TOKYO • Last month, as Americans tuned in to the final episode of Game Of Thrones, Japan was indulging in its own television fantasy world.
In this one, a woman dares to leave work at 6pm sharp.
The determination of Ms Yui Higashiyama, a project manager in her 30s who wants nothing more than to get out of the office and into her favourite bar for happy hour, rocks the fictional web design firm where she works.
A conniving supervisor and overachieving co-workers try to foil her plans. When her team faces a seemingly impossible deadline in Episode 9, she puts aside her steely commitment to work-life balance, declaring: "I will work overtime!"
Ms Higashiyama is the protagonist of I Will Not Work Overtime, Period! - a modest television hit in Japan that has struck a chord in a country with a dangerously intense, at times deadly, national work ethic.
It has prompted workers to talk about their own difficulties in finding work-life balance, even as Japan's major corporations and government officials have increasingly encouraged them to ease off.
The show's creators say they know the problem well. "I was extremely conscious that taking a break meant slacking off," said Ms Kaeruko Akeno, a writer whose novel inspired the programme and has the same name. "It took such a long time for me to accept the fact that it's OK to not work on weekends or on weekday nights."
Similar stories are common. Japanese workers put in some of the world's longest hours. In 2017, over a quarter of the country's full-time employees worked an average of more than 49 hours a week, according to a government report, effectively working six out of seven days.
In some extreme cases, that dedication to the workplace can lead to death. In 2017, government data showed, overwork claimed 190 lives - in the form of exhaustion, heart attacks, suicides - a figure that has stayed more or less constant over the past decade.
The reasons people work so much are complex, said Ms Yoshie Komuro, chief executive of Work Life Balance, a consulting firm that helps employers reduce workers' overtime. In addition to cultural attitudes about the value of hard work, she said, some employers reduce costs by relying on overtime, and employees work longer hours for extra pay and to please the boss - promotions often depend more on time spent at a desk than actual productivity.
The Japanese government has taken measures to reduce long hours and change cultural norms around work. In April, just in time for the debut of the TV show, a new law took effect limiting overtime to no more than 45 hours a month and 360 hours per year, barring special circumstances. And Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has promoted a programme it calls Premium Fridays, asking employers to let employees leave a few hours early on the last Friday of every month.
On the show, the enlightened chief executive at Ms Higashiyama's firm encourages workers to leave the office on time. What holds her co-workers back are staff and supervisors who simply cannot stop themselves - a feeling familiar to fans of the show. "Ultimately, the system always depends on someone pushing themselves to the limit," one fan wrote on Twitter. "The problem is the Japanese system of work, where excess is the norm."
The idea that work requires personal sacrifice is deeply rooted in Japanese culture and has exacerbated many other social issues. Women who want to succeed in corporate Japan often feel even more pressure to prove themselves.
"Just by saying, 'I'm not going to work overtime,' the show's heroine" is committing a radical act, Mr Tomohiro Machiyama, a prominent film critic, wrote on Twitter. Referring to Ms Higashiyama, he said: "She's clearly showing a strategy for solving the problems currently facing Japan, from low wages to the low birthrate."
NYTIMES
