investment in order to deliver a show that will resonate locally.

Nippon TV is hopeful that the Turkish version will fire up additional format sales on Mother, which first aired on the Japanese broadcaster back in 2010. “We are honored that they chose our drama, because Turkey is very famous ***Image***for its drama exports,” says Sue Fujimoto, the executive VP and managing director of international business development at Nippon TV.

“After [Mother was] recognized at the drama festival in Cannes, we tried to sell the remake rights,” says Shigeko “Cindy” Chino, senior director of international business development at Nippon TV. “This is the first deal that has happened outside of Asia.”

Chino says that going forward, Nippon TV is keeping an open mind about how flexible to be in terms of giving producers leeway to adapt story lines and scripts as they need to. “More and more creators are realizing what it means to be successful internationally, not just domestically,” she says. “So we have more active communication with our creators—they would like to have their titles shown more widely abroad. So it’s easier now than just a few years ago. We believe [the Turkish deal] will lead to more offers, more interest, in Japanese dramas. This is an important step for us.”

Fujimoto adds, “Generally speaking, Japanese creators don’t like changes [to their story lines]. But if they think that the changes are appropriate, they would agree.”

Sayoko Iwasaki, part of the international business development sales and licensing team at Nippon TV, says that there was “very smooth communication with the scriptwriter” of Mother. “We wanted the story line to be the same in the relationship between the mother and daughter. The story itself, the details, can be localized for the people in that country. If we restrict it to making the drama in the Japanese way, it will not fit in overseas markets.”

Nippon TV is also mining its broad drama catalog to see if there are other scripted-format opportunities in its slate. “We are looking at our library and finding [partners] like MF Yapim who are interested in female-driven stories,” Chino says. “We are especially focusing on what women’s stories we can sell.”