Hideyoshi

Naoto Takenaka plays the best Hideyoshi ever played. This is saying quite a lot, since this historical character has been played more often than most, always by the best.This was a one-year series produced by Japan's public broadcasting. The senior director was Rintaro Mayuzumi, director of "Rampo" also starring Takenaka. Too bad audiences out side of Japan will have such a hard time finding the video for this series. It really is quite good.

I started this series after watching the Sanada Taheiki Taiga from start to end and being enamored with it (typical NHK rewrites of history permitted, after the experience years ago with the terrible Asadora series supposedly about the life of Reiko Okuyama I'm not surprised) and after being entertained for 41 episodes I just couldn't take the clear-as-day attempts of the writer to drag this series for 49 episodes anymore. It's really a shame because until the end of the rebellion of Akechi Mitsuhide everything went really good, the tension and drama were well written and extremely gripping and it was a legitimately great series. Then the seasonal rot came in and the Drama nonsensically and hamfistedly tried to rewrite the decision of the protagonist to send his mother and sister as hostage/wife to Ieyasu Tokugawa by taking out the historical fact of the latter's lover committing seppuku by his own decision (?) and then the writing by episode 42 became simply absurd, with this entire episode being a 100% terrible filler that killed my interest to finish the series for good. Sad that it had to end before the 49 episodes landmark, but I guess not all them must be 100% winners.

These days,SAMURAI dramas are not popular among the youth.So directors are tend to make lighter,easier and modern drama. This drama is also made by such a way and hit.But it neglect how people lived and thought at that era. It disappoints me.on the other hand,new idea of historical people is influenced.For example,Akechi Mithuhide was thought as betrayer until then,but in this drama,due to the actor Hiroaki Murakami's image ,Akechi turned intelligent,sensitive ,and suffer from his situation.