Free Republic

Japanese marriages falling victim to 'Yongfluenza' This year is likely to be remembered for the boom set off by "Winter Sonata," the weepy South Korean melodrama broadcast by NHK. The "Fuyu-Sona" series not only achieved a high audience rating during its initial showing; it also generated spinoffs in the form of 330,000 DVDs and 1.22 million copies of the story in book form — generating an estimated 3.5 billion yen in revenues for the network. "My wife spent over 30,000 yen on a set of DVDs," a 50-year-old trading firm employee grumbles. "To watch them, I had to buy a...