TOKYO -- The NTV network began webcasting the first blog drama -- a TV drama series whose story can be changed by fans contributing to the show's blog, nationwide on Friday, the net announced.

Sponsored by electronic giant NEC, "Okinawa Otoko Nigeta" (My Guy Escaped to Okinawa) tells the story of a 33-year-old female office clerk whose photographer boyfriend suddenly leaves for Okinawa, a semi-tropical island south of the main Japanese archipelago. She pours out her feelings about this disappearance on her blog, which went up on the Internet on November 2. The blog will continue to appear, with video segments, until December. Then on December 5 and 19, the recorded shows will be broadcast on the NTV "Digital no Konjo" (Digital Spirit) terrestrial variety show. The completed episodes will also be beamed on the blog. Then starting on December 20 and continuing until December 31, "Another Ending," a show that explores the options the heroine did not pursue in the first show, will be beamed on NTV's Internet pay broadcasting service Nippon Television No. 2. Finally sponsor NEC will offer the show on its "one seg" mobile communications service.

Toshio Tsuchiya, NTV executive director, explained to the press on Friday that though viewers writing comments on the heroine's blog can influence the course of the show, it will not be done by viewer vote. "If one comment can move her, her actions will reflect that comment, even if it is one person's word against 99 others," he explained.

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