The most famous department store in Tokyo may be rescued from financial ruin by a prime-time television soap opera that focuses on the comparative sizes of its women employees’ breasts.

Despite the show’s mammocentric subject matter and occasionally bawdy camerawork, Yamaonna Kabeonna – which translates as Mountain Lady, Wall Lady and refers to the relative proportions of the two heroines – is designed to appeal to the young working women of Japan.

Because it is set and filmed in what is perhaps Japan’s most recognisable store – occasionally referred to as the “Harrods of Japan” – the show is expected to draw thousands of viewers through the doors of Mitsukoshi.

The show is based on one of the best-selling manga comic books of 2005 and follows the fortunes of the serious-minded, flat-chested Megumi Aoyagi and her sweet-natured, generously proportioned colleague, Marie Mariya. Despite Japanese television drama’s unbroken history of sexist material, and Yamaonna Kabeonna’s male production team, the show is a bellwether of changing times in Japan.

The original comic, written by a woman, is a tale of business savvy over breast size and attempts to consign old Japanese business attitudes to history. It describes the way Japanese retailers have realised, grudgingly, that the old hierarchy of all-male management was hopelessly ill-suited to the business of getting women customers to spend money.

As a new generation of highly educated, motivated women have carved out careers in corporate Japan, retail in particular has been transformed. Breast size, the “old Japan” measure of a woman’s career prospects, is exposed as embarrassingly outdated.

Mitsukoshi is a landmark in the glamorous Ginza shopping district and can trace its origins back to 1673 – as “old Japan” a business concern as one could find. But its management has begun to panic in recent years.

Its performance figures, to be announced soon, are likely to show a near halving of profits since last year because the store has failed to keep up with the refurbishments and innovations of its big rivals. Fearing that it may fall prey to private-equity buyers, Mitsukoshi recently embarked on a 180 billion yen (£730 million) project to revamp its flagship shop and other branches throughout Japan.

However, after only one broadcast on the Fuji TV network on Thursday night, Yamaonna Kabeonna has already delighted the financial analysts. Brokers at Macquarie Securities told The Times that the 12-week drama series “could generate the kind of footfall that the store has been desperate to attract”.

W. M. Penn, the pseudonym of one of the most famous television critics in Japan, said that the influence of Japanese dramas on viewers, particularly women, had a long history of economic impact.

41.4%
of Japan’s labour force are women

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan

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