Entertainment

Bright Minds takes Season 7 to Tokyo in French-Japanese team-up

Putri ArdhanaPublished 7m ago3 min readBased on 5 sources
Bright Minds takes Season 7 to Tokyo in French-Japanese team-up
Photo by User:YanRB / CC BY-SA 4.0

France's hit crime drama Bright Minds took its cameras to Tokyo for Season 7, the first time the series has filmed in Japan. The season is a co-production — meaning companies from two countries jointly make and fund it — between France's JLA Productions and NHK Enterprises of Japan, as reported by Variety.

The show is known in France as Astrid et Raphaëlle and airs on France 2, where it has run since 2019. It follows Astrid, a neurodivergent police records archivist with an extraordinary memory, who helps Raphaëlle, an impulsive police inspector, solve crimes. Sara Mortensen and Lola Dewaere return as the pair for Season 7.

France TV Distribution, the sales arm of the French public broadcaster, acted as matchmaker for the deal. The company brought JLA Productions and NHK Enterprises together and helped set up the partnership. JLA producer Jean-Sébastien Bouilloux said shooting in Tokyo realised a years-long dream, and thanked France Télévisions, France TV Distribution and NHK Enterprises Inc. for making it happen.

Japan is familiar ground for the series. Season 1 premiered there in 2021 on Mystery Channel, then called AXN Mystery, before starting on public broadcaster NHK in 2022. All six seasons so far have aired on both Mystery Channel and NHK. In 2025, France TV Distribution organised a Tokyo promotional tour for the team, with press conferences and fan meetings.

The numbers explain the interest. In 2025, Bright Minds collected 24 million video views on france.tv, making it the platform's most-watched scripted series of the year excluding daytime, according to Variety. Earlier seasons drew large linear audiences in France, with Season 1 averaging 4.6 million viewers and Season 2 averaging 5.2 million, as reported by Variety in 2022.

For fans, this means a familiar duo in a new city. The series has sold in more than 130 countries and has already inspired two remakes, the British series Patience on Channel 4 and the Spanish show Agata and Lola. Tokyo is next.

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