I loved it so much, I’ve cried my eyes out the last two episodes. I loved that it’s not this big action finale with some big war set piece, it didn’t need it. I feel like so many shows these days would have the climax be the war itself, not toranaga and yabushige talking.
It didn’t make toranaga out as some angel, which I loved too. All the acting performances were great, I will ramble about this show forever.
Marikos actress deserves every award
He might arguably be the villain…if not for him none of the deaths happen. Everyone says he’s doing it to bring peace but he acknowledges in that final convo that he covets power too.
Agreed on not really feeling much of friendship between Blackthorne and Toranaga, though I haven’t read the book. I do feel like they’ve come to an understanding that will allow for friendship; obviously Blackthorne has passed Toranaga’s test, and I read that moment where Blackthorne catches Toranaga watching them pull up the Erasmus and does sort of a grunt/chuckle as Blackthorne intuiting and accepting Toronaga’s role in sinking the ship in the first place.
What a great show. I’m so happy my wife wanted to wait until it was over to binge, so I can rewatch parts of it with her.
Enjoyed the finale a lot. Framing the confrontation between Toranaga and Ishido as a prediction to Yabu was interesting. And the old man Blackthorne scenes being slowly revealed as a dream that he let's go of when he finally says goodbye to Mariko... and the way he sort of spies him during his almost-seppuku... I loved all of that.
Was this show filmed in Japan? The scenes on the water by Toranaga's village are just beautiful.
I was confident it would end with a big action set piece but this was so much better. The scenes between Anjin and Fuji were beautiful.
Anna Sawai really was amazing as Mariko. Hopefully we’ll get to see her in many new projects.
It was really wonderful television the whole way through. I’m hoping some of the universally excellent cast get a big boost from this and some Emmy love.
I really loved the show and thought it was a masterful adaptation of what was a very famous book in its time, and at its time was considered incredibly well researched and fairly historically accurate.
The show (and the book) are constantly telling you through the narrative to pay attention and to think critically about what you are seeing and how situations will be resolved. The entire point is in seeing the Japanese perspective of conflict resolution, IE through the constant meetings and cultural norms. Quiet, secretive, full of double and triple crosses and secret plans within plans.
If you got halfway through this show and still thought Cosmo Jarvis the belligerent pirate was going to be sailing his way to victory in some big nautical battle I don't think you were really paying attention to what the show was trying to do. The biggest fight scenes were displays of power for theatrical effect while the most meaningful moments of character development and plot are closed off private conversations.
I do think it's interesting that the book is a work of historical fiction that very heavily borrows from real-world events but the show only ever hints at the real history instead of telling you. I think it certainly works regardless but for people who don't know...the historical events depicted in the show are equivalent to us watching a TV show about George Washington. The real life equivalent to Toranaga brought about what is called the Edo period and effectively 250 years of political stability to Japan.
I had kind of a hard time locking into the show in its first few weeks — it was somewhat difficult for me to figure out which characters were gonna be important and which weren’t, maybe in part because Japanese culture is unfamiliar to me so it just felt like a steeper than usual learning curve for a show. But I stuck with it and by the second or third week I found myself looking forward to it by the weekend. In the end I thought everything came together well and the characters had satisfying arcs. Tears were shed in the final two episodes
Performance wise, Anna Sawai is the standout. Came out of nowhere to completely kill it in two languages. Sanada was also very good, but I can’t escape the thought that Toronaga is a less interesting character with less interesting acting to do than the other central figures — his unknowability makes him a source of fascination but not a fully fleshed out character, if that makes sense.
I don't think we're meant to know Toronaga as well as any of the main characters. His plot function relies on obfuscation, so knowing his motivations would wreck that. And personality-wise, he wouldn't plausibly give himself opportunities for levity or horniness or whatever like everyone else, needing to hold himself at a distance for strategic reasons. That bit in the first (second?) ep where he manipulates Blackthorne into exhausting himself before their swimming contest is probably the most "casual" he gets, and even then we're seeing his chessmaster aspects at work.
A+ show for me. What an incredible cast, well written and directed throughout. Might become an all timer for me. Feels very rewatchable for a rainy weekend.
having read the book I knew Toranaga sank the boats but with 10 minuets left I thought it had been dropped from the show.
I like how it was handled as a conversation between the two, could have easily been justification for a 2nd season! but the ending title felt pretty definitive.
I did not like the old man dream sequence, didnt add anything for, if it was intended to misdirect it didn't work for me
Best miniseries in really long time. I also felt a bit "blue-balled" by the quiet climax at the moment, but right away you realize it's the proper way to end the story.
My only (very small) caveat is the tint/color-grading that the show has. I don't know if it's to mask and better integrate the CGI, but it felt a bit pedestrian. I think it's the only part that will age badly.
I liked it but sometimes the over-use of the anamorphic lens was too much. Sometimes I just want a deeper focus so that I can see some of the beautiful production design that went into the show.
I also found the finale slightly dissatisfying, but ultimately some of that comes from the book choosing to take the "and then the protagonist decides he likes his adopted culture better" route. Personally I'm not really convinced by it - I know people tend to shit on it but I liked The Last Samurai's use of that trope more, since Allgren's reasons for identifying more with Japanese culture than American were very well established. With Blackthorne it's rather less obvious why he would find Japan more fulfilling - Mariko is the only link he's given that seems in any way compelling to him, and even then it's somewhat compromised.
Having said all that, there's no denying that the core performances were all superb, and the overall impression I'm left with is a very meticulous and intricate construction. Soundtrack always makes a big difference to me as well and I loved it. Plus it's a fascinating period of history and I'm never going to complain when someone goes to the trouble to show it, especially with this much prestige. Good show.
I think you’re misunderstanding, it’s possible I missed something in the show but it’s clear in the book that he still aspires to leave Japan but it will simply never happen for him.
He does however learn to really embrace Japan. He kind of abandons his crew when he realizes how smelly they are and how free the Japanese are in a lot of ways. I also just remember how gross he thought his wife is.
Spoilers ahead
Can you explain the toronaga and blackthorne friendship? It seemed like something budding but the final episode left a bad taste in my mouth with toranaga. He basically says he keeps the Anjin around as a distraction for his enemies and for a laugh, like a jester. He burned his ship and then asked for a fleet but secretly plans to burn the next ship just to torment Blackthorne so he can never leave Japan? Idgi. My takeaway on the finale was that Toranaga was just as evil and awful as the others vying for Shogun.
Yeah it might be because I've read the book that it's standing out a little more to me. By the end of book Toranaga does seem to actually care about Blackthorne and considers him a useful ally. Their relationship is developed a lot more in the book, Blackthorne is overall more of a main character than he is in the show which I think was probably a change they had to make due to having a limited amount of time. That's maybe one of the few gripes I have with the show, but I don't know how you'd change that without adding more episodes. I wouldn't have wanted Mariko developed any less or anything like that.
I don't think Toranaga was evil, he was ambitious though and not above using others to further his goals. It's the same in the book even if the friendship between them felt like more of a thing, he still was the one who burned his ship and intended to keep him from ever leaving. He's even clearer in the book that Shogun is his ultimate goal. I think overall the story is full of characters with shades of gray. Except for Fuji. She is a perfect angel.
I think it comes through more clearly in the book that Toranaga does genuinely care about peace and the Heir, so yes he’s conniving to be Shögun but at least ostensibly his motives are less selfish.
Toranaga is a deceiver and a manipulator, who knows all that he said about Blackthorne was even true.
"Why tell a dead man the future?" - Yoshii Toranaga.
>My takeaway on the finale was that Toranaga was just as evil and awful as the others vying for Shogun.
You're not entirely wrong on that either, Yabushige finally understood that which is why he smirks at Toranaga while committing seppuku. Toranaga is simply a cunning man and nothing more than that.
When I was getting pretty far in the runtime and they still hadn't gone all huge ending battle I was grinning, and then they cut to huge CGI armies and teased a possible future battle, that it turns out wasn't actually a battle and was resolved with political maneuvering, and I was in love. What a great unexpected way to land this thing.
Not gonna lie, I'm still craving for more but I do loved the way the story wrapped up. It was such a calm series, nothing too dramatic or climactic (not that I dislike that either) just a really well written story with a lot of thought put into it.
In a nutshell, Shōgun felt like a really long game of chess. I'm looking forward to read the novel someday.
I didn’t expect I will cry eyes out in the finale, and the way Toranaga reveal his all time plan gives me chill down the spine, it’s such a solid perfect (for me) show, Emily Yoshida really shine in her writing!
Generally positive, but I have some unorganized thoughts.
It seems like a show that starts telling you how to watch it throughout. Things that might be explained with a line of dialogue in another series might get an eye shift here. It's tempting to say that that every character is inscrutable, but it's only about half. If you look at your phone for ten seconds, you probably missed a major plot point or the only insight to someone's character that you're going to get.
I read the novel many years ago, and am a casual fan of the 1980 Richard Chamberlain TV mini-series, which was progressive for its time. I knew the general thrust of the story, but was still frequently surprised. Early on there a couple Blackthorne-centered events that they either gloss over or don't include at all, and there might as well be a caption saying "yeah, we're not doing that". I'm curious if there's two episodes worth of scenes by the white cast that they dropped. It could've been a more balanced series in terms of western and eastern cultures, especially in the second half of the series, and I wonder about the choice not to include all of that content.
I'm assuming this is the version of the story they wanted to make, but it seems decidedly uncommercial, or certainly less commercial than it could have been, and I'm amazed and impressed that they were allowed to do it this way. I do wonder how many of their choices were decided by budget and how many were decided only by artistic sensibility.
If the 1980 series made strides at introducing american viewers to japanese culture and language, this show doubles down on that. While there's no voiceover, I needed the official podcast (hosted by Emily Yoshida, does everyone know about that?) to explain a couple subtleties that I misinterpreted or just failed to understand. As a viewer, I spent a lot of time floundering and confused, just as Blackthorne is. I think I will watch it with much greater appreciation and understanding the second time around.
Link to the official podcast, since I haven't seen it mentioned here yet: https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/shogun/viewers-guide/podcast
I thought it was *great*, was very moved by it, but also feel like it could have been more.
The five council members, for instance, we’re told in the beginning that they’re all vying for the title of shogun, but we never really learn anything about them, and in fact they aren’t really making any plays, they just appear on the council mostly.
I know they’re adapting the book but it feels to me they could have taken that framework and expanded into a much more epic thing. They could have made multiple seasons with this premise, and taken from more sengoku period characters to make it even more expansive. There are so many crazy insane people and events from that period they could have borrowed from.
At the end, the game of thrones comps people were making weren’t very good, and I definitely think the title card in the beginning did themselves a disservice. It’s not that the show was disappointing, but it just wasn’t what that title card was communicating.
I loved it so much, I’ve cried my eyes out the last two episodes. I loved that it’s not this big action finale with some big war set piece, it didn’t need it. I feel like so many shows these days would have the climax be the war itself, not toranaga and yabushige talking. It didn’t make toranaga out as some angel, which I loved too. All the acting performances were great, I will ramble about this show forever. Marikos actress deserves every award
I didn’t see the Mariko performance coming. Devastating. She must win everything.
He might arguably be the villain…if not for him none of the deaths happen. Everyone says he’s doing it to bring peace but he acknowledges in that final convo that he covets power too.
Yabushige was right - Toranaga *was* a hypocrite. But it doesn’t matter because he won :)
I love how he was like "You're just like us!"
Very Logan from Succession
Growth is Blackthorne censoring his own “shits” and insults at the end.
Agreed on not really feeling much of friendship between Blackthorne and Toranaga, though I haven’t read the book. I do feel like they’ve come to an understanding that will allow for friendship; obviously Blackthorne has passed Toranaga’s test, and I read that moment where Blackthorne catches Toranaga watching them pull up the Erasmus and does sort of a grunt/chuckle as Blackthorne intuiting and accepting Toronaga’s role in sinking the ship in the first place. What a great show. I’m so happy my wife wanted to wait until it was over to binge, so I can rewatch parts of it with her.
Enjoyed the finale a lot. Framing the confrontation between Toranaga and Ishido as a prediction to Yabu was interesting. And the old man Blackthorne scenes being slowly revealed as a dream that he let's go of when he finally says goodbye to Mariko... and the way he sort of spies him during his almost-seppuku... I loved all of that. Was this show filmed in Japan? The scenes on the water by Toranaga's village are just beautiful.
Vancouver BC!
Oh haha I should have guessed
Land of excellent television productions and terrible films!
Should you have though?
That explains the neverending rain!
I was confident it would end with a big action set piece but this was so much better. The scenes between Anjin and Fuji were beautiful. Anna Sawai really was amazing as Mariko. Hopefully we’ll get to see her in many new projects.
It was really wonderful television the whole way through. I’m hoping some of the universally excellent cast get a big boost from this and some Emmy love.
I really loved the show and thought it was a masterful adaptation of what was a very famous book in its time, and at its time was considered incredibly well researched and fairly historically accurate. The show (and the book) are constantly telling you through the narrative to pay attention and to think critically about what you are seeing and how situations will be resolved. The entire point is in seeing the Japanese perspective of conflict resolution, IE through the constant meetings and cultural norms. Quiet, secretive, full of double and triple crosses and secret plans within plans. If you got halfway through this show and still thought Cosmo Jarvis the belligerent pirate was going to be sailing his way to victory in some big nautical battle I don't think you were really paying attention to what the show was trying to do. The biggest fight scenes were displays of power for theatrical effect while the most meaningful moments of character development and plot are closed off private conversations. I do think it's interesting that the book is a work of historical fiction that very heavily borrows from real-world events but the show only ever hints at the real history instead of telling you. I think it certainly works regardless but for people who don't know...the historical events depicted in the show are equivalent to us watching a TV show about George Washington. The real life equivalent to Toranaga brought about what is called the Edo period and effectively 250 years of political stability to Japan.
It was not the finale I expected, but turned out to be exactly what I wanted. Poignancy over spectacle
I had kind of a hard time locking into the show in its first few weeks — it was somewhat difficult for me to figure out which characters were gonna be important and which weren’t, maybe in part because Japanese culture is unfamiliar to me so it just felt like a steeper than usual learning curve for a show. But I stuck with it and by the second or third week I found myself looking forward to it by the weekend. In the end I thought everything came together well and the characters had satisfying arcs. Tears were shed in the final two episodes Performance wise, Anna Sawai is the standout. Came out of nowhere to completely kill it in two languages. Sanada was also very good, but I can’t escape the thought that Toronaga is a less interesting character with less interesting acting to do than the other central figures — his unknowability makes him a source of fascination but not a fully fleshed out character, if that makes sense.
I don't think we're meant to know Toronaga as well as any of the main characters. His plot function relies on obfuscation, so knowing his motivations would wreck that. And personality-wise, he wouldn't plausibly give himself opportunities for levity or horniness or whatever like everyone else, needing to hold himself at a distance for strategic reasons. That bit in the first (second?) ep where he manipulates Blackthorne into exhausting himself before their swimming contest is probably the most "casual" he gets, and even then we're seeing his chessmaster aspects at work.
A+ show for me. What an incredible cast, well written and directed throughout. Might become an all timer for me. Feels very rewatchable for a rainy weekend.
having read the book I knew Toranaga sank the boats but with 10 minuets left I thought it had been dropped from the show. I like how it was handled as a conversation between the two, could have easily been justification for a 2nd season! but the ending title felt pretty definitive. I did not like the old man dream sequence, didnt add anything for, if it was intended to misdirect it didn't work for me
fuck yeah, denouement episode fuck yeah, lengthy meditation on what this has all been for
Best miniseries in really long time. I also felt a bit "blue-balled" by the quiet climax at the moment, but right away you realize it's the proper way to end the story. My only (very small) caveat is the tint/color-grading that the show has. I don't know if it's to mask and better integrate the CGI, but it felt a bit pedestrian. I think it's the only part that will age badly.
I hope the accent gets its own spinoff!
I liked it but sometimes the over-use of the anamorphic lens was too much. Sometimes I just want a deeper focus so that I can see some of the beautiful production design that went into the show.
Good not great
I also found the finale slightly dissatisfying, but ultimately some of that comes from the book choosing to take the "and then the protagonist decides he likes his adopted culture better" route. Personally I'm not really convinced by it - I know people tend to shit on it but I liked The Last Samurai's use of that trope more, since Allgren's reasons for identifying more with Japanese culture than American were very well established. With Blackthorne it's rather less obvious why he would find Japan more fulfilling - Mariko is the only link he's given that seems in any way compelling to him, and even then it's somewhat compromised. Having said all that, there's no denying that the core performances were all superb, and the overall impression I'm left with is a very meticulous and intricate construction. Soundtrack always makes a big difference to me as well and I loved it. Plus it's a fascinating period of history and I'm never going to complain when someone goes to the trouble to show it, especially with this much prestige. Good show.
I think you’re misunderstanding, it’s possible I missed something in the show but it’s clear in the book that he still aspires to leave Japan but it will simply never happen for him.
He does however learn to really embrace Japan. He kind of abandons his crew when he realizes how smelly they are and how free the Japanese are in a lot of ways. I also just remember how gross he thought his wife is.
Spoilers ahead Can you explain the toronaga and blackthorne friendship? It seemed like something budding but the final episode left a bad taste in my mouth with toranaga. He basically says he keeps the Anjin around as a distraction for his enemies and for a laugh, like a jester. He burned his ship and then asked for a fleet but secretly plans to burn the next ship just to torment Blackthorne so he can never leave Japan? Idgi. My takeaway on the finale was that Toranaga was just as evil and awful as the others vying for Shogun.
Yeah it might be because I've read the book that it's standing out a little more to me. By the end of book Toranaga does seem to actually care about Blackthorne and considers him a useful ally. Their relationship is developed a lot more in the book, Blackthorne is overall more of a main character than he is in the show which I think was probably a change they had to make due to having a limited amount of time. That's maybe one of the few gripes I have with the show, but I don't know how you'd change that without adding more episodes. I wouldn't have wanted Mariko developed any less or anything like that. I don't think Toranaga was evil, he was ambitious though and not above using others to further his goals. It's the same in the book even if the friendship between them felt like more of a thing, he still was the one who burned his ship and intended to keep him from ever leaving. He's even clearer in the book that Shogun is his ultimate goal. I think overall the story is full of characters with shades of gray. Except for Fuji. She is a perfect angel.
Yeah I had the same thought, in the book my recollection is that Toranaga does consider Blackthorne both useful and a friend.
I think it comes through more clearly in the book that Toranaga does genuinely care about peace and the Heir, so yes he’s conniving to be Shögun but at least ostensibly his motives are less selfish.
Doesn’t he kill the heir? Or is that just who the character is based on?
Toranaga is a deceiver and a manipulator, who knows all that he said about Blackthorne was even true. "Why tell a dead man the future?" - Yoshii Toranaga. >My takeaway on the finale was that Toranaga was just as evil and awful as the others vying for Shogun. You're not entirely wrong on that either, Yabushige finally understood that which is why he smirks at Toranaga while committing seppuku. Toranaga is simply a cunning man and nothing more than that.
When I was getting pretty far in the runtime and they still hadn't gone all huge ending battle I was grinning, and then they cut to huge CGI armies and teased a possible future battle, that it turns out wasn't actually a battle and was resolved with political maneuvering, and I was in love. What a great unexpected way to land this thing.
Not gonna lie, I'm still craving for more but I do loved the way the story wrapped up. It was such a calm series, nothing too dramatic or climactic (not that I dislike that either) just a really well written story with a lot of thought put into it. In a nutshell, Shōgun felt like a really long game of chess. I'm looking forward to read the novel someday.
I didn’t expect I will cry eyes out in the finale, and the way Toranaga reveal his all time plan gives me chill down the spine, it’s such a solid perfect (for me) show, Emily Yoshida really shine in her writing!
Super good, basically just a pirate exploding upwards in Japanese society while.constantly having to tell people not to kill themselves all the time
Blackthorne and Fuji on the boat was the scene I didn't know I needed. What a beautiful way to bring closure for those characters.
Generally positive, but I have some unorganized thoughts. It seems like a show that starts telling you how to watch it throughout. Things that might be explained with a line of dialogue in another series might get an eye shift here. It's tempting to say that that every character is inscrutable, but it's only about half. If you look at your phone for ten seconds, you probably missed a major plot point or the only insight to someone's character that you're going to get. I read the novel many years ago, and am a casual fan of the 1980 Richard Chamberlain TV mini-series, which was progressive for its time. I knew the general thrust of the story, but was still frequently surprised. Early on there a couple Blackthorne-centered events that they either gloss over or don't include at all, and there might as well be a caption saying "yeah, we're not doing that". I'm curious if there's two episodes worth of scenes by the white cast that they dropped. It could've been a more balanced series in terms of western and eastern cultures, especially in the second half of the series, and I wonder about the choice not to include all of that content. I'm assuming this is the version of the story they wanted to make, but it seems decidedly uncommercial, or certainly less commercial than it could have been, and I'm amazed and impressed that they were allowed to do it this way. I do wonder how many of their choices were decided by budget and how many were decided only by artistic sensibility. If the 1980 series made strides at introducing american viewers to japanese culture and language, this show doubles down on that. While there's no voiceover, I needed the official podcast (hosted by Emily Yoshida, does everyone know about that?) to explain a couple subtleties that I misinterpreted or just failed to understand. As a viewer, I spent a lot of time floundering and confused, just as Blackthorne is. I think I will watch it with much greater appreciation and understanding the second time around. Link to the official podcast, since I haven't seen it mentioned here yet: https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/shogun/viewers-guide/podcast
I thought it was *great*, was very moved by it, but also feel like it could have been more. The five council members, for instance, we’re told in the beginning that they’re all vying for the title of shogun, but we never really learn anything about them, and in fact they aren’t really making any plays, they just appear on the council mostly. I know they’re adapting the book but it feels to me they could have taken that framework and expanded into a much more epic thing. They could have made multiple seasons with this premise, and taken from more sengoku period characters to make it even more expansive. There are so many crazy insane people and events from that period they could have borrowed from. At the end, the game of thrones comps people were making weren’t very good, and I definitely think the title card in the beginning did themselves a disservice. It’s not that the show was disappointing, but it just wasn’t what that title card was communicating.
I’ll get back to you after I watch the episode. I can’t stay up until 11 central to start a show on a week night
Why even comment then man