Tracking down the "disappearing photograph" of Saigo Takamori

A documentary program tracing the whereabouts of a "disappeared photograph" of Saigo Takamori, a key figure in the Meiji Restoration, will be broadcast on NHK General TV from 10:45 p.m. on August 12th.

This was the first episode of the program, "Mystery Solving Document Tsuiseki." It is a nonstop "tracking documentary" that thoroughly pursues buried mysteries from all over the world, past and present, unearthing new evidence and testimony through original interviews, and finally getting to the truth.

The subtitle of the first episode is "The 'Disappeared' Photograph of Saigo." Everyone knows Saigo Takamori, the key figure in the Meiji Restoration, but in fact, not a single photograph of him has ever been found. The face familiar to us from textbooks and elsewhere is a portrait made up of half his younger brother and half his cousin. However, we receive information that "Saigo had his photograph taken" at a photo studio in the late Edo period, and we begin our investigation.

We interview the descendants of Saigo Don, who has recently been the subject of a series of discoveries. We also visit the "Hidden Saigo Village" in the former Shonai Domain in Yamagata. Surprising discoveries are made one after another, and unexpected developments occur... The story is narrated by Seiichi Tanabe.