Turning Hakkenden into an NHK Taiga Drama, Eh...
On some corners of the internet, there are indeed voices saying, "Hakkenden should be made into an NHK Taiga drama." If it ever happened, I would be nothing but grateful. Still, I cannot help wondering whether it is actually possible. One factor that makes Hakkenden difficult to adapt for the screen is its sheer length. After all, the original work took twenty-eight years to complete. Considering that scale, perhaps only the running time of an NHK Taiga drama could keep up with it. (The 2024 film Hakkenden seems to have had reasonably decent reviews.) Of course, it could also be broadcast as something like one of TV Asahi's Super Sentai series. But would children today be interested in heroes who do not transform, let alone in something close to a period drama? (Lemon-chan from Kochikame likes period dramas, though.) In addition, while the story of Hakkenden is long, its content is fundamentally simple: good triumphs over evil. ...