one flew over seppuku's nest - a thread for SHOGUN on FX (2024)

there's been some discussion on the streaming video thread, but this excellent show more than deserves its own. i know a lot of it probably comes from the novel, but they've done a great job of creating a tangled web of intgrigue, while making motivations clear and plot machinations surprising. a lot of fun characters too: hiroyuki sanada is incredibly compelling, nestor carbonell is an excellent foul-mouthed bastard, and my favorite so far, tadonobu asano is a lot of fun as the clumsy schemer yabushige

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAN5uspO_hk

A+ title good job

is anyone else watching Shōgun on Hulu?
It is sooooo goddamn good

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, March 3, 2024 12:32 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

It looks fantastic (same showrunner as Counterpart!) but I'll wait for it to finish before starting

― Vinnie, Sunday, March 3, 2024 9:00 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Loved the first episode of Shogun VG xps

Cosmo Jarvis certainly channeling his inner Tom Hardy. And that death by boiling scene was one of the most harrowing things I've seen in a TV show

Going to watch episode 2 tonight

― groovypanda, Sunday, March 3, 2024 10:30 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

loving it!
i said to Mr Veg it’s like chess with swords

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, March 3, 2024 10:33 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Really enjoying Shogun so far, although sometimes in spite of Cosmo Jarvis’s acting.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, March 6, 2024 10:47 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Love Shogun, including Cosmo Jarvis's note-perfect Richard Burton impression. It's all so lush and intelligent and great.

― trishyb, Wednesday, March 6, 2024 10:50 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

episode 3 of Shōgun review:

in the book version of the scene where Toranaga invites Yabu to watch the sunrise with him, they end it by whipping out their dicks and pissing off the balcony together. it explicitly says they cross streams. i don't know why they cut that. 3.5 stars pic.twitter.com/C7JlfGwkpv

— lauren (@Very__Regular) March 6, 2024

― President Keyes, Wednesday, March 6, 2024 11:12 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Um, in Ghostbusters they explicitly say not to cross the streams

― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, March 6, 2024 11:59 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

shogun is really good. also extremely happy to hear nestor carbonell revive his batmanuel accent from the original 'the tick' live action series

― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili), Wednesday, March 6, 2024 12:19 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I loved the scene with the doctor in the latest episode.

They are doing a good job of subverting the White Savior trope.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, March 6, 2024 12:38 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh right - I'm up for this, for some reason I thought it was a cartoon. Probably the image on a torrent site made it look like a cartoon, duh.

all three episodes have been pretty great so far. i get the complaints about cosmo jarvis, but i'm ok with him. he is overacting a bit, but he plays really well off of sanada and carbonell and the other cast members, despite mostly not even speaking to them in the same language

omg this show rules so hard
i don’t remember much from the original mini series but i love that in this new version Blackthorne is already so out for himself & with an obvious ax to grind and not just the white savior

the head chopping is INTENSE
scared me every time

i haven’t watched ep3 yet

always happy to see nestor carbonell btw

"I don’t remember much from the original mini series"

all I remember is Richard Chamberlain aka Dr Kildare!

same lol

mifune was also in the original, which i haven't seen.

i remember the book being disappointing, 1100 pages of disappointing. was also a good chunk of Japanese history but with all the names changed, so not even educational

hiroyuki sanada is such a terrific actor, i love his performance as Toronaga

he holds so many emotions at once, entire worlds.

i mean they’re all pretty great but yeah, i love him.

agreed he's good.

realized that todanobu asano (yabushige) is basically doing a mifune impression. an entertaining one tho!

i just started this.. just me or is the photography much more film-like than what you usually get on streaming services these days? there’s a certain look that netflix shows have, high contrast, slick, inky blacks, and in this i feel like i can see the grain of the film. i kinda love it

what could have been

Oh my god https://t.co/tAyGCVfqnd pic.twitter.com/UERjTEaoGu

— 𝕯𝖎𝖑𝖉𝖔 𝕭𝖆𝖌𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖘 (@EmmaTolkin) March 12, 2024

havent watched yet but wanted to note the absolute excellence of this thread title

*bows*

lol tobunaga’s shitass son really fucked it up now great job no notes

Sorry to be a downer - I really wanted to like this show but it just annoys the fuck out of me. Cosmo Jarvis is trying so hard to be Tom Hardy but it's just not working, he just looks like a big dumb lunk in every scene.

and i don't agree that the show is doing all that well at subverting the white saviour trope - he is repeatedly rude and condescending to his hosts but gets promoted to a high rank instead of getting his head lopped off; he is allegedly a brutal, pillaging pirate who's been lost at sea for months but is portrayed as a man of honour who will say no to gifts, weapons and women (sure); and of course the badass main female character still can't wait to sleep with him even after she finds out about his past, and does so just because he took a bath lol

I like everything else about the show though and yeah that ending with toranaga's son was great, I think I just want a series about a Japanese shogunate without the obnoxious white guy they can't seem to kill off

fair enough

blackthorne/jarvis doesn’t bother me so much, he just seems like a shlub who’s only real talent is inflating his importance

"he just looks like a big dumb lunk in every scene"

lol, was thinking why is this gym instructor ruining every scene with some otherwise decent actors doing a good job. Terrible casting decision imo, they should have boiled him alive in the first ep.

"a succulent chinese meal!"

watched the fourth episode on monday, and cosmo jarvis is growing on me. he's toned it down along with his character as he grows more comfortable with japanese society

yabushige's nephew becoming a surprisingly shrewd political operator is an interesting development

Just caught up with most of the episodes over the past few days (still need to see the one from earlier this week). I kinda agree with all points above (typical) in that I'm both entertained and thinking 'Hmm.' Roz's points go to the heart of it because I can't get over the fact that Clavell -- a true head case whose Ayn Rand worshipping REALLY shows once you know it's there -- ultimately created a character like Blackthorne, who seems to function for Clavell as a Gary Stu first and foremost. Also read a story talking about how careful they were with their screenwriting/translating team to not make the Japanese characters speak/evince thoughts in modernisms but that memo doesn't seem to have entirely been delivered for Blackthorne per points above.

That said: there's definite nostalgia in my brain for the original miniseries, even if I was all of only nine years old when it ran, so it's been interesting doing various compare/contrasts -- I still remember being very surprised at the piss scene near the start! -- and the cast really is pretty killer overall (Sanada, Sawai, Asano, Hira, fucking murderers' row right there honestly, and Carbonell is doing great at a character played by John Rhys-Davies while not making me think of John Rhys-Davies). As for ol' Cosmo, I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking "Boy, that is REALLY a Richard Burton he's doing there," but he does that pretty well, at least vocally. Friend of mine who regularly visits Japan wasn't buying the British Columbia filming locations at all but I don't mind and generally the shifted focus where it's not just Richard Chamberlain/Toshiro Mifune/everyone else helps.

only watched epi 1 but hope the english dies soon

lol

I think I just want a series about a Japanese shogunate without the obnoxious white guy they can't seem to kill off

OTM I failed to notice it wasn't gonna be this until after halfway thru the first episode but by the end I was still just about impressed and intrigued enough that I'll carry on

cosmo moves like vincent d'onofrio as rhe cockroach-man alien in MIB

only watched epi 1 but hope the english dies soon

I have bad news for you.

my kids flagged in ep 2, very talky. i will keep with it tho. the photography continues to just floor me. have you guys noticed how often they use a kind of vignette effect? it all conspires to look like an old photograph yet somehow in crisp 4K.

Yeah I’ve caught that a couple of times, it’s subtle but striking

lol at the whole hung-pheasant sequence, i am so old i remember this er gamification taking place in the part of the country i grew up in (local farmers like to shoot things but would hand the results to neighbours to prepare and eat)

however it was placed in a zinc box pierced w/holes too small to let flies in

I think I just want a series about a Japanese shogunate without the obnoxious white guy they can't seem to kill off

There must be something like this on netflix or prime, right? Japan produces a ridiculous amount of historical drama shows.

As for this show I'm enjoying it - decent simulacrum of all my fave samurai films about bushido being a fig leaf for a corrupt system, will watch Sanada in anything - but I notice the attention to authenticity does not extend to having any of these anglo bums speak some Portuguese.

I guess you'd then have to hire different (and substantially less well-known) actors? And, speaking for some of the people I know who are watching this, I can imagine the mix of fluent Japanese and presumably less-than-perfect Portuguese would be a bridge too far for some viewers.

My complaint was mostly tongue in cheek. Thankfully I am broad minded enough that having to watch a show in English isn't a bridge too far for me yet. ;)

Speaking of killing off obnoxious white guys, wasn't there an adaptation of Silence where the priests were speaking Portuguese instead of English-speaking star wars actors?

My complaint was mostly tongue in cheek.

You young people with your humour.

I often forget when I'm watching it that the people who are speaking English are not meant to be speaking English at all, except when they are. At least they didn't do the Warrior/Hunt for Red October thing.

The controlled mood of the most recent episode was quite something.

i loved the perspective shift to Mariko and Ruri/Lady Ochiba

every week i am absolutely glued to the screen, it’s good!!

> wasn't there an adaptation of Silence where the priests were speaking Portuguese instead of English-speaking star wars actors?

there was an earlier version by Shinoda in the 70s,

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0067755/?ref_=fn_al_tt_18

man this show really knows how to end a goddamn episode

this week: fucking excellent again, zero notes plz continue

Yup, that was an episode of excellent tension building -- and indeed amazing final 'score' into the end credits.

Thought next week was the finale for some reason but stoked to discover it's actually a 10 episode season.

Toranaga at the end of every episode pic.twitter.com/aYU52JZQqd

— 𝕯𝖎𝖑𝖉𝖔 𝕭𝖆𝖌𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖘 (𝘚𝘩𝘰̄𝘨𝘶𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢) (@EmmaTolkin) April 8, 2024

lmao its v true

show really leaning into that thread title now

also idk if i have the fortitude to ride out Toranaga’s 12-D chess jesus christ

Yeah this is all getting insane, in the best way. I thought the tea ceremony scene was intense but then the council and THEN the aftermath scene, good god. I'm glad I don't remember much from the original miniseries about how it all ended because the ramping up!

tea ceremony was so beautiful omg

Also, hadn't realized that Hiroyuki Sanada and Tokuma Nishioka have been acting buds forever now! Great article about that and this episode, spoilers obv.

oh very cool, didn’t know they had that connection!

Gotta sin to get saved

yeah that was great

I've been holding off on the official podcast because those generally always seem like so much promo (and I'm sure that's the case with this too) but I'm interested enough to give them an ear after the series wraps up.

they are intetesting: a lot of interview w different actors, historian, set decorator, stunt coordinator .. a lot of variety. My only small quibble is it’s too short, given the richness of the show & level of detail all these folks bring to it, could do with longer conversations in some places

Hahaha...you know, I *thought* that subtitle font they're using felt familiar.

wow, surprises round every corner

Starting to get more interviews and features from everyone popping up

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/shogun-tadanobu-asano-kashigi-yabushige-interview-1235870734/

https://www.gq.com/story/shoguns-hatamoto-cosmo-jarvis

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/anna-sawai-shogun-little-gold-men-awards-insider

Okay yeah, he would do that. Per the Sawai interview:

Q. How did you find your scenes with Cosmo, bringing out this side of her that is really tartly funny and mysterious?

A. It was very organic because we shot it chronologically. The first time that she does meet (Blackthorne), I didn’t know Cosmo too well. I was still trying to figure him out. And as we shot, I would open up to him and he would to me. Cosmo is very different from me. I saw him as John Blackthorne most of the time. His voice was different. I only heard his real voice a couple of months ago for press.

Finally caught up. Such a stunning production. I have to rewatch some of the scenes since I’ve been missing bits of dialog while marveling at the beauty of the shots fabrics faces etc.

i know i keep saying this but omg this fucking show

i am going to need to lie down in a darkened room for a week to get over all of this emotional intensity & sadness

GREAT episode! (#9)

intense

What a shot to end on.

JFC the last scene

caught up with this series over the last week or so and i love it, it's a real treat to have a compelling story so lavishly depicted - the production design and the costumes are gorgeous

tadonobu asano, hiroyuki sanada and anna sawai are obv the mvps but i think cosmo jarvis is really good at playing someone who is constantly having to listen carefully and search people's faces for meaning, which is kind of a thankless onscreen task he pulls off v convincingly

i also enjoy his very blocky screen presence, he's shaped like a minecraft character

one thing i love about the way it looks is how the wide-angle shots often have a subtle fisheye curve to them, with straight lines bowing at the edges of the frame, and how the out-of-focus areas in some closeups have a similarly striking circular bokeh, very different from the way modern lenses usually look

i'd love to hear from the production team as to why they chose to shoot things that way - maybe the distortions and imperfections do help give it the kind of 'visual antique' feeling like tracer suggested upthread when he noted the heavy vignettes that sometimes show up at the edge of the frame

This article has background on some of the production and cinematography choices including use of anamorphic lenses

https://www.theringer.com/tv/2024/4/8/24124015/shogun-cinematography-tv-background-blur-anamorphic-lens-effect

On a merrier note, I have amazed/befuddled my podcast cohosts with the fact that this existed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dgun:_The_Musical

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ_GcrzB_Pg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oJaU0PO5bw

well i set a record for myself by crying through 90% of the finale

"No translator" 😩

absolutely gutted me

Spectacular, brilliant in its perfect underplaying. How deft was that opening flash-forward alone! (Though as my cohost Jared rightly observed, "I think it’s interesting that the scenes of an old Blackthorne seem to be fantasy rather than an actual flash forward." And how to address the 'it all ends with a big battle' cliche too. But the clifftop scene, well. And Fuji and her own arc getting attention -- that was a good way to tie it all back in to the start, an underscoring of all the cost.

Anyway, just bank all the Emmys and be done with it.

It was really beautiful the way Mariko still was so present throughout the finale, as though she’s just off-screen or something

And yeah re Blackthorne
my theory last night was confirmed by showrunner ie that the opening was a dream Blackthorne has of himself as an old deathbed colonialist with weapons of “savages” having not taught his offspring of the actual people or where they were from… and so all of his actions in the episode culminating with the confrontation w Torunaga was his attempt to “kill” the possibility of him living out that path, and to finally commit himself engage w Japanese in a more meaningful way instead. well, as meaningful as he can manage, anyway.

Mm. Having it end where you don't know 'the' ending for any of them is just...smart. The history is unwritten.

Such unexpectedly beautiful scenes between Blackthorn and Fuji. Awesome finale.

Pretty much at this point I want the Bluray with eight million bonus features, commentary throughout, the whole damn nine yards.

agree! I watched the little 5 min behind the scenes features on Hulu & wished they were all hours long, really just a fascinating production on and off-camera

Anyway, good read:

https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a60582279/shogun-finale-ending-explained/

yeah, this was brilliant - i kinda sighed at the opening reveal of old blackthorne, expecting it to undercut any tension over whether he'd survive whatever happened in the episode's inevitable big battle sequence but it expertly undercut me with a much subtler, sadder story

the final scene with torunaga and yabushige was fantastic - torunaga suddenly appearing much grander and more arrogant, seemingly without sanada playing him any differently, was a remarkable bit of acting sleight-of-hand

fuji and blackthorne sitting next to the empty space and then together in the boat was shattering, yeah

the brief flashforward scene where young blackthorne appeared to acknowledge the presence of old blackthorne kinda reminded me of that uncanny cut between young dave bowman and his ancient counterpart at the end of 2001, a v unsettling bit of editing

re men's health article, I was really expecting "Say Sayonara to Belly Fat! Producers of Shogun reveal 10 Supplements from Feudal Japan that will Get You More Cut than Ritual Disemboweling in time for Samurai Summer!" Teen Vogue-level dissonance.

goddamn what a final episode

so wait why was Toranaga taking heads in the village if he burned the ship?

also, real talk, that had to have been an unrealistic amount of seppuku?

xpost gives him a pretext to weed out known traitors

re men's health article, I was really expecting "Say Sayonara to Belly Fat! Producers of Shogun reveal 10 Supplements from Feudal Japan that will Get You More Cut than Ritual Disemboweling in time for Samurai Summer!" Teen Vogue-level dissonance.

A pound of seaweed a day keeps the goiters away.

I wish this show could have gotten a few more episodes; there were dramatic moments that would have been stronger if we'd gotten more time with those characters. I went back and forth on Cosmo Jarvis' acting too, liking and disliking his acting at various points. But between some phenomenal acting from Sanada, Sawai, and others, and such beautiful costumes, visuals, and music, this was certainly a success

i think Jarvis was good, he suited the character & based on the overall arc i think that he served the show really well

Andy Greenwald on The Watch podcast on Ringer had a hilarious Blackthorne impression on their weekly Shogun recaps that honestly i’m going to miss lol

I'm sure some of his overplaying was intentional on his or the directors' parts. it stands out sharply among the subtlety of most of the other roles. I think I'd still have preferred a different actor in the role though

I came around to like Jarvis as Blackthorne. I kinda think we went meant to dislike him for the first several episodes and Jarvis did a good job being an arrogant oaf. To VG’s point, he suited the character arc.

It was weird to see a little Requiem For A Dream callback pop up in the middle of this.

Meanwhile, I've been reading up on the historical figures the story is based on. Interesting detail in Aijin's wikipedia entry:

At this time, Adams also attempted to send letters to his family and friends in England through the Dutch, but Quaeckerneck and Santvoort did not deliver the letters in order to avoid making Adams's fate known to the English East India Company, which was becoming a trading rival to the Dutch.

Yeah I found this dope-looking book on Adams but it's out of print and copies are going for like $40

https://www.japansociety.org.uk/review?review=546

All of the Shoguns! https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/shogun-season-2-and-3-in-the-works-fx-hulu-1235901617/amp/

hmmmmmm

I feel like the wrong lesson has been learned here.

plenty of history left to draw from, hopefully they can distill a story out of it. Would love it if undermining Toranaga's mystique carried through from the last episode of s1.

Might work if they do a Fargo approach - different cast, another self-contained story, same era and themes. The Continued Adventures of Blackthorne would be pretty disappointing.

Yeah heard some people suggest just adapting Tai-pan or one of Clavell's other books, and make Shogun an anthology. But with Sanada already signed in, I'm pretty sure it will be a continuation of the story. Apparently the real life "Blackthorne" stayed in Japan many more years anyhow