Television Audience Ratings - Kantou region (Includes Tokyo), Japan
Hataraki Man Episode 11 Television Audience Rating, Thursday Night, December 21, 2006 [Friday Morning, December 22, 2006]
4.1% CX [Fuji TV] 25.15 [1:15 AM] Noitamina "Hataraki Man" (Episode 11 [The End] / Soredemo Hatarakiman {Still the Working Man})
Despite a broadcast starting time 30 minutes later than usual, episode 11 of Hataraki Man still drew a pretty good television audience rating.
And despite three out of its eleven total episodes
airing significantly later than their regularly scheduled time, Hataraki Man still managed to deliver an overall television audience rating of 4.01%.
Very, very few late night animation (anime) series in Japan have ever managed to pull off an overall television audience rating of 4.0% or more. Hataraki Man has just accomplished that. And NANA almost certainly will when it ends its run.
The Hataraki Man anime apparently has done much better than expected, drawing in and keeping audiences despite, among other obstacles, a number of broadcast delays and the lack of a live action version to boost awareness and interest among the Japanese general public.
Japanese posters at 2ch credit the fine cast of Hataraki Man, led by Tanaka Rie as the main character Matsukata Hiroko, for its excellent performance with Japanese viewers, particularly with salaryman, or working men and women - people who, by and large, do not normally watch anime.