In 1986, Nintendo and Fuji Television produced a 70-minute TV special based on The Mysterious Murasame Castle for the weekly one-shot drama series "Getsuyou Drama Land" (Monday Drama Land). The special, like many other episodes in the later years of Getsuyou Drama Land's run, featured members of the popular J-Pop girl group Onyanko Club as cast members, and starred Masaki Kyomoto as the game's protagonist Takamaru. The special aired once on December 8, 1986, almost eight months after the game's release, and never aired again. It was later released on DVD in 2005 as part of the box set "Onyanko Club in Getsuyou Drama Land DVD Box 2".

The special's existence and DVD release flew under the international radar until 2023, when a user named Ruka, after being prompted in a 4chan thread to verify claims that the special was lost media based on an uncited edit on the game's English Wikipedia article, discovered that copies of the box set were actually being offered on Yahoo! Auctions. Ruka subsequently placed a bid and won a copy from the auction, and YouTuber Haruko Please uploaded the special to YouTube the following week. With its rediscovery, it's thought to be one of the first live-action adaptations of a video game, and is also the earliest known product to come from Nintendo's collaborations with Fuji, which after this special's airing continued with Yume Koujou: Doki-doki Panic.

In the original game, the screen flashes black, red, and white when the thunder strikes the title screen. The Virtual Console release changes this to a single slower pink flash, as part of the Nintendo re-release tradition of lessening the chance of causing epileptic seizures.