More than 3 million people are likely to tune into the second installment of NHK drama "Jiro Shirasu" on Saturday night — and chances are, most will be waiting expectantly for the re-enactment of one particularly famous episode from the subject's life.

It's Christmas, 1945. World War II is not four months past. Cambridge-educated Shirasu is working as a liaison officer with the Occupation forces on behalf of the Japanese government. He takes a special delivery to U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur — a Christmas present from Emperor Hirohito. MacArthur waves a hand to a spot on the floor and tells him to put it down. Offended at MacArthur's cavalier attitude, Shirasu reproaches him, whereupon MacArthur backs down and has a table prepared.

Jiro Shirasu, who was born in 1902 and died in 1985, is well known for many things — his good looks, his 185-cm height, his love of Bentley sports cars and his fluent English — but it is his stubborn adherence to what he called his "principles" that is most fondly remembered. Those principles are what prompted him to defend the Emperor (posthumously known as Emperor Showa) in front of Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers MacArthur, and today they are what prompt many contemporary Japanese to wish that Shirasu, or others like him, were alive now.