What Will You Do, Ieyasu?: NHK's Taiga Drama Is Huge In Japan

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track… So, we’re going to do the hard work for you.

We enter 2024 by heading to Japan, where we have spotlighted the annual taiga drama, NHK‘s all-year-round historical series that has been a mainstay on Japanese screens for more than six decades. What Will You Do, Ieyasu? has just wrapped and the next is preparing to air. While the taiga drama has a distinctly Japanese feel, there is no reason why it cannot travel way beyond the nation’s shores and expose the world to this traditional but unknown format.

Name: What Will You Do, Ieyasu?
Country: Japan
Network: NHK
Producer: NHK
International sales: NHK Enterprises

The annual taiga drama may just be the most popular Japanese primetime show that TV addicts around the world have never heard of.

Now running for 64 years, taiga dramas air all-year-round on public broadcaster NHK, each one peeking behind the curtain of an era of Japanese history and retelling with gusto. They have changed a fair bit in recent years, as viewing habits have radically altered and modern revisionism has touched historical stories, but the format remains virtually untouched.

The 2023 edition, What Will You Do, Ieyasu?, was a four-year-long labor of love for experienced producer Tomoaki Iso and the show represented one of the most expensive and ambitious since the inception of the taiga drama, says Iso, as he speaks with Deadline via email towards the conclusion of the show.

“Taiga dramas are unique to Japanese TV and I know of nothing similar elsewhere,” says Iso. “Because of the excellence of the screenwriter, cast and staff, the drama and production get a lot of attention but on the other hand, because of the attention, we are required to try new challenges such as incorporating new technologies and being creative all the time.”

What Will You Do, Ieyasu? told the story of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, who brought an end to 150 years of civil war known as the Sengoku Period and ushered in 260 years of peace and prosperity in Japan. Ieyasu is polarizing in Japan, and has been portrayed as a hero at times and scheming politician at others, says Iso.

In writer Ryota Kosawa’s hands, Ieyasu was “depicted as a very human life-size character, drawing on the results of the latest research and historical facts,” according to Iso. Running throughout the year, the series went into minute detail about Ieyasu’s various power struggles, family life and relationship with those around him.

Such is the scale of the taiga dramas that Iso boarded Ieyasu, his second, four years before it premiered. He set about building a team led by writer Kosawa, researchers and advisers, who “collectively came up with an approach and plan, before ushering this through NHK’s internal reviews process.” When the plan was greenlit, producers and writers worked together on plotline and sought directors and actors before hiring production managers and assistance producers prior to the cameras rolling.

Retooling for the younger generation

This was the second time Ieyasu had been the focus of a taiga drama and Iso wanted to retool his story for a younger generation. He was conscious that “recent perspectives should be incorporated while still taking into account that traditional interpretation.”

“We had to carefully balance historical fact with fiction and the entertaining elements,” says Iso. “Ridley Scott faced some of the same challenges in his film Napoleon. Viewers’ interest in Japanese history has been waning in recent years, so we devised ways to make the drama more entertaining by increasing the pacing and incorporating more love story elements to attract their interest.”

VFX, virtual production and other snazzy bits of tech were incorporated to set Ieyasu apart from prior taiga dramas, which have tended to rely on elaborate sets and large-scale location scenes. “We had to acquiesce to the demand of the times,” says Iso. “Therefore, creating this new production system and keeping costs in check was extremely challenging.”

In a further bid to speak to younger audiences, the series was led by Jun Matsumoto, a member of popular Japanese boy band Arashi, who was joined by the likes of Hiroshi Abe, Junichi Okada and Keiko Kitagawa.

Iso and his team also wanted to present female characters in a way that did more than simply see them play second fiddle to the male leads, acting as a precursor to the 2024 taiga drama, which will tell the story of Murasaki Shikibu, the woman who wrote what is generally considered the world’s first novel, The Tales of Genji.

“Casting talent from a wide range of genres and generations meant we were able to capture a wider demographic and the audience had a chance to see entertainers in a different light,” says Iso.

This showed up in the ratings, with NHK streamer NHK Plus seeing an uplift that made up for linear declines while the series caught a wider, younger demographic, according to the broadcaster. Ieyasu, meanwhile, regularly went gangbusters in Ampere Analysis’ monthly Japanese Popularity Score rankings, which identifies popular local shows that have a high score in very few regions to isolate territory-specific hits.

Taiga dramas are shopped globally by NHK and are bought annually by a number of East Asian territories, while they can be watched on NHK’s overseas network NHK World Premium.

While foreign viewers are “interested in Japanese culture in the form of samurai and ninja,” Iso acknowledges that there are challenges in distributing a show so unique to local culture.

“The historical Japanese political structure is complicated where, for instance, both the shogun and the emperor share power,” he explains. “I often hear that this is somewhat difficult for foreign viewers to comprehend. We could make it simpler and more entertaining, but if we did, the Japanese audience would complain. Maintaining that delicate balance is very difficult.”

Japanese TV “polarization”

Beyond taiga, Iso highlights a “polarization” in Japanese TV drama that is seeing low-budget projects and high-budget specialized fare getting made but the in-between falling away, which he compares with the situation in Europe.

There was “turmoil” when Netflix first launched in the nation, he says, but things have settled down and the likes of NHK are now focused on building out their streaming offerings and ordering shows that work in the modern landscape.

“Speaking as a producer, it only means that the means of transmission has changed,” adds Iso. “Initially, we thought the demand for foreign drama would increase but that was not the case.”

But whatever the situation, one constant remains in the world of Japanese TV: The taiga drama, and NHK is already gearing up for the launch of the 64th. In the ever-changing world of streaming content and cannibalized viewing habits, having a guaranteed TV series playing week-on-week retelling a part of one’s national history feels welcome.