TV’s New ‘Game of Thrones’ Is Set in 17th-Century Japan

It’s hardly a criticism to say the new series Shogun, currently airing on FX and streaming on Hulu in the United States and Disney+ elsewhere, may remind audiences of Game of Thrones. The HBO spectacle based on George R.R. Martin’s novels was one of the more transformative television events of our age, inspiring several close-but-no-scimitar imitators. Netflix has The Witcher, Amazon has the preposterously expensive The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and HBO has the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, all of which have their charms, but none have quite caught the wildfire-in-a-bottle of the original.

It is with great joy, however, that I can report an heir is finally here. The wannabes prove it wasn’t the wizards and winged beasts that ignited our collective passions: It was the palette of complex characters at cross purposes, the knotty alliances, and the inscrutable schemes that conquered our imaginations. Shogun, based on James Clavell’s bestselling 1975 doorstopper—which was previously adapted for television in 1980—is a fictionalized version of a power struggle in early 17th-century Japan, in which five regional lords vie for control after the death of a leader who maintained stability but whose son is too young to rule. Adding spice to the stew are Portuguese Jesuits (whose black ships are building a secret base in Macao) and the arrival of a crafty English pilot sailing under the Dutch flag with a secret mission to destabilize Portugal’s foothold in the region—but maybe to also make a buck or two. That’s the very shortened version, anyway, but hopefully enough to hook you.

Shogun is that rare television series that demands extra mental effort but truly rewards for the work. (Blessedly, FX has created a thorough study guide to help you keep all the characters straight.) Moreover, its roots in history and genuine customs lend it a great deal of gravitas. Truth, as we know, is often stranger than fiction.

But “strangeness” is a wobbly term these days, particularly for a Hollywood-based production about another nation’s history. As soon as the series was announced in August 2018, producers made it clear it would deviate from the earlier, NBC television event. The 1980 iteration of Shogun, which featured Richard Chamberlain, the legendary Toshiro Mifune, Welsh character actor John Rhys-Davies chomping it up as a strapping Spaniard, and narration from Orson Welles, was arguably the apogee of the big-budget miniseries trend that included Roots, Jesus of Nazareth, The Winds of War, and North and South and was a ratings juggernaut perfectly timed for a growing American interest in all things Japanese. And it was very much told from the perspective of its Western protagonist, deploying a classic white savior trope.

Richard Chamberlain as John Blackthorne acts opposite Nobuo Kaneko as Lord Ishido Kazunari, in a scene from the 1980 NBC series Shogun. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

That storyline—loosely based on the real life of William Adams, the first Englishman to navigate to Japan—is still core to Shogun, but the new series, developed by the husband-and-wife team of Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, takes what Clavell wrote and broadens it. The Adams character, John Blackthorne, played by Cosmo Jarvis, is now one of three equally important main characters, including Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai). Indeed, it is Sanada who gets top billing in the opening credits.

One indicator of the new telling is this: In the 1980 version, when characters spoke Japanese, it went untranslated. “The viewer will be in the same situation as Blackthorne and will learn what is going on just as he does,” a producer boasted of this creative choice at the time. In the current version, spoken Japanese has subtitles; it is text, not ornamentation. What’s more, while I didn’t use a stopwatch, I’d say about three-quarters of the show is in Japanese.

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While some of the producers are Japanese, the writers are not (though some are of Japanese heritage), so the dialogue was written in English, then rigidly translated into Japanese, then handed off to a Japanese playwright who spoke no English but had expertise in this time period, and then translated back for subtitles. Many of the scenes involve tense conferences in which language is translated on the spot, which is incredibly fertile soil for a brilliant performer like Sawai to say one thing with her voice but mean something else with her expression. (Not to make this too complicated, but within the story, no one is speaking English; however, some characters do speak Portuguese, which we at home hear as English—trust me, this makes sense when you watch it.)

This is just one reason why Shogun is not passive viewing. Those who watch television with one eye on Instagram are going to have problems with this one. (And they should—put down the damn phone!) Not only is there a cascade of characters with different shifting alignments, but one of the central themes is deception and delayed revelation. This is a story in which not really knowing what the hell anyone is thinking is central to its success. This is symbolized by the “eightfold fence,” a Japanese philosophy of isolation that has played into its political maneuvers over the years but in a rich drama like Shogun means that when a woman is professing her undying love to her husband, she may secretly wish nothing more than to be dead.

Anna Sawai (center) as Toda Mariko in Shogun. FX photo

The new series’ decision to broaden the perspective (and also beef up the women’s roles) may have been a red flag for some worried that it would sand down some of the material that, let’s face it, makes 17th-century Japanese culture look a little, well, intense. To put it bluntly: Could a series for our overly sensitive age show a character boiling a prisoner alive just so he can zone out to the sound of his anguished screams in a prurient haze? The answer is yes. And while that sadistic character isn’t exactly a good guy, you kind of end up liking him a little bit by the end.

Even more extreme (and also in the first episode) is when a character accepts that an underling, who spoke in his defense but did it in a way that defied protocol, must not only commit ritual suicide but also have his infant child killed so as to ensure his family line is obliterated. What’s more, the guy who approves of this is our hero, Sanada’s Toranaga.

Hiroto Kanai (foreground) as Kashigi Omi in Shogun. FX photo

Indeed, the frequent act of seppuku is just one of the Japanese customs that is baffling to Blackthorne’s Western eyes, and his character remains a stand-in for the audience in that regard. (Far more benign is the belief that it is disrespectful to step on moss—OK, note taken!) But an important change from Chamberlain’s Blackthorne is that Jarvis’s version is frequently a whiny, nasty jerk. Jarvis’s performance, which owes a bit to Tom Hardy at his most energetic, is a spitting, cursing blowhard with a short fuse who would probably have a much easier go of things at first if he would just chill out. (It is, at times, meant to be funny, and it is.) The Japanese call him “The Barbarian,” and given English attitudes at the time toward bathing compared with the much tidier Japanese, you can see why. One of the best compliments I can give Shogun is that, periodically, you will think, “Wait, why am I rooting for any of these people?!” but still feel a lot is at stake in the drama.

While there is a great deal of gore in the series (now I know what a computer-generated horse looks like when hit by a cannonball), there is an overwhelming amount of beauty. The kimono budget must have been through the roof on this thing. Even scenes that clearly include additional greenscreen are lit with care. This is key for a culture that, despite some shocking violence, places importance on order and grace. With 10 one-hour episodes, there is time to linger on how tea is properly served, how sake is poured, or how a geisha who takes pride in her trade can elevate it to artistry.

Tadanobu Asano as Kashigi Yabushige and Nestor Carbonell as Vasco Rodrigues in Shogun. FX photo

But none of that would matter if the storyline weren’t compelling, and I suppose Clavell would not have sold 21 million books if he wasn’t on to something. Shogun is probably his most famous, but I recall seeing his name on covers everywhere as a Gen X kid. My own mother dragged around the enormous Noble House, split into two volumes in hardcover, for what seemed like months. Most of his work fits into a larger “Asian Saga,” though he had enough clout in the early 1980s to direct a television special based on a dystopian short story (The Children’s Story) and get parodied on Late Night With David Letterman.

For all the exoticism and complicated history, however, it’s the inner hopes and desires of these characters that will linger. “Flowers are only flowers because they fall” might seem like a corny line out of context, but in the delicate world of Shogun, it is a moment of perfection and one of several in this extraordinary series.