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The Best TV Shows on NHK+

Every NHK+ Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Boasting a rich catalog, NHK+ features more than 20 shows, with broadcasting dates ranging from 1983 to 2023. Discover the best of NHK+ with our list of over 20 series, meticulously updated for December 2024. Oshin and Jun-chan's Cheering Song represent the pinnacle of NHK+’s programming, launching in 1983 and 1988.

  • Major
    Major (2004)8.6

    Honda Goro the son of a famous baseball player loves nothing more than baseball itself. His biggest dream is to show his father that he can become the best pitcher in the world despite all the hardships he had to endure he keeps on running towards his goal at full speed.

  • Toto Nee-chan
    Toto Nee-chan (2016)8.5

    In 1930 and as a young child, Tsuneko Kohashi lives at Enshu in Shizuoka Prefecture. She has a happy life with her parents and two younger sisters. Things change after her father dies from tuberculosis. Her father asked Tsuneko Kohashi to take care of the family in his place. Due to financial difficulties, her mother Kimiko decides to move the family to Tokyo where Tsuneko's grandmother lives.

  • Hiyokko
    Hiyokko (2017)8.2

    The 17-year-old Yatabe Mineko grew up in a family of seven in a mountain village in northeastern Ibaraki Prefecture. Her father Minoru has gone to Tokyo to work in order to earn extra money. However, her life completely changes when her father does not come back for the New Year. Mineko asks her family to let her go to Tokyo to find him and promises to send money home. In the autumn of 1964, she and two childhood friends Tokiko and Mitsuo are hired to start working at a small factory in Tokyo’s working class neighborhood. After work each day, Mineko searches for her father and gets disheartened at times. Mineko overcomes challenges and starts to lay down roots in Tokyo as she experiences many meetings and farewells amid the laughter and tears with regulars, people of the shopping street, friends, and colleagues. But will she be able to find her father?

  • Junjo Kirari
    Junjo Kirari (2006)8.0

    The 74th NHK Asadora Drama is Junjo Kirari, which means something along the lines of "pure-hearted Kirari." The story is set in Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture in the era around the Second World War. When the story opens in 1928, the heroine, Sakurako, is a very active seven-year-old girl. Indeed, even in the first episode she exhibits her confidence and enthusiasm. But above all else, Sakurako is interested in becoming a jazz pianist, and music features extensively in the plot.

  • Chiritotechin
    Chiritotechin (2007)8.0

    The 77th NHK Asadora is Chiritotechin. Location includes Fukui prefecture. This renzoku is about Wada Kiyomi (referred to as Kiyomi-B), a girl brought up in Fukui who moves to Osaka in search of her soul. In Osaka, Kiyomi-B becomes enchanted with rakugo, a Japanese traditional form of comic storytelling, and pursues a career in rakugo. In the summer of 1982, Kiyomi-B and her family move to Obama of Fukui, her father's hometown. Kiyomi-B's grandmother and uncle welcome the family, but Shotaro the grandfather does not allow Masanori to take over the Wakasa lacquer chopsticks making. One day, Kiyomi-B listens to rakugo at Shotaro's factory and becomes fond of it. Shotaro and Kiyomi-B become close through rakugo.

  • Asa ga Kita
    Asa ga Kita (2015)8.0

    Towards the end of the Edo era, in the town of Kyoto, there lived a wealthy merchant by the name of Imai Tadamasa. He was blessed with 3 children, Hatsu, Asa and Kyutaro. His eldest, Hatsu, was a traditional girl who loved to play the koto and sew. Whilst his second daughter, Asa, was an impish hoyden who loved sumo wrestling. Asa was engaged to be married to the second son of a distinguished family who ran a money changer business in Osaka, Shirooka Shinjiro. Although Asa was furious when she had first heard about the betrothal, when she met up with Shinjiro for the first time, his charisma greatly attracted her and she fell in love with him in no time.

  • Scarlet
    Scarlet (2019)7.5

    Born in 1937 in Osaka as the eldest daughter, Kawahara Kimiko moves to Shigaraki with her family at the age of 9. She works to support her family from a young age. Eventually, she jumps into the male world of pottery and becomes a pioneer of female ceramic arts. After marrying her husband who is also involved in ceramics and owning her own kiln, she raises her two children while struggling to create unique ware.

  • Welcome Home, Mone
    Welcome Home, Mone (2021)7.4

    Born in September of 1995, Momone Nagaura lived with her parents, grandfather, and sister in Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture. After failing her college entrance exams, she went to live in Tome City with an acquaintance of her grandfather's. Momone's life changes when she meets a popular weather forecaster from Tokyo, who teaches her how weather forecasts can predict the future. She decides to study to become a weather forecaster.

  • Hanako & Anne
    Hanako & Anne (2014)7.3

    A Japanese girl from a poor family named Hanako went on an adventure to study in a girl's Christian school in Tokyo. She found her passion in English and step by step made her dream come true.

  • Natsuzora
    Natsuzora (2019)7.0

    Okuhara Natsu was born in Tokyo in 1937. In 1945, she loses both parents to war and becomes an orphan, but her father’s comrade, Shibata Takeo, takes her in and moves to Tokachi in Hokkaido. In an unfamiliar land surrounded by unfamiliar people, Natsu feels lost at first, but surrounded by Tokachi’s vast nature and its strong, yet compassionate people, she grows up to be a strong girl. When Natsu enters elementary school, she meets Yamada Tenyo who draws lovely pictures of horses. Tenyo tells her that in America, animation in which pictures move is becoming popular, Natsu’s curiosity is piqued. Upon graduating high school, Natsu goes to Tokyo to look up her brother, and takes a jump into the world of animation.

  • Kyo Kara Maoh!
    Kyo Kara Maoh! (2004)6.6

    Shibuya Yuuri, an ordinary high school boy got flushed in a toilet and he saw himself in another world. He was then declared as the 27th maou or the demon king of the Demon world by Gunter von Christ and Konrad Weller . When Yuuri now travels back to his new home (the castle), he meet up with Konrad's brothers. Wolfram von Biefield became Yuuri's fiancee when Yuuri slapped him for defending his mother's name. As a result, as the aristocrats tradition to propose a marriage, is by slapping one's left or right cheek with the back of your hand. By the time that Wolfram throw the knive and Yuuri picked it up, it means a battle between them. in their fight, Yuuri dodged Wolfram's majutsu and it hitted the girl just beside His Majesty. Yuuri got angry and turned into Maou, and punished Wolfram using his water majutsu. Yuuri fainted and when he came to senses after 3 days of sleeping, he did not remember anything that happened including using his powers.

  • Rocky Rackat
    Rocky Rackat (1993)6.5

  • Oshin
    Oshin (1983)6.4

    Oshin is a Japanese serialized morning television drama, which aired on broadcaster NHK from April 4, 1983 to March 31, 1984. The series follows the life of Shin Tanokura during the Meiji period up to the early 1980s. Shin was called "Oshin", which is an archaic Japanese cognomen.

  • Ochoyan
    Ochoyan (2020)6.3

    In the end of Meiji era, Takei Chiyo was born in a poor family in Osaka, and was sent to a theatre tea room as a servant when she was 9 years old. There, she was attracted by the world of theatre comedy. She grows up to be an actor and marries to Amami Ippei , but the war broke out and she was forced to stay away from acting for a while. However, when she comes back again, her acting in a radio drama impresses many people and makes herself one of the leading actors in western Japan.

  • The Supernatural Sweet Shop
    The Supernatural Sweet Shop (2020)5.0

    Zenitendo is a mysterious candy store that only lucky people can reach. All the candy recommended by Beniko, the owner of the store, is perfectly suited to the buyer's troubles. However, it depends on whether the candy will be used or eaten correctly that it can bring happiness or misfortune.

  • Jun-chan's Cheering Song
    Jun-chan's Cheering Song (1988)N/A

    The year is 1947, August. Ono Junko's family is being evacuated to Wakayama and the father is going to war. A few years later, the father has returned from Manchuria but he also brought a boy that had been abandoned by his mother. The boy is Yuta and the family will adopt him.

  • Welcome Back For An Extracurricular Lesson, Sempai
    Welcome Back For An Extracurricular Lesson, Sempai (1998)N/A

  • Kaze no Haruka
    Kaze no Haruka (2005)N/A

    At the age of nine, Haruka moves from Osaka to Yufuin with her father Yosuke and her younger sister Asuka because Yosuke hopes to open a restaurant in the town. Her mother Yuko, however, chooses to stay in Osaka and the parents soon get a divorce. Yosuke starts running a restaurant but ends up closing it down soon after. Ten years later, Haruka supports her family by working part time while going to a junior college. Worrying about Haruka, Yuko invites her to come to Osaka and offers her a job. Although she has not forgiven her mother, Haruka decides to earn money in Osaka to help Yosuke reopen the restaurant. Through various experiences in Osaka, Haruka gradually understands her mother and grows as a tour planner with her talent for pleasing people.

  • Come Come Everybody
    Come Come Everybody (2021)N/A

    Come Come Everybody is a Japanese television drama series and the 105th NHK Asadora series, following Okaeri Mone.. It depicts the lives of three generations of women who have close links to the English lessons on radio which began in 1925.

  • Boogie Woogie
    Boogie Woogie (2023)N/A

    Sets in the 1910s, this is the story of Hanada Suzuko, a young girl who grew up in a family that owned a bathhouse in downtown Osaka. From a young age, Suzuko loved to sing and dance, and joined the Umemaru Girls Opera Company (USK) in Dotonbori. Suzuko continued to show her talent for singing and eventually became a star of the postwar era.