An actor from Nagasaki, Masaharu Fukuyama, plays the leading role of Sakamoto Ryoma in this historical drama, Ryoma, A Legend. The latest information on this drama is available here.
We will take you to the places related to Ryoma, as he dreamed to build a new Japan. The places center on the site of Ryoma’s Kameyama Shachu, Japan’s first commercial firm, and extend from Mount Kazagashira-yama to Maruyama.
The chronology shows how Ryoma and people close to him, such as Iwasaki Yataro, Katsu Kaishu, Glover, the Kozone family and others, lived and strived.
This is a story of a samurai who lived at the end of the Edo era in the 19th century. He dreamed of making a new Japan where all the people would be born free and equal. He strived to end the feudal system without bloodshed, learn from the West, but protect Japan. For having done all this and more, he is called a dreamer, a fighter, an idealist and a peace-maker. Just when he achieved his goal, he was assassinated. He did not see the Meiji Restoration.
A panoramic view of Nagasaki in 1864 : the Oura Beach Street seen from the Glover's Garden
(The Nagasaki University Library Collection http://oldphoto.lb.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/jp/)