“The year is 1600. For decades Portuguese Catholics have richly profited from trade in Japan. They have kept its whereabouts hidden from their sworn enemies – the European Protestants. In Osaka, the reigning Taiko has died, leaving behind an heir too young to rule. Five warrior lords are now trapped in a bitter struggle. All of them seek the title that would make their power absolute… Shogun.”
Based on James Clavell’s classic work of historical fiction, Shogun is a masterful miniseries that begs to be watched all the way through in one sitting. Shogun consists of ten concise episodes, each unfolding in a slow-burn plot concerning political intrigue and espionage, religious warfare, and a delicate network of diplomatic alliances and enemies. It also highlights the “clash of worlds” between Portuguese and English, Catholic and Protestant, Japanese and foreigner, as well as delineations between family members, clans, and loyalties to a particular feudal Lord. Shogun offers a richly woven narrative that allows us to see both the moral victories as well as the flaws of each character –this is more a tale of politics and culture than a simplistic narrative of heroes and villains.
In the early 17th century, a Dutch trading ship called the “Erasmus” crashlands off the coast of Japan. Its twelve surviving crewmen –mostly Protestant Englishmen—are starving and have been without water on the open ocean. They initially set out with five ships and a crew of over five hundred, but now all that survived is a single vessel (the elderly captain decided to take his own life). And this theme of suicide plays an important role throughout the series –what does it mean to have a “good death?” When is it right for someone to control his own fate? At any rate, Protestant England is at war with Catholic Spain and Portugal, the latter of whom have carved up Asia and claimed the resources, land, and people as their own. The Erasmus was loaded with heavy weaponry, such as canons and guns, and given a covert mission to raid and plunder any “Papists” they might find (as detailed in the ship’s “rutter” which describes a detailed list of all Catholic bases in Asia).
The pilot of the Erasmus is an Englishman named John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis). He steered the ship through Magellan’s Pass and through a dangerous tempest before arriving in Japan. Upon arrival, the twelve survivors aboard the Erasmus are imprisoned by Japanese “barbarians” and one is burnt alive in scalding water. The men have been taken captive by a local warlord named Lord Kashigi Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano), lord of Izu, who seems keen to quickly confiscate the Western weapons and ship. Meanwhile, John Blackthorne (who is called “Anjin” or “pilot”), manages to find himself in a privileged position among the Japanese through a mixture of his own luck and cunning (in time, he earns the respected moniker of “hatamoto”).
Unbeknownst to Blackthorne and the rest of the crew, they have stumbled upon a deeply fraught fragile political situation that currently threatens to unleash a new dark age across Japan. It has been a year since the ruling Taiko died and, in his shadow, a five-member council emerged of regents. The five regents are: Lord Kiyama (a man whose faith in Christ is guided only by his greed and ambition), Lord Sugiyama (descended from the richest Samurai family in Japan), Lord Ohno (a feared warrior whose affliction of leprosy led him into the arms of the church); and these three are all in the palm of Lord Ishido Kazunari (Takehiro Hira), the most powerful member of the council and keeper of the castle in Osaka. Lastly, Ishido’s chief rival is Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a wily secretive political strategist who descends from the historic Minowara clan who once ruled Japan during the days of the shogunate. At the moment, the three regents and Lord Ishido are eager to undo Toranaga’s power (he has arranged six marriages and has doubled his fief). He has been summoned to Osaka where he will likely be voted out and executed. Lord Toranaga’s death would make Lord Ishido the most powerful leader and likely opportunist who might one day become shogun.
However, the sudden arrival of the “barbarian” Englishman, John Blackthorne, introduces an element of chaos into this political tinderbox. Blackthorne’s presence exposes Lord Yabushige’s wavering commitments to Toranaga as he secretly confiscates the Anjin’s ship and all of its weapons, gold, and silver, before Lord Toranaga immediately takes them all back. Toranaga meets face-to-face with Blackthorne and decides to keep him around in order to irk the three Christian regents on the council and hopefully turn them against Ishido –Blackthorne’s presence serves as a sharp point of conflict between Protestants and Catholics, and he proves to be the savings grace for Toranaga. Blackthorne also reveals the locations of secret Portugese military outposts surrounding Japan, such as one in Macao. Thus, Blackthorne serves as a disruptive force to the burgeoning instability and power grab unfolding among the Japanese feudal lords, as well as the quiet exploitation the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries have been foisting upon the Japanese in exchange for their vast riches.
When the Englishmen first arrive in Japan they are confused by the society in which they have accidentally infiltrated –an orderly, hierarchical, fiercely timocratic community with the ever-present threat of the need to commit ritual seppuku for the sake of honor. Socially-based gender expectations are rigid, and, in true aristocratic fashion, life is a work of art. Everything from drinking tea, to “pillowing,” and even the spontaneous construction of poetry serves the greater purpose of preserving honor. Geographically, earthquakes are frequent in Japan –a fact that first terrifies the Englishmen, but offers a glimpse into why the Japanese view of life is merely a passing dream, a mere opportunity for a vision of beauty from a state of impermanence. In addition to earthquakes, there are also wildfires that threaten to burn through Japanese cities at any time. Blackthorne learns that their homes are built with an eye toward easily being uprooted and conveniently transported elsewhere.
Throughout the show, Blackthorne gradually learns to see the Japanese not as “savages,” but rather as a deeply ordered culture with a different view of life and death than is found in Christian England. For example, at one point a character asks to commit ritual seppuku and to end his bloodline through the act of killing his infant son, for the simple faux pas of speaking out of turn. At any rate, in time Blackthorne falls in love with his translator, Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), a Catholic convert with a sordid past and a tumultuous relationship with her husband –her boorish husband nearly dies midway through the show. She has been wanting to end her life for years in order to avoid dishonor, but has been prevented from doing so by Lord Toranaga. Her loyalties are often blurred between her commitment to traditional Japanese heritage, on the one hand, and her new Christian religious conversion, on the other. In the end, despite having converted to Christianity, Mariko makes the heroic decision to sacrifice herself for the sake of her true lord, Toranaga. The end of her life divides the council and significantly helps to bolster Toranaga’s prospects for regaining his political support against the Christian faction. As the show concludes, Yabushige is forced to commit seppuku for his traitorousness and Toranaga prepares for war with Ishido while Blackthorne salvages the sunken Erasmus with plans to build a new fleet. Shogun is an incredible period piece –an impressive, meticulously crafted series with a rich political tapestry woven throughout its episodes. Mercifully, this is not an agenda-driven show. It does not attempt to portray the Europeans as exclusively rapacious, vicious, imperialists; and neither does it fall prey to the current trend of portraying a native culture, such as the people of 17th century Japan, in predictable Rousseauian “noble savage” caricature-esque fashion. Instead, all characters in this show are portrayed as individuals filled with nuance and contradictions. And politics is shown to be a constancy across human life, whether in Japan or England, wherein political dilemmas are parallel ith one another, and the only true victors are the wily, deceptive, cunning survivalists like Lord Toranaga (I took note of the fact that Toranaga bears striking similarity to Odysseus in the Homeric epics). I will say, this show is far more crass and vulgar than I remember the original James Clavell novel being, however I would like to re-read the book again in the future to get a truer picture. At any rate, Shogun is an astounding series and it comes highly recommended from me.
Great Books Guy 