Singer and actor Masaharu Fukuyama hit the nail on the head when he said that Sakamoto Ryoma is the kind of person onto whom anyone can project themselves.
In the 142 years since the legendary samurai was assassinated in the middle of the Meiji Restoration, which he helped bring about, Ryoma has inspired at least seven television drama series, six novels, seven manga and five films — and those are just the works of semi-fiction.
What all this creative output has achieved is to gradually unshackle the man from his historical reality. Like Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Jesse James, the 47 Ronin and many others before him, a broadbrush version of Ryoma's tale now exists in the popular consciousness, and anyone is free to add in the details as suits their purpose.