After much delay, I finally got round to watching the first episode of RyomaDen. Over all I found it to be pretty good, and above the typical J-Drama fare. I'll certainly watch a few more episodes and see how it goes.
That said, I don't think it's perfect, for one thing, Ryoma as portrayed here is a bit too much of a perfect hero for my liking, and I actually found the Iwasaki Yataro character to be more interesting. The overly heroic and inspiration hero is a pretty common thing with J-Drama, unfortunately, but otherwise the acting was pretty good, with Teruyuki Kagawa as Iwasaki Yataro topping it for me, possibly because his character had the most personality. Otherwise it's still a bit too much on the melodramatic side for my liking. It could use a little more subtlety... But I guess the Japanese are into that. Whatever happened to the restraint we saw in Kurosawa or Ozu?
I'd advise anyone to give it a try though. Finding streaming is hard, but you can find raws floating around, and D-addicts has all the subs in .ass form.
The opening theme is also pretty nifty.
I'd say looking into the NHK made stuff might be a good avenue. Anime aired on NHK tends to have a good success rate. I suppose it makes sense given that NHK is like Japan's BBC.
Perhaps NHK is too stuffy to make waves with the often idol obsessed ranks of Drama lovers?