Kirin ga Kuru (麒麟がくる)
NHK Taiga drama focused on Akechi Mitsuhide, the general who betrayed Oda Nobunaga at the Honnoji Incident (1582). The drama covers Mitsuhide's career from the early Sengoku period through his service under Nobunaga, featuring Azuchi Castle (Nobunaga's grand castle), Gifu Castle, Kyoto's Nijo area, and ending with the Honnoji Incident. One of the most castle-rich NHK Taiga dramas in recent years.
Castles featured
Himeji Castle
姫路城 · Himeji-jo
📍 Hyogo — Kansai
The undisputed king of Japanese castles — the only one that has never been captured, never burned, and never rebuilt.
Nijo Castle
二条城 · Nijo-jo
📍 Kyoto — Kansai
The castle where the shogunate both began and ended — Nijo is a palace of power politics, famous for floors that sing and paintings that dazzle, not for towers or battles.
Gifu Castle
岐阜城 · Gifu-jo
📍 Gifu — Chubu
This is the mountain where Nobunaga declared he would rule Japan — and the view from 329 meters makes it easy to believe him.
Iga-Ueno Castle
伊賀上野城 · Iga-Ueno-jo
📍 Mie — Kansai
Japan's tallest stone walls, a ninja museum next door, and the ghost of a seven-story tower that a typhoon stole — Iga-Ueno is one of Japan's most undervisited castle surprises.
Azuchi Castle
安土城 · Azuchi-jo
📍 Shiga — Kansai
The most historically important castle in Japan — Nobunaga's revolutionary 1579 masterpiece that invented the Japanese castle as we know it, gone after three years, its foundations still visible under the trees.
Fukuchiyama Castle
福知山城 · Fukuchiyama-jo
📍 Kyoto — Kansai
Built by the man who killed Nobunaga — Akechi Mitsuhide's castle in Tamba, rehabilitated from villain to tragic hero by a 2020 TV drama.