Yuji Oda: ‘My All-Time Favorite Role Is Look Back and There He Is’ — 5ch: ‘He Said Their Lips Actually Touched’

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The story

Yuji Oda appeared on Fuji TV’s September 21 special “Neptune’s Net League x Bayside Shakedown Collab SP” and named the 1993 drama Look Back and There He Is as his favorite among all the shows he’s starred in. The series was written by Koki Mitani and also starred Ken Ishiguro and Yuki Matsushita. On 5ch, Oda’s comment sparked a wave of posts revisiting his other signature works — not just Look Back and There He Is, but also No Money and the Bayside Shakedown series — with opinions split over which one deserves the top spot.

Yuji Oda: “It’s my favorite work” — actor reveals his favorite drama he’s starred in… tells wrong-guesser Shiori Tamai, “So close”

Actor Yuji Oda appeared on the Fuji TV special “Neptune’s Net League x Bayside Shakedown Collab SP: Yuji Oda’s First Appearance! Legends vs. New Generation” (7:00 PM) airing on the 21st. During the show, he revealed his favorite drama he’d starred in.

Oda, who plays the hot-blooded detective Shunsaku Aoshima in the hit franchise, had just seen the release on the 18th of the series’ first new film in 14 years, “Bayside Shakedown N.E.W.: Dash Through Metropolis!” This marked his first appearance on Neptune’s Net League.

Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

What people said

5AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:03
Oh, the one where Ken Ishiguro had those insane dark circles under his eyes?
32AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:12
Re: #5


Ju-on (the Grudge ghost)
10AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:05


Look Back and There's a Bald Guy (a pun on the show's title)
20AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:07
Re: #10
He's really good at that kind of self-deprecating, pathetic face — Nishimura, that is.
27AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:09
Re: #10
Noooo, yah-yah!!
13AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:05
Yuki Matsushita was exactly my type back then. I was 10 years old at the time.
78AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:27
Re: #13
Yuki Matsushita was actually a senior at my junior high, but I never knew that — found out online.
97AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:35
Re: #13
In Aiko, 16, she was just a minor supporting character, but she grew taller and got so much more polished it was shocking. Meanwhile Yasuko Tomita, who was the lead in that one, kind of faded after growing up.
15AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:05
The fact that Mitani never used Oda again after this must mean he'd had enough of actors trying to rewrite the script on their own.
83AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:29
Re: #15
Once he started directing, the one rule he made actors absolutely follow was 'no complaining.'
85AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:30
Re: #15
I recall an anecdote where Mitani wanted to cast Shiba (Oda's character) as the culprit in Furuhata Ninzaburo, but Oda turned it down saying 'Shiba never loses.' Am I misremembering that?
16AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:06
Anyway, in this drama their faces kept getting so close together I kept thinking they were about to kiss lol
25AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:08
Re: #16
There's normally no reason to get that close face-to-face, so it felt really off.
56AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:21
Re: #16
He said their lips actually touched at one point.
18AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:06
You don't really see Ken Ishiguro around anymore.
22AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:07
Re: #18
He was in that Hokuto Matsumura drama.
26AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:08
Re: #18
It's already been twenty years since he passed away — the Getter Robo guy.
28AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:10
Ken Ishiguro is actually a pretty good actor, you know — though for some reason that's not the image people have of him.
79AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:27
Re: #28
Not being memorable is the mark of a truly great actor.
129AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:49
Re: #28
Ishiguro's best-known role has to be the fake psychic in Furuhata Ninzaburo. When his trick gets exposed and, in a desperate bluff, he pretends to use his 'powers' to locate the person he actually murdered — twitching and convulsing his whole body — that performance is a masterpiece.
35AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:15
Personally, No Money wins by an overwhelming margin. I love absolutely everything about that drama.
50AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:19
Re: #35
Masayuki Imai and Wataru Takasugi as the loan sharks were great lol
52AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:20
Re: #35
Nobody's gonna get this, but my favorite is Mikihisa Azuma's 'one order of ankimo' bit.
75AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:26
Re: #35
It's been rerun so many times, it must be genuinely popular.
42AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:17
Apparently it was originally supposed to be a comedy drama, which cracks me up.
46AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:18
Re: #42
Supposedly the crew ended up cutting basically every comedy scene Mitani wrote.
53AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:20
Re: #42
So it really was like that. Good job to whoever changed the script on set — if it had stayed a cringe Koki Mitani gag drama, I don't think it would've turned out this good.
47AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:18

Yuji Oda looking way too serious
63AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:23
Everyone keeps saying No Money is great — I've never actually seen it though.
70AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:25
Re: #63
It's on TVer. There's even a character who turns into a drug-loving old lady.
94AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:32
Re: #63
It's got family love, rags-to-riches, human warmth — all packed in. The theme song 'Over the Trouble' adds a great vibe too.
82AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:29
No Money used to get rerun in the early evening a lot where I'm from. The setup feels like something out of an old American drama.
98AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:35
Re: #82
Feels kind of close to that movie 'Skyscraper… something' — though that one was a film.
110AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:40
No Money also has amazing music. In the ending, Hagiwara plays a much gentler-looking company president than his character in the show, and that's great too. I never get tired of that shot of him walking to the office with the theme song playing.
122AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:45
Re: #110
The president breathing on the glass and teaching him how to wipe it clean — that ending really captures the company's whole vibe.
115AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:43
Generally speaking, if you've watched all of them, the ranking is probably something like: 1. No Money, 2. Look Back and There He Is, 3. Bayside Shakedown. Bayside Shakedown just feels like it fades a bit more as time goes on.
121AnonymousSep 22, 2026 00:45
Re: #115
Can't speak for everyone else, but that's my personal ranking too. Bayside Shakedown is a classic, but they made way too many spin-offs.

Background and Talking Points

Look Back and There He Is was a 1993 Fuji TV drama written by Koki Mitani that became a social phenomenon at the time, thanks to Yosuke Eguchi’s stalker role and Yuji Oda’s cold-blooded doctor character. Meanwhile, No Money, also mentioned in the thread, is a 1994 TBS drama that still has a devoted fanbase and remains available to stream on TVer and elsewhere. The anecdote circulating in the thread about Mitani clashing with Oda over script changes isn’t officially confirmed — it’s really just a rumor that has been passed around among fans. Since which work resonates most depends heavily on generation, it’s not unusual for opinions to split over a ‘favorite work,’ and this time too the ranking was divided between Look Back and There He Is, No Money, and Bayside Shakedown.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Entertainment] Yuji Oda reveals his favorite drama he’s starred in: ‘Look Back and There He Is is my favorite work’.”

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