The Unfettered Shogun | |
---|---|
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 | –
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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".