Shōgun Brings Lively Pacing and Cultural Accuracy to a Classic Story

For many Americans in 1980, the blockbuster miniseries Shōgun was their first real introduction to Japan. At the time, cultural exports that we see everywhere now—such as Japanese anime, music, and food—were much less common in the United States. The show, and the 1975 James Clavell novel on which it was based, offered a first glimpse into the culture and history of that nation. Running 11 hours broadcast over five nights, Shōgun was so popular that restaurants and movie theaters supposedly reported a reduction in business due to people staying home to watch.

The miniseries garnered NBC its highest weekly ratings in history and causing Clavell’s novel to become the best-selling paperback in the United States that year. But the series was received far more negatively in Japan—although the story was inspired by actual history, many viewers reportedly felt that the way that the Western producers fictionalized it seemed frivolous and trivial. Some of these details stem from the original novel. For example, although the author did a decent job describing many aspects of Japanese culture in the year 1600, he was not really familiar with the language. Some of his translations of English phrases into Japanese seemed like they were pulled from phrasebooks without context. When one character shouts “Don’t move—please!,” Clavell renders it as “Ugoku na. Dozo.” Which literally translates to “Don’t move! Please do!”

Now, almost 50 years after the book’s publication, FX has brought us a new version of Shōgun. This time around, the producers and stars of the show say that the production aims to be as culturally accurate as can be. This is evident in their dedication to recreating the world of 1600 Japan, with costumes, sets and backgrounds, and even the archaic Japanese spoken in the show: Japan itself is never referred to as Nihon or Nippon, as in modern Japanese, but as Hi no Moto. (Both are readings based on the same Japanese kanji characters, 日本. Hi no Moto is the native Japanese reading, and Nihon or Nippon are based off the Chinese pronunciation of the same kanji, which over time became the most common reading. The kanji 日本 translate to “sun,” and “source,” describing Japan as “Land of the Rising Sun.”

The first episode of Shōgun introduces us to John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), the English pilot of a Dutch ship blown ashore in Japan by a raging storm. He and his surviving crew are held in custody by the Japanese, and eventually Blackthorne finds himself drawn into the court intrigue surrounding Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), Lord of the Kanto—one of the council of five regents ruling Japan until the heir of the late Taikō, the warlord who united Japan into one country, comes of age. Blackthorne must also contend with the Portuguese, who have already established a foothold in Japan with trade and the Catholic religion. Can the Englishman prove his worth to Lord Toronaga before the Portuguese priests destroy him? The odds are against him, especially since the priests seem to be the only ones who can translate between Blackthorne and the Japanese, until Toronaga introduces him to Lady Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), a Japanese Christian noblewoman whose loyalties are unclear.

In the 1980 miniseries, the Japanese dialogue was not subtitled. This was to give the audience the feeling that they were learning Japanese and learning about Japan at the same time as Blackthorne, but it had the unfortunate side effect of making the plot about the intrigue surrounding who would rule Japan incomprehensible. The 2024 series chooses to use subtitles, which draws the audience into the plot much quicker. We learn quickly about the divisions among the council, and the factions working against each other. I think this is a good change, which not only allows more time for the story to unfold but is also closer to the source material.

Relatedly, the novel portrays Blackthorne as very much an alien in Japanese society through many scenes of the Japanese people reacting to the strange barbarian foreigner in their midst. By removing all translation of spoken Japanese, and by extension the audience’s ability to know what the Japanese characters are thinking and saying, the 1980 series abandoned this concept and made him the sole point-of-view character. The FX series looks returns the main point of view to the Japanese characters. Anna Sawai as Mariko is especially effective in her portrayal of the culture shock that the Japanese feel meeting Blackthorne, who is very different from the Portuguese that they know. Cosmo Jarvis, in return, gets a chance to show Blackthorne’s own culture shock as he is submerged into a way of living that he knows nothing about.

Additionally, the new series manages to avoid some of the clunkier bits of both the novel and the 1980 production while remaining true to Clavell’s story. One of these involves character naming: A noblewoman in the original had the unlikely name Usagi Fujiko—although Usagi as a given name works for Sailor Moon, it does not sound at all right for the family name of a samurai clan to be “bunny.” In the FX series, her name is changed to Usami Fuji, which is more in line with the setting. Also, at one point in the original novel, a samurai warrior throws himself to his death off a cliff to get the attention of his master, which is one of the culture shock moments for Blackthorne. This is changed to something else in the 2024 series but that has the same effect on him while being more realistic.

FX

Based on the first two episodes, FX is doing a good job presenting the story of Shōgun to a new audience. Since the showrunners can assume that many watchers have more knowledge of Japan than those watching in 1980, they can give the story more depth and realism without having to stop and explain everything.

Speaking of realism: The novel Shōgun was inspired by the story of William Adams, a real Englishman who arrived in Japan aboard a Dutch ship, became an advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu, and was granted the rank of samurai and hatamoto. Blackthorne and many of the other characters in Shōgun were directly inspired by real people, but their interpretations are highly fictionalized. You can learn more about the history in the free University of California book Learning from Shōgun.

Shōgun‘s first two episodes are out February 27 on Hulu and FX, with new episodes to be released weekly.