Japan’s long-anticipated take on a 2022 courtroom phenomenon has finally shown its face. Extraordinary Attorney Minami, the Kansai Television remake of the hit Korean ENA series Extraordinary Attorney Woo, released its first teaser trailer this weekend through the official drama account, and the clip immediately sent original-series fans back to the whale-obsessed lawyer who made Park Eun-bin a global name. The preview arrives with one month left before the October 19 premiere, promising a heartfelt legal drama built around a palindrome-named rookie rather than a recycled press announcement.
Extraordinary Attorney Minami follows Minamida Minami (Mana Ashida), a University of Tokyo law graduate with autism spectrum disorder who posts the top score on the bar exam yet still struggles to land work because of prejudice. She joins Hirokawa Howard Law Firm armed with an extraordinary memory, a love of whales, and a distinctive way of seeing cases, while navigating first-time romance and family secrets with help from colleagues.
The teaser leans on actual episode footage: Minami introduces herself by noting that her name reads the same from the top or the bottom, coworkers wonder whether a newcomer who cannot manage a self-introduction belongs in court, and a string of distinctive supporting characters files through the office as she takes her first uneasy steps into practice.
Watch the first teaser trailer here:
The remake’s ensemble maps closely onto the Korean original while adding at least one Japan-only office figure, and the official preview makes a point of parading those personalities around Minami. Kansai TV has now locked the core workplace and family lineup that will surround Ashida through the planned run. The announced cast includes:
Funai Minato (Fumiya Takahashi), the kindhearted paralegal who becomes Minami’s first love interest, occupying the space Lee Jun-ho held beside Woo Young-woo
Minamida Makoto (Akihiro Kakuta), her father, a former would-be lawyer who now runs an onigiri shop instead of a gimbap stall
Himi Takuma (Keota Hosoda), a junior attorney who joined the firm six months earlier and works on the same team
Asahi Koharu (Shiori Kubo), Minami’s judicial-training classmate and fellow rookie
Madoka Ririi (Rinka Kakihara), Minami’s only close friend
Miyaji Kengo (Makiya Yamaguchi), the partner who supervises Minami’s team
Hirokawa Nagisa (Kami Hiraiwa), the firm’s representative
Tsuchimura Kaede (Sakura Takeuchi), a Japan-original secretary who supports Nagisa
The official trailer post on X pulled more than 43 million views in two days and filled the replies with side-by-side memories of Woo Young-woo. Many commenters praised the clean, almost translucent look of the footage and said they felt the crew’s respect for the source, while others measured Ashida’s calmer, crisper delivery against Park Eun-bin and noted that Fumiya Takahashi’s framing recalled Kang Tae-oh.
One viewer wrote, “I won’t compare it to the original, but looking at the preview, the images have a sense of clarity and you can feel the production team’s respect for the original, which is welcome,” while another added, “Sorry to compare her with Woo Young-woo, but she seems a little too crisp and too composed.”
Extraordinary Attorney Woo began as a modest ENA Monday drama in June 2022 and finished as a national event, climbing from a 0.9 percent premiere rating to a 17.5 percent finale that remains one of the network’s high-water marks. On Netflix the series held No. 1 on the global non-English Top 10 for seven consecutive weeks, and Park Eun-bin later collected the Baeksang Arts Awards Grand Prize in television for the role. A second Korean season is still only in pre-production, with writer Moon Ji-won reported to be back on the script this year, though Park Eun-bin has said she will return only if she can protect the original’s purpose.
Kansai Television, often branded as KTV, produced the remake for Fuji TV’s Monday 10 p.m. national slot, and the first episode will run 15 minutes long when it premieres on October 19, 2026, at 10 p.m. Japan time. Netflix will open its worldwide window immediately after that broadcast and then add each new chapter after it airs in Japan, giving the original’s international audience a weekly drop rather than a full-season dump. Catch-up viewing inside Japan will also live on TVer and Kansai TV’s own service, but the version most overseas fans of Woo Young-woo will meet is the Netflix cut that follows Minami from her palindrome self-introduction into court.
