| The Unfettered Shogun | |
|---|---|
 Firefighters' lanterns from the Megumi | |
| Also known as | Abarenbō Shōgun |
| Starring | Ken Matsudaira, Tadashi Yokouchi, Saburō Kitajima |
| Country of origin | Japan |
| No. of episodes | 831 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 45 Minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | TV Asahi |
| Release | January 7, 1978 – December 29, 2008 |
| Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) | |
The Unfettered Shogun[1] (暴れん坊将軍) (Abarenbō Shōgun) was a Japanese television program on the TV Asahi network.[2] Set in the eighteenth century, it showed fictitious events in the life of Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shōgun.
The program started in 1978 under the title Yoshimune Hyōbanki: Abarenbō Shōgun (Chronicle in Praise of Yoshimune: The Unfettered Shōgun) who went after rogue councilors and daimyō who were abusing their power. After a few seasons, they shortened the first two words and the show ran for two decades under the shorter title until the series ended in 2003; a two-hour special aired in 2004. The earliest scripts occasionally wove stories around historic events such as the establishment of firefighting companies of commoners in Edo, but eventually the series adopted a routine of strictly fiction.
Along with Zenigata Heiji and Mito Kōmon, it ranks among the longest-running series in the jidaigeki genre. Like many other jidaigeki, it falls in the category of kanzen-chōaku, loosely, "rewarding good and punishing evil".
- ^ "Library -- English Titles -- TOEI TV Website". 29 October 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-10-29. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
- ^ テレビ朝日｜暴れん坊将軍[permanent dead link] Rekishi Hakubutsukan (history of Abarenbō Shōgun at TV Asahi) Retrieved on December 7, 2008