Taiga drama

Taiga drama (大河ドラマ, Taiga dorama, "Big River Drama") is the name NHK gives to the annual, year-long historical fiction television series it broadcasts in Japan. Beginning in 1963 with the black-and-white Hana no Shōgai, starring kabuki actor Onoe Shōroku and Takarazuka star Awashima Chikage, the network has hired a producer, director, writer, music director, and actors for the series. The 45-minute show airs on the NHK General network every Sunday at 20:00, with rebroadcasts on Saturdays at 13:05. Satellite, HDTV digital satellite, and NHK World Premium broadcasts are also available.

Current series

Upcoming series

List of series

NHK Special Drama

Saka no Ue no Kumo was originally set for a 2006 broadcast as "21st Century Taiga Drama". However, the scriptwriter of the series committed suicide, causing a delay in production. The series was aired as "NHK Special Drama" in three parts, each part airing from late November to late December of each year.

Recent series

Taira no Kiyomori

Taira no Kiyomori (平 清盛, 1118 – March 20, 1181) was a military leader of the late Heian period of Japan. He established the first samurai-dominated administrative government in the history of Japan.

Career

After the death of his father Taira no Tadamori in 1153, Kiyomori assumed control of the Taira clan and ambitiously entered the political realm in which he had previously only held a minor post. In 1156, he and Minamoto no Yoshitomo, head of the Minamoto clan, suppressed the Hōgen Rebellion. This established the Taira and Minamoto as the top samurai clans in Kyoto. However, this caused the allies to become bitter rivals which culminated three years later during the Heiji Rebellion in 1159. Kiyomori, emerging victorious with Yoshitomo and his two eldest killed, was now the head of the single most powerful warrior family/clan in Kyoto. However, his clan's power and influence in the provinces at this time is a matter of debate. Kiyomori showed mercy and exiled a few of Yoshitomo's sons, including Yoritomo, Noriyori, and Yoshitsune – a benevolence that would turn out to be the Taira clan's downfall later on.

Taira clan

Taira clan (平氏, Hei-shi) was a major Japanese clan of samurai.

In reference to Japanese history, along with Minamoto, Taira was a hereditary clan name bestowed by the emperors of the Heian period to certain ex-members of the imperial family when they became subjects. The Taira clan is often referred to as Heishi (平氏, literally "Taira clan") or Heike (平家, literally "House of Taira"), using the character's Chinese reading hei.

Offshoots of the imperial dynasty, some grandsons of Emperor Kammu were first given the name Taira in 825 or later. Afterwards, descendants of Emperor Nimmyo, Emperor Montoku, and Emperor Koko were also given the surname. The specific hereditary lines from these emperors are referred to by the emperor's posthumous name followed by Heishi, i.e. Kammu Heishi.

The Taira were one of the four important clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian period (794–1185) – the others were the Fujiwara clan, the Tachibana clan and the Minamoto clan.

The Kammu Heishi line, founded in 889 by Taira no Takamochi (a great-grandson of the 50th Kammu tenno, reigned 781–806), proved to be the strongest and most dominant line during the late Heian period with Taira no Kiyomori eventually forming the first samurai-dominated government in the history of Japan. A great-grandson of Heishi Takamochi, Taira no Korihira, moved to Ise Province (now part of Mie Prefecture) and established a major daimyo dynasty.

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of narrative, typically fictional, represented in performance. The term comes from the Greek word δρᾶμα, drama, meaning action, which is derived from the verb δράω, draō, meaning to do or to act. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BC) by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama. A modern example is Long Day's Journey into Night (1956) by Eugene O’Neill.

The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene, the Muse of comedy represented by the laughing face, and the Muse of tragedy represented by the weeping face, respectively. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.

Taiga

Taiga (/ˈtaɪɡə/; Russian: тайга́; IPA: [tɐjˈɡa]; from Turkic) also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces and larches.

The taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States (northern Minnesota through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Upstate New York and northern New England), where it is known as the Northwoods. In Eurasia, it covers most of Sweden, Finland, much of Norway, some lowland/coastal areas of Iceland, much of Russia from Karelia in the west to the Pacific Ocean (including much of Siberia), and areas of northern Kazakhstan, northern Mongolia, and northern Japan (on the island of Hokkaidō). However, the main tree species, the length of the growing season and summer temperatures vary. For example, the taiga of North America mostly consists of spruces; Scandinavian and Finnish taiga consists of a mix of spruce, pines and birch; Russian taiga has spruces, pines and larches depending on the region, while the Eastern Siberian taiga is a vast larch forest.