An ensemble tale about misfits hired to comfort strangers — while someone watches them all. Each week, a new emotional job tests the team’s loyalties, revealing secrets not just about their clients… but about themselves.

SYNOPSIS:

The Misfits of Comfort is an ensemble mystery-drama disguised as a quirky freelance comfort business. We follow Shun, a failed actor, as he stumbles into a strange gig — and soon into the lives of four others offering rented emotional services in Tokyo. Each week, a new job pulls them closer together, even as someone — or something — tries to keep them apart. What starts as five lonely freelancers becomes an unlikely team. A fake family… that just might become real!

Logline: In Tokyo, a small agency offers emotional stand-ins — rent-a-grandmother, breakup messengers, hired huggers, and more. The people providing comfort are often more lost than the ones they serve. But in faking connection, they just might find real healing.

The World: This is our world — not sci-fi or fantasy — but with a surreal emotional texture. In Japan, these kinds of services actually exist. What if the people doing them became an unlikely family, even while hiding pain of their own?

The Pilot: Our entry point is Shun, a failed actor desperate for direction. He’s hired by The Comfort Company to play a fake grandson for a lonely elderly man. The visit spirals — Shun forgets his lines, but something magical happens: the connection feels real.

Meanwhile, we meet the team:

Aki, the founder, emotionally shut down and hiding a painful past.

Emi, the rent-a-grandmother, estranged from her real family.

Yuta, sarcastic expert at quitting jobs for others.

Nana, a foreign hugger-for-hire who is emotionally numb beneath the bubbly exterior.

By the end of the pilot, Shun earns his place on the team. But a photo from the client hints at Aki’s mysterious past — someone in the photo might be connected to a tragedy she’s buried. The case seems closed… but something’s not right.

The Series Question: Can you fake comfort without faking yourself? And what happens when the emotional ghosts you’re paid to help with… start to follow you home?

Why Now / Why Me: These real jobs are uniquely Japanese, but the loneliness, performative connection, and quiet yearning are universal. I live in Tokyo and want to show both the humor and heartbreak of these roles — through a grounded, ensemble-driven mystery.