Arakasi

Sure that’s valid but I thought they were setting Ochiba up as a manipulator and it’s obvious that Ishido is more controllable than Toranaga. She had power in the current situation and had to know if Toranaga won she’d have no power anymore.

That was amusing. Also not really directed at the show runners here or even Clavall but in this day and age there is something a bit distasteful about a woman using her life as a weapon in service of a man.

I don’t know I can see why John yearned for her. But in love no that requires a level of closeness and confidentiality that they never developed. And that is like you said by Mariko just being willing to be a weapon for Toranaga. She didn’t really care about anything else. I was also not sold on Ochibas turn from Toronaga is this hated enemy to oh yeah no I don’t mind him I’m going to abandon Ishida turn. I don’t know how a show can be both too fast and too slow but it managed it. Too much time spend on characters that didn’t matter (Nagakado, the courtesan, etc) and not enough on relationships that did matter.

Maybe James shouldn’t have pushed for trading for Westbrook. Or their GM for giving in to that or letting their good role players like Caruso or KCP walk. Plenty of blame to go around there but the James formula has always been surround them with 3 and D players. Problem is they seemed to have forgotten the D aspect with their current crew.

Come on. It’s not hard to see that when you start excluding people from participating in some parts of life that it becomes easier to spread that to other things more important than sports.

Hitting 23/43 3s will do that. Ofc if they keep doing that they’ll win the series but that’s fairly unlikely.

Yeah Mariko and John in the book were very much in love and because of it the ending hit hard. Here it lacked that oomph and it felt different. But then again not read it in fifteen years so memory is rusty.

Well each division of Disney is different. FX does things a bit different.

Or maybe the whole show was a dream and just an imagining of an old guy who lived and died in England and bought a cool sword from some trader coming back from Japan. Edit: It would explain why all the names and events were non historical. Edit2: what was that about the sword being chipped I don’t recall the scene that referenced.

There is a difference between being valued highly and promoted to some level of significance and being a trusted friend/buddy. The first makes much more sense to me than the latter and I like how the show was more explicit in Toronagas motivations here. John was valuable and was given a position of trust but it didn’t break the lord/vassal relationship.

Well I think that’s a good ending to the series and true to the books. Still felt they could have done Mariko and John better but the show ended on a high note.

Remember Hideyoshi was different because he came from peasantry. Nobunaga and Tokugawa came from families with long noble lineage. Hideyoshi could really never be Shogun since he lacked the birthright for it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a certain resentment of nobility in his later life once he gained control of Japan.

Well happy with no Nakamura and no Nepo. Also will be nice to have the title return to India again assuming Ding is still not in form. Will be an interesting subtext considering the rivalry between China and India.