Takuya Kimura
Teppei Manpyo
Overview
The Family, the program commemorating the 55th anniversary of the launch of the TBS TV station, is a social drama depicting the inside story between bureaucrats, politicians, and big businesses over a bank merger revolving around the family discord between Daisuke Manpyō, the owner and president of Hanshin Bank, and his eldest son, Teppei.
Seasons
- Status
- Ended
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 10 episodes
- First aired
- Jan 14, 2007
Cast
10 people
Reviews
4 min readThe Quiet War of the Manpyō Dynasty
I’ve always been drawn to stories about families that aren’t really about families at all. The kind where the dinner table is a boardroom, the inheritance isn’t just money but power, and the betrayals aren’t personal—they’re structural. The Family, the 2007 Japanese drama from director Katsuo Fukuzawa, is one of those stories. It’s a show that wears its corporate thriller trappings like a well-tailored suit, but underneath, it’s all about the slow, suffocating weight of legacy.
And like all great family dramas, it’s not just about who gets what—it’s about who gets to decide what matters in the first place.
The Manpyōs are a family in name only. At the center is Daisuke (Kinya Kitaoji), the patriarch and president of Hanshin Bank, a man whose authority is as unshakable as it is unspoken. His eldest son, Teppei (Takuya Kimura), is the heir apparent, groomed from birth to take over the empire.
But Teppei isn’t just a banker’s son—he’s a man caught between two worlds. On one side, there’s the cold, calculating logic of high finance, where mergers and acquisitions are just another form of warfare. On the other, there’s the messy, human reality of his own ambitions, his marriage, and the quiet rebellion of wanting something more than what’s been handed to him.
What makes The Family compelling isn’t just the plot—though the bank merger at its heart is a masterclass in tension—but the way it uses the family as a microcosm for something larger. This is a show about systems. About how institutions, whether they’re banks or governments or even families, are built to preserve themselves, often at the expense of the people inside them.
The Manpyōs aren’t just fighting over money or control; they’re fighting over the very idea of what their family is. Is it a dynasty? A business?
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsKansai beat Kohaku.
The last hour of TBS's Karei-naru Ichizoku, billed in English as The Family, pulled 39.3 percent in the Kansai region on 18 March 2007. Asahi noted that number sat above the previous year's Kohaku Uta Gassen part two in the same market, 37.6. Kanto closed at 30.4, the only drama finale that year to clear 30. Instant peaks hit 35.5 in Kanto and 44.9 in Kansai at 10:18 p.m.latestnetflix.com's take is that , the beat where Takuya Kimura's Teppei Manpyo walks into the snow with a hunting rifle.Oricon put the ten-episode average at 23.9 in Kanto. TBS's catalog still quotes 30.4 in Kansai. The 14 January opener had already done 27.7. 
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Kimura did not like the family.
The 55th-anniversary Sunday Theatre was his first lead in that slot since GOOD LUCK!! in 2003. Oricon later noted that every Kimura drama since 2000 had finished first in its season's average ratings. Toyoko Yamasaki's 1973 novel, already a 1974 film, became Hiroshi Hashimoto's script. Katsuo Fukuzawa directed with Daisuke Yamamuro. Takayuki Hattori wrote the score. Kinya Kitaoji played the Hanshin Bank patriarch who will use a son. Kyoka Suzuki played the household manager and mistress. At the 14 November 2006 presser Kimura said the story was interesting, "but the human relationships are things I don't want to admit." Suzuki said some of Aiko's lines were so mean they felt disgusting, and that she was playing a woman who is actually weak. Kitaoji said Kimura was already pulling him off his pace. They shot 1960s Kobe in Shanghai. Kimura told Oricon the city felt like past Japan and that they got wild pictures. First and last hours ran long. Chieko Baisho narrated. TELASA still warns that the suicide plays as broadcast. After the rifle, the autopsy blood type is the second punch. Daisuke learns Teppei was his son after all. , , , , ,
Netflix called it The Family.
Hawaii's KIKU-TV had already run it in 2007 as The Grand Family, English subs, Sunday nights. The 2021 WOWOW remake kept that grander English. Netflix dropped the 2007 Kimura cut around 8 November 2024, ten episodes, Japanese audio, English subs, title 81922695, tagged Dysfunctional Family, alongside other Kimura TBS hours. Teppei is the eldest who loves the mill more than the merger. Daisuke is the father who will bankrupt the mill to save the bank. Mid-run Kanto numbers sat in the low 21s, then climbed. Viewers in Kansai already knew how it ended. They watched anyway. TMDB still files the miniseries under The Family, original title intact. , , , , 
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.