The more samurai movies I see, the more I find that the NHK Taiga Dramas are my favorites. They are consistently informative, are often well written and well acted. They also have, in part, the goal of teaching some history, so even the ones I don't like leave me feeling better educated than if I had not seen them.
In addition, I can count on NHK not to be too violent for my taste, and not to include inappropriate sexual content of the sort that mars so many of the older samurai movies.
With that in mind, this is one of the best Taiga Drama I have ever seen. The characters are well developed and the depiction of Maeda Toshiie's family and his friendship with Toyotomi Hideyoshi works well.
If you are going to spend your time watching a 50 part series, this is definitely one to watch. The stories are a touch on the "genki" side, by which I mean that they overstate the simple pleasures and happiness in life, but that can be overlooked as they have a smooth transition from public to private sphere and therefore give one both the historical highlights and a (probably unrealistic) look into the private lives of these important historical figures.
In addition, the names are relatively easy to follow. In some of the Taiga Drama the names of the characters in a family are so similar that I can't easily follow. That doesn't happen with this one.
