Kusa Moeru

Kusa Moeru (草燃える) is a 1979 Japanese television series. It is the 17th NHK taiga drama.

It is also the first Taiga drama to standardize the use of modern language in dialogue starting with this one onward. On the other hand, characters did not use first names to address others as it was considered disrespectful historically, instead used people's common names and court ranks as was custom for the time.

Story
Kusa Moeru deals with the rise and fall of the Kamakura shogunate at the start of the Kamakura period. Based on Michiko Nagai's novels "Hojo Masako", "Enkan" etc.

The story chronicles the lives of Minamoto no Yoritomo and Hōjō Masako. As the drama producers found it difficult to create a solo female protagonist, they made the drama with dual protagonists in mind. Minamoto no Yoritomo's story ends halfway with his death, then Masako takes over the leading role for the last half. However, even with this structure, the first half emphasizes on Masako's perspective of events, making her essentially the main character of the entire story.

Minamoto no Yoritomo's family

 * Kōji Ishizaka as Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shōgun of the Kamakura shogunate
 * Yōji Matsuda as young Yoritomo
 * Shima Iwashita as Hōjō Masako
 * Tomiyuki Kunihiro as Minamoto no Yoshitsune
 * Hiromi Go as Minamoto no Yoriie, the second shōgun
 * Shingo Tsurumi as young Yoriie
 * Saburō Shinoda as Minamoto no Sanetomo, the third shōgun
 * Taiki Matsuno as young Sanetomo
 * Kimiko Ikegami as Ōhime

Minamoto no Yoritomo's vassals

 * Shinjirō Ehara as Kajiwara Kagetoki
 * Tetsuya Takeda as Adachi Morinaga
 * Shōhei Hino as Adachi Kagemori
 * Kei Sato as Hiki Yoshikazu
 * Hiroshi Fujioka as Miura Yoshimura
 * Toshio Shiba as Miura Taneyoshi
 * Masaki Kyomoto as Komawakamaru (later known as Miura Mitsumura)
 * Shin Kishida as Ōe no Hiromoto
 * Kohji Moritsugu as Hatakeyama Shigetada
 * Goro Ibuki as Wada Yoshimori
 * Jouji Nakata as Nitta Tadatsune
 * Hōsei Komatsu as Kazusa-no-suke Hirotsune

Hōjō clan

 * Ryunosuke Kaneda as Hōjō Tokimasa
 * Naoko Otani as Maki no Kata
 * Ken Matsudaira as Hojo Yoshitoki
 * Jin Nakayama as Hōjō Munetoki
 * Junpei Morita as Hōjō Tokifusa
 * Hisayuki Nakajima as Hōjō Yasutoki
 * Toshinori Omi as young Yasutoki
 * Ryoko Sakaguchi as Nohagi, a.k.a. Hime no Mae, Yoshitoki's second wife
 * Keiko Matsuzaka as Akane (fictional person), Yoshitoki's first wife

Taira clan

 * Nobuo Kaneko as Taira no Kiyomori
 * Kaneko Iwasaki as Taira no Tokiko, Kiyomori's wife
 * Ken Nishida as Taira no Munemori
 * Etsuko Ikuta as Taira no Tokuko

Others

 * Tomomi Sato as Tokiwa Gozen
 * Sakae Takita as Ito Sukeyuki
 * Akira Kume as Ito Sukechika
 * Isao Hashizume as Ito Sukekiyo
 * Takeshi Kato as Ōba Kagechika
 * Kyōzō Nagatsuka as Yamaki Kanetaka
 * Keiko Matsuzaka as Kogiku
 * Yumi Takigawa as Otowa
 * Rokko Toura as Minamoto no Yukiie
 * Shigeo Ozawa as Ashikaga Yoshiuji, Hōjō Yasutoki's son-in-law
 * Rino Katase
 * Yasuyoshi Hara as Soga Tokimune
 * Toshio Kurosawa as Kokemaru
 * Akihiro Miwa
 * Akihiko Hirata as Ichijō Yoshiyasu
 * Junko Natsu as Kyo no Tsubone
 * Kōjirō Kusanagi as Chinnakei
 * Mitsuko Kusabue as Tango no Tsubone
 * Onoe Shoroku II as Go-Shirakawa
 * Onoe Tatsunosuke I as Emperor Go-Toba

TV schedule
Avg. Rating: 26.3% | Peak: 34.7%. All episodes still exist, however, 18 out of 51 episodes have distorted images and sound, as well as missing fragments.