NHK originally scheduled the Honnō-ji Incident for the 32nd episode to be aired on August 8th, but due to the popularity of Kōji Takahashi's portrayal as Oda Nobunaga, they received letters from audience viewers asking them to "please don't kill Nobunaga". In response, the producers delayed the episode for two months, airing it on October 17th as the drama's 42nd episode. Furthermore, Nobunaga continued to appear in flashback scenes.
The average viewership across all episodes came to 31.2%, with the peak reaching 39.7% on October 17th with the 42nd episode.[7]