The Unfettered Shogun

Set in the eighteenth century, it showed fictitious events in the life of Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun. The program started in 1978 under the title Yoshimune Hyobanki: Abarenbo Shogun. After a few seasons, they shortened the first two words and 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 so many other jidaigeki, it falls in the category of kanzen-chōaku, loosely, "rewarding good and punishing evil."