Taiyō ni Hoero!

Taiyō ni Hoero! (太陽にほえろ!), literally Roar at the Sun!, was a long-running prime-time television detective series in Japan, which ran from 1972 to 1986 for a total of 718 episodes.^[1] The lead star was Yujiro Ishihara. It also helped further the career of actors^[2] such as Yūsaku Matsuda and Kenichi Hagiwara as well as Hiroshi Katsuno and Masaya Oki. It was a police procedural set mostly in a police station. It was one of the most popular and iconic detective dramas in Japanese television history. A sequel was aired from 1986 to 1987, airing for 12 episodes.^[3]

Taiyō ni Hoero!
Genre	Detective drama
Starring	Yujiro Ishihara Tetsuya Watari Shigeru Tsuyuguchi Raita Ryū Kenichi Hagiwara Yūsaku Matsuda Hiroshi Katsuno Masaya Oki Masaki Kanda Shinji Yamashita Toru Watanabe Kunihiko Mitamura Masanori Sera Takeo Chii Tappei Shimokawa Yoshizumi Ishihara Akira Onodera Keiko Takahashi
Composer	Katsuo Ōno
Country of origin	Japan
Original language	Japanese
No. of episodes	718
Production
Producer	Hirokichi Okada
Running time	45 minutes
Production companies	Toho Nippon Television
Original release
Network	NNS (NTV)
Release	July 21, 1972 (1972-07-21) – November 14, 1986 (1986-11-14)

Setting

The series takes place in the fictional Nanamagari police station in Shinjuku and portrays the investigations of Nanamagari's detective squad. Headed by Superintendent Shunsuke "Boss" Todo, it initially consists of Inspector Seiichi "Yama-san" Yamamura with Detectives Makoto "Gori-san" Ishizuka, Kimiyuki "His Highness" Shima, Taro "Chosan" Nozaki, and Policewoman Shinko "Shinko-san" Uchida. In the first episode they were joined by Detective Jun "Macaroni" Hayami, who later died in Episode 52. Macaroni was replaced by Jun "Jiipan" Shibata, who would also be killed in Episode 111, and starting a series tradition of having cast members killed off upon their actor's departure from the show. The drama recorded high audience rating, especially episodes which regular cast members were killed or died recorded high audience rating every time.^[4]

While the Nanamagari squad's usual jurisdiction encompasses Tokyo, sometimes they are assigned cases that take them to various locales across Japan, ranging from Okinawa and Sakurajima, to name a few. Other cases involved detectives going abroad to prosecute fugitives in Paris, Canada, Australia, and Hawaii. ^[5]

Regulars

Character	Nickname	Actor	Episodes
Shunsuke Todō	Boss	Yujiro Ishihara	1 - 458, 489 - 699, 718
Seiichi Yamamura	Yama-san	Shigeru Tsuyuguchi	1 - 691
Makoto Ishizuka	Gori-san	Raita Ryū	1 - 525
Kimiyuki Shima	Denka ("His Highness")	Akira Onodera	1 - 414
Tarō Nozaki	Chō-san ("Pops")	Tappei Shimokawa	1 - 520
Nobuko Uchida	Shinko	Keiko Takahashi	1 - 111
Jun Hayami	Macaroni	Kenichi Hagiwara	1 - 52
Jun Shibata	Jiipan ("Jeans")	Yūsaku Matsuda	53 - 111
Jun Mikami	Texas	Hiroshi Katsuno	112 - 216
Ryo Taguchi	Bonn	Jun Miyauchi	168 - 363
Ryuichi Taki	Scotch	Masaya Oki	217 - 244, 399 - 493
Hajime Iwaki	Rocky	Ryo Kinomoto	256 - 519
Jun Godai	Sneakers	Shinji Yamashita	364 - 476
Akira Saijō	Doc	Masaki Kanda	415 - 718
Junji Takemoto	Rugger	Toru Watanabe	477 - 658
Masayuki Hara	Gypsy	Kunihiko Mitamura	494 - 545
Hajime Kasukabe	Bogey	Masanori Sera	521 - 597
Toshizo Igawa	Toshi-san	Takeo Chii	526 - 718
Reiko Iwaki (née Hayase)	Mommy	Naomi Hase	275 - 520 (semi-regular), 546 - 718 (regular)
Makoto Sawamura	Blues	Seiji Matano	562 - 718
Yu Mizuki	Microcomputer	Yoshizumi Ishihara	618 (debut), 623 - 718 (regular)
Koichi Shimazu	Duke	Kenichi Kaneda	660 - 715
Jun Dazai	DJ	Koji Nishiyama	706 - 718
Hyogo Tachibana	Keibu ("Inspector")	Tetsuya Watari	706 - 718

Semi Regulars

• Yoko Machida as Takako Yamamura (Wife of Seiichi Yamamura) (1972–78)
• Kin Sugai as Taki Shibata (Mother of Jun Shibata) (1973–74, 78, 85)
• Takuya Fujioka as Samejima (1973–86)
• Akihiko Hirata as Nishiyama (1973–83)

Taiyō ni Hoero! Part 2

Character	Nickname	Actor
Asako Tanamura	Kakarichō ("Chief")	Tomoko Naraoka
Akira Saijō	Doc	Masaki Kanda
Jun Dazai	DJ	Koji Nishiyama
Makoto Sawamura	Blues	Seiji Matano
Yu Mizuki	Microcomputer	Yoshizumi Ishihara
Reiko Iwaki	Mommy	Naomi Hase
Taro Nozaki	Cho-san	Tappie Shimokawa
Toshio Igawa	Toshi-san	Takeo Chii
Osamu Kita	Osamu-san	Akira Terao

References

1. Takase, Masahiro (Nov 15, 2007). Showa Senbon No Dorama-Tachi [1000 TV dramas of the Showa Period] (in Japanese).
2. "太陽にほえろとは". kotobank. Retrieved January 2, 2020.
3. "太陽にほえろ! 1986" (in Japanese). Amazon. Retrieved March 19, 2017.
4. "『太陽にほえろ！』 成功を生んだ「殉職」「あだ名」「恋愛」". Zakzak. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
5. 『太陽にほえろ!伝説-疾走15年 私が愛した七曲署』（1996年、日本テレビ）ISBN 4-8203-9866-0 P1-20