
Since its debut on Sunday, April 2, 1989 (the first year of the Heisei era), with the episode “Can Politics Be Reformed?—The Shock of the Recruit Scandal,” *NHK Special* has aired for 26 years and produced over 2,600 episodes. Its predecessor, *NHK Special Feature*, produced 1,378 episodes over 13 years, so the program has already grown to nearly twice that scale. The program’s core philosophy—inherited from “NHK Specials”—is “experimentation,” “exclusive reporting,” and “emotional impact.” It aims to boldly explore unprecedented approaches and content to uncover the truth. Furthermore, when the program was rebranded as “NHK Special,” it adopted a spirit of challenge: to cover any topic without restriction, believing that no subject is off-limits for television. The vast number of proposals submitted from all NHK departments and production companies sustains the spirit of “N-Special.”
