French/Japanese comedy romance, “Tokyo Crush”, has won the €50,000 Series Mania Forum Best Project Award.

"Tokyo Crush" was one of 15 projects selected for the co-production pitch, held on day one (Tuesday, 25 March) of this year's Series Mania Forum.

The eight-episode half-hour co-production is the story of Mona, a bold Parisian chef, who is hired to reinvent a struggling Tokyo izakaya – if only Toshiro, the talented (and annoyingly handsome) grandson of the founder, will let her.

Written by Clémence Dargent, the series is produced by Jonas Ben Haiem and Jean-Félix Dealberto for Salle Commune, and Hiroko Oda for Flag Inc.

“We chose Tokyo Crush because we loved the potential we saw for the story IN and OUT of the kitchen. 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,” said jury president, M-K Kennedy, executive MD of TV Series at STUDIOCANAL.

Along with Kennedy, the jury included André Béraud, head of scripted, programs and feature films at 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 for ZDF (Germany). 

"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 Laurence Herszberg, founder and general director of Series Mania.