Shogun: More like Shogood (Spoilers 4 days post episode release, show spoilers only)

[Zorral]

Hmmm. I missed that all together.  But then, as commented, this series did not engage my emotions or curiosity beyond seeing what they did with this once-upon-a-time phenomenon of publishing, and then made-for-tv movie mini-series (1980).

Or else I was making dinner -- and/or jetlagged when that rolled by.

In any case this son plays absolutely no role in the series.

Edited April 24 by Zorral

[Ran]

15 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Hmmm. I missed that all together.  But then, as commented, this series did not engage my emotions or curiosity beyond seeing what they did with this once-upon-a-time phenomenon of publishing, and then made-for-tv movie mini-series (1980).

Or else I was making dinner -- and/or jetlagged when that rolled by.

In any case this son plays absolutely no role in the series.

Just to jog your memory.

[Corvinus85]

On Blackthorne's dream

Spoiler

I initially thought he did return to England and was recalling these pivotal moments in his life with death approaching. But him imagining that potential life and letting go of it when he makes the decision to attempt seppuku makes sense. 

He did leave behind a wife and children, but as he tells Mariko in one of the early episodes, he was always more attracted to the sea because of the freedom of the horizon. Which is interesting, because Toranaga is denying him this freedom, too.

This could be a nice little plot should Disney decide to make a sequel. One thing the show left open is the potential future conflict with the Portuguese because of their secret bases run by Ronin. As we know from history in just about 20 years the Tokugawa Shogunate closes off Japan from foreigners and all Christian missionaries are expelled. 

 

[Ran]

I read somewhere or other that Clavell wrote a later novel with a minor Japanese character whose last name was Anjin, had blue eyes, and when asked shared that the family lore was that they were descended from an Englishman who became a samurai.

[Relic]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

I read somewhere or other that Clavell wrote a later novel with a minor Japanese character whose last name was Anjin, had blue eyes, and when asked shared that the family lore was that they were descended from an Englishman who became a samurai.

And later went on a quest to vanquish 4 evil white men from the lands, while masquerading as a man? 

[JGP]

23 hours ago, Zorral said:

Of course the author knows.  She was making a different point -- that despite all of the praised, including by yrs truly, the centering of Japanese figures not European ones, this show is still centering a European fantasy Japan, particularly of that period.

How do you explain the peaches

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, Relic said:

And later went on a quest to vanquish 4 evil white men from the lands, while masquerading as a man? 

Hah. Didn't think of that. The novel in question, after searching, was Noble House, set in 1960s Hong Kong. I didn't realize that they made a miniseries of it, too, with Pierce Brosnan in the lead.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Hard to believe this show was made by Disney+

It would be like Michael Bay making Killers of the Flower Moon. 

Edited April 25 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Arakasi]

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

[Ser Not Appearing]

I've given myself a day to think about it and I think they (for me) stumbled a bit and didn't stick the landing.

Spoiler

The big reveal turned out to be two minute conversation and that's fundamentally disappointing. Nine to ten hours and his secret master plan resolved in a tell-don't-show victory? Again, just for me, that's a let-down.

The show was still really solid overall but I think the final episode continued a trend where the second half of the season wasn't as good as the first half. It felt like it languished a bit and focused on areas I didn't value, necessarily, and some of the character connections I know they wanted me to value (Mariko and Anjin) didn't come through. 

I don't know. Just kinda sad about it not culminating in a way I felt happy with.

Edited April 25 by Ser Not Appearing
Typos

[Arakasi]

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.

[Corvinus85]

9 hours ago, Arakasi said:

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.

Imo, the show did a good enough showing that John loved Mariko. OTOH it's less clear how much Mariko loved John, because she certainly didn't put their love ahead of duty or even her desire to die.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Where Anjin got his accent from:

https://youtu.be/PeihcfYft9w?si=ttY-mkuzU3HtqU8w

[Spockydog]

4 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Where Anjin got his accent from:

https://youtu.be/PeihcfYft9w?si=ttY-mkuzU3HtqU8w

"get your hands off my PENIS!"

[JGP]

6 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Where Anjin got his accent from:

https://youtu.be/PeihcfYft9w?si=ttY-mkuzU3HtqU8w

That's actually really damn close lol

[Zorral]

Shōgun Won the Attention War

https://www.vulture.com/article/shogun-subtitles-translation-memes-success.html

Quote

 

Subtitles: If we don’t read them, we cannot follow a show with dialogue in a language we don’t speak. If we do read them, we cannot also be looking at our phones. It’s absurd to point out such a superficial element of Shōgun, a series that drowns superficialities in a quicksand of layered meanings and reconsidered motives, but it’s an inescapable fact of the appeal and success of this show. In an era of series that thrive in the background, that do not require (or frankly, reward) excessive, careful attention, and that can coexist with multiple screens at once, Shōgun’s majority-Japanese dialogue makes the show phoneproof — or, at the very least, actively pushes against the impulse to glance elsewhere in the middle of an episode. When so much of the battle for viewership is about claiming attention, translation is Shōgun’s not-secret weapon. ....

.... But Shōgun’s attention-earning pleasure is not just because it’s largely in Japanese and most people have to put down their damn phones to follow it. Its thematic bedrock is about focusing carefully on precise interpretation and close reading. Some of its most beloved and arresting scenes are moments of translation between characters, as Blackthorne tries to decipher everything happening around him, his various Japanese translators declining to fully express his meaning to his interlocutors. The Shōgun memes are not about all the beheading or even Toranaga’s rise to power. They’re about the hilarious slippage between Blackthorne’s word choices and Mariko’s interpretation. The finale’s big closing gesture is not an enormous battle that sweeps across the landscape and secures Toranaga’s victory. Instead, it’s Toranaga and Yabushige talking through the potential future. What will it look like? What are everyone’s motives? Shōgun doesn’t need to actually reach that future point. Imagining it — describing it, explaining it, considering all the angles — is enough.

Like so many of its forebears in this space, Shōgun is a violent story about political intrigue in which women quietly influence and enact their own aims while ambitious men stand around outside chopping off heads. One analogy is Game of Thrones, which shares Shōgun’s sweeping scale and investment in supreme leadership. But it’s just as much in the mode of Deadwood, which is largely about people quietly talking to each other in rooms to suss out hidden motives and, whoops, sometimes someone has to die despite their outward profession of loyalty. Like Deadwood, too, so much of Shōgun’s storytelling is contingent on characters attempting to create action through language. The real prize in Shōgun’s world is land, but the currency is proclamations, oaths, information given and withheld, persuasion, and description. The power’s in the language and whether you’re paying close enough attention to wield it. Everything else is afterthought.

 

 

[Arakasi]

On 4/25/2024 at 6:07 AM, Corvinus85 said:

Imo, the show did a good enough showing that John loved Mariko. OTOH it's less clear how much Mariko loved John, because she certainly didn't put their love ahead of duty or even her desire to die.

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.

[JGP]

22 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

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.

Agree maybe enough wasn't shown, but [operating from show knowledge only of course] I'd presumed much of this about face had much to do with Mariko's defiant behavior in Osaka, with her death putting the point on it. 

 

22 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

Too much time spend on characters that didn’t matter (Nagakado, the courtesan, etc) and not enough on relationships that did matter.

Buuuuuuuut, on the other hand, spending some time on the courtesan's dream was necessary to really pop Toranaga's backhand to Father Martin and his Church in Edo >.<

Edited April 26 by JGP

[Arakasi]

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.

[Corvinus85]

57 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

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.

I think Ochiba realized Ishido is just a brute who would do anything to get his way. Mariko outmaneuvers him, and while publicly he acknowledges that she was free to leave, he sends Shinobi after her. Obviously no one would openly accuse him of this, but everyone with a brain knew it was him. So considering her own conversation with Mariko that eventually came to a head about protecting her son's life, Ochiba concluded that being allied with Ishido was not in the best interest of her son. Her care for her son outweighed any personal hatred of Toranaga. (of course, Toranaga could just as easily dispose of her and her son, but he is subtle not like Ishido)

Some of Ochiba's change in attitude towards Ishido is more subtle, like Mariko's poem about a leafless branch, which Yabushige, a man trained in poetry called stupid, while Ishigo, who has more humbler beginnings, praised it. I think there was a moment that Ochiba looked like she was internally laughing at Ishido.