French-Japanese comedy romance series Tokyo Crush has won the Series Mania Co-Pro Pitching Sessions event.
The result was announced by Series Mania founder and Director General Laurence Herszberg in the past few minutes, with the series from Clémence Dargent beating off competition from 14 others to claim the win.
The series follows Mona, a bold Parisian chef, who is hired to reinvent a struggling Tokyo izakaya (an informal Japanese drinks bar), only to be foiled by Toshiro, the talented, and annoyingly handsome, grandson of the founder, would let her.
This lands the project the Series Mania Forum Best Project Award and a check for €50,000 ($54,000). The jury was led by Studiocanal Executive Managing Director of TV Series M-K Kennedy.
“After a good amount of debate, we chose Tokyo Crush because we loved the potential we saw for the story in and out of the kitchen,” said Kennedy. “It felt fresh like a series with multiple points of entry for audiences. Featuring an ensemble of characters and conflicts that are ripe for great comedy: clash of cultures, tradition versus modernity, competition and will-they/won’t-they romance. All of which made it singular.”
The eight-part series is produced by Jonas Ben Haiem and Jean-Félix Dealberto for Salle Commune, and Hiroko Oda for Flag Inc.
Along with Kennedy, the jury included André Béraud, Head of Scripted, Programs and Feature Films, ICI Radio-Canada Télé (Canada); Henriette Marienlund, Head of Drama, DR Drama (Denmark); José Pastor, Head Of Drama And Fiction, RTVE (Spain) and Frank Seyberth, Head of Coproduction, International Fiction, ZDF (Germany).
“The Co-Pro Pitching Sessions are one of the most anticipated parts of the Series Mania Forum and we are delighted to be giving the €50,000 prize to Tokyo Crush. In the difficulties of today’s world, I’m delighted to see that a romance comedy took the top prize. This is just what the audience needs during this time,” said Herszberg.
AloJapan.com