Start-198 Menjadi Robot Seks Yang Tidak Berguna Riko Hoshino - Indo18 -

| | Result | |------------|------------| | Viewership | Over 12 million streams in the first week (Netflix Japan) | | Critical Score | 84% on Rotten Tomatoes; praised for “intelligent storytelling” | | Social Media | #START198 trended for 48 hours on Twitter worldwide | | Awards | Nominated for “Best Drama Series” at the 2026 Asian Television Awards; Yui Tanaka won “Best Original Score” |

| Character | Role | Personality & Arc | |-----------|------|-------------------| | (35) | Lead software architect of the START project. | A pragmatic genius haunted by a past loss; learns to open her heart as she watches START‑198 grow. | | Ryo Sato (29) | Test‑pilot and former robotics technician, recruited for his empathy with AI. | Initially skeptical of machines, he becomes a bridge between humans and START‑198 , discovering his own capacity for compassion. | | Mika Ishida (27) | Public relations manager for KirinTech . | Skilled at shaping narratives, she wrestles with the moral implications of marketing sentient robots. | | START‑198 (Prototype) | The central robot, originally designed for “companionship services.” | Starts with a limited set of responses but gradually exhibits curiosity, humor, and a yearning to understand love. | | Junpei Kuroda (42) | CEO of KirinTech . | Ambitious, yet secretly sympathetic; his decisions drive the series’ tension between commercial gain and ethical duty. | | | Result | |------------|------------| | Viewership |