Director: George A. Romero
Poke a small hole in anything you touch — that's the strange gift at the center of "Land of Tanabata," and it turns out to matter far more than its owner expects.
What is Land of Tanabata about?
Yôji Minamimaru, known to friends as Nanmaru, is an unremarkable college student whose only unusual trait is a supernatural knack for punching tiny holes into solid objects, a power that seems more like a party trick than anything useful. That changes as events around him escalate into something far larger than his ordinary campus life, forcing Nanmaru to confront a looming crisis that threatens consequences well beyond his own circle of friends. The series blends coming-of-age drama with fantasy, mystery, and science-fiction elements, tracking how an underestimated ability becomes central to events no one saw coming. Director George A. Romero, working with a Japanese cast led by Kanata Hosoda, Ryoko Fujino, and Shuhei Uesugi, builds tension gradually, letting the mystery around the source and scope of Nanmaru's power unfold alongside the personal stakes of a young man forced to grow up quickly.
Cast & crew
Kanata Hosoda leads as Nanmaru, joined by Ryoko Fujino, Shuhei Uesugi, Mai Kiryu, Yui Narumi, Tatsuomi Hamada, Reika Nishihata, and Motoki Fukami rounding out an ensemble drawn from Japanese film and television.
Context & significance
A Japanese production, the series draws on genre traditions common to Japanese fantasy and science-fiction storytelling, where an ordinary protagonist's overlooked ability becomes the hinge on which a much larger, world-spanning mystery turns. That structure lets the show shift naturally between quieter, character-driven college scenes and higher-stakes sequences once the true scope of the crisis becomes clear, giving the mystery room to build without abandoning its central relationships. It's a structure familiar to fans of the genre, but the show leans into Nanmaru's ordinariness rather than treating him as a chosen hero from the outset.
Where & how to watch
"Land of Tanabata" streams on K-Time with Farsi dubbing and Persian subtitles available, accessible through the platform's Farsi interface once viewers log into a K-Time account.