25-year-old Momo has friends. She gets on with her parents. She’s dating an acceptable guy. At the office she apologises to unreasonable clients on the phone. When she goes out for drinks with colleagues after work, she keeps things nice and civil. This ordinary life means Momo doesn’t immediately notice a nagging feeling: She wants to die. One day, unable to bear the thought of the coming Monday, Momo takes time off and begins to visit other people struggling with suicidal thoughts but who have discovered alternatives and now choose to live instead. She connects with these ‘Papagenos’ on social media. They are people who have suicidal thoughts but discover their own reasons and philosophies to carry on living. Over the course of her difficult journey, Momo herself begins to discover choices other than death. Research has revealed that sharing these stories can help prevent suicides: the Papageno effect — after a character in the opera ‘The Magic Flute’. NHK has an online message board where people vent their feelings about wanting to die. More than 80,000 messages have been posted since 2008. This drama is based on contributions from about 20 posters with whom the director began to correspond in 2016. The name, Momo, is derived from the most-used nickname on the message board.