STARTO ENTERTAINMENT is stepping into 2026 with a story that quite literally fits in the palm of your hand.
This spring marks the launch of “S DRAMA” (esu dora; エスドラ) — short for SPECIAL SHORT DRAMA — a vertical-format series designed not for distant cinema screens, but for the intimate glow of a smartphone at midnight, on a train ride, in the quiet in-between moments of daily life. It is a format shift, yes. But more than that, it feels like a generational one.
The inaugural work, “The Memory Acquirer,” will unfold across April and May. Produced by BABEL LABEL’s Michihito Fujii and starring Koichi Domoto, the project brings together two artists known for precision and emotional interiority. At its center stands a mysterious man named Chrono, who buys and sells human memories. He appears when people are at their most fragile. He offers relief. He asks for something invisible in return.
The series is structured in three episodes, each led by a different guest actor, each circling Chrono like a question that refuses to settle.
In Episode 1, “The Night That Disappeared,” Taiki Shinozuka (timelesz) plays Oda, a university student suffocating under the weight of a stalled life. When he encounters Chrono, he chooses to sell a memory he cannot bear to carry. The relief feels immediate — almost merciful. But the memory he erased begins to ripple outward, connecting to a murder and a truth that cannot be undone. Forgetting does not erase consequences. It simply buries it deeper.
Episode 2, “Drawing Memories,” stars Junki Tozuka as Kuze, a struggling manga artist ashamed of his painfully ordinary existence. Offered the chance to purchase extraordinary memories from others, he turns them into story material and finally finds success. Yet as his career ascends, the borrowed experiences begin to seep into him. The line between creator and vessel blurs. Where does imagination end? Where does identity begin?
Episode 3, “The Two Who Forget,” features Shunsuke Daito as Yuma, a chef who has lost both his restaurant and his sense of future. For the sake of the wife he loves, he chooses to sell a memory. He believes that erasing pain will preserve their happiness. Instead, the absence creates a quiet distance neither of them can name. Love, once protected by sacrifice, begins to dissolve in the spaces left behind.
Across all three stories, Chrono remains — composed, observant, never fully explained. Savior or opportunist? Witness or architect? The mystery lingers deliberately. And in that ambiguity lies the beating heart of the series.
Producer Fujii has spoken about his commitment to “drawing people” and “drawing the era.” In a world evolving at dizzying speed, where images multiply faster than we can process them, that insistence feels radical. To draw a person is to linger on their contradictions. To draw an era is to capture its anxieties — its hunger for reinvention, its exhaustion, its dependence on technology to soothe what it cannot solve.
What is a memory acquirer, if not a metaphor for our time? We live in an age that archives everything and yet constantly tempts us to curate, filter, and delete. We scroll forward, but we ache backward. In that tension, Chrono does not just trade memories. He exposes how fragile they are — and how defining.
For Koichi, the vertical format itself became part of the storytelling language. At first, he has shared, he struggled to imagine what a vertical drama would look like. But once filming began, the narrow frame revealed its severity. With limited horizontal space, every gesture had to be intentional. Every silence carried weight. The screen feels closer — almost confrontational. There is no sprawling backdrop to hide behind. Only faces. Only feeling.
That intimacy mirrors something else: fandom itself.
Fans, after all, are archivists of memory. We hold onto first stages, awkward speeches, missed notes, and triumphant returns. We replay moments until they become part of us. If someone offered to buy those memories — to lift the ache of a difficult era or the embarrassment of a shaky performance — would we agree? Or are those very imperfections what bind us to the artists we love? In that sense, “The Memory Acquirer” feels less like a sci-fi premise and more like a quiet question posed directly to the audience.
S DRAMA also signals something larger for STARTO ENTERTAINMENT. This is not simply a new series; it is a deliberate step into platform-native storytelling. Free streaming on YouTube, multi-platform content across social media, a LINE presence anchored by a smartphone-clutching mascot — the ecosystem is designed for immediacy and access. It reflects a company aware that connection today is continuous, not scheduled. Not appointment television, but shared digital space.
If widescreen cinema once symbolized spectacle, vertical drama symbolizes closeness. It acknowledges how we actually live with stories now — inches from our faces, woven between messages and notifications. And rather than resisting that shift, S DRAMA leans into it.
The slate continues through the summer: June’s horror-fantasy “All the Beautiful Monsters,” starring Shori Sato (timelesz) as a handsome zombie managing a haunted house; July’s romantic comedy “Fall in Love, Heir,” led by Ryosuke Hashimoto (A.B.C-Z); and August’s “Chat Boy,” starring Yoshinori Masakado (Ae! group) and Noel Kawashima (Travis Japan), a work that questions affirmation culture within today’s chat-AI society. The tonal range is wide. The connective tissue is experimentation.
Vertical drama may appear compact, but the ambition here is expansive. By focusing on people — on their flaws, their doubts, their yearning to forget and to remember — S DRAMA attempts to sketch not just characters, but a portrait of 2026 itself.
And in the narrow glow of a vertical screen, those portraits may feel closer than ever.