‘What Will You Do, Ieyasu?’: NHK’s Annual Taiga Drama Is The Biggest Japanese Primetime TV Series You’ve Never Heard Of

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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: JapanNetwork: NHKProducer: NHKInternational 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.