is a novel by

Renzaburō Shibata was a Japanese author and Sinologist. He graduated from Keio University and won the Naoki Prize in 1951 for ''Iesu no Ei'' (lit. ''Descendant of Jesus''). He is famous for ''Nemuri Kyōshirō'', a series of ''jidaigeki'' novels. He also publish ...

. The protagonist of this ''

jidaigeki is a genre of film, television, and theatre in Japan. Literally meaning "historical drama, period dramas", it refers to stories that take place before the Meiji Restoration of 1868. ''Jidaigeki'' show the lives of the samurai, farmers, crafts ...

'' is Matsudaira Zankurō, a low-ranking

gokenin A was initially a vassal of the shogunate of the Kamakura and the Muromachi periods.Iwanami Kōjien, "Gokenin" In exchange for protection and the right to become '' jitō'' (manor's lord), a ''gokenin'' had in times of peace the duty to protect ...

in the service of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

. He lives with his mother Masajo in the shogunal capital of

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

. Other characters include his fiancée Matsudaira Sumi, old friend Nishio Denzaburō, and favorite geisha Otsuta. From 1995 to 2002 ''Gokenin Zankurō'' was also a prime-time television series on the

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

network in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Ken Watanabe is a Japanese actor. He is best known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in '' Letters from Iwo Jima'' and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in ''The Last Samurai'', for which he was nominated for the Academy Awa ...

played the lead, with

Kyōko Kishida was a Japanese actress and voice actress. Biography Kishida was born in Tokyo in 1930 as the second daughter of playwright Kunio Kishida. Her older sister was the children's author and poet Eriko Kishida and she was cousins with actor Shin Ki ...

as his mother and

Mayumi Wakamura Mayumi Wakamura (若村麻由美 ''Wakamura Mayumi'', born on January 3, 1967, in Nerima, Tokyo) is a Japanese actress. She decided to be an actress at age sixteen when she saw a stage production by Tatsuya Nakadai's troupe. Later she joined his ...

as the geisha (Tsutakichi in the series). Watanabe directed the final episode.

References

External links

*
Fuji Television site
Jidaigeki television series Fuji Television dramas 1995 Japanese television series debuts 2002 Japanese television series endings Television shows based on Japanese novels Japanese novels Year of work missing {{Japan-tv-prog-stub