Well, the penultimate episode has arrived, and I was watching the clock, wondering if they were going to do justice to the material they covered here. They did, although I do have a couple of complaints.
There is sooooo much in the book that they could have easily made this a 12 episode series, yet they keep 'creating' events that never happened or altering those that did, instead of taking the stuff that DID happen, covering it properly and giving it room to breathe. Nobody expects a scene-for-scene remake of the original miniseries, but at least don't mangle the source material! There is no need- Shogun is just about the perfect novel as it is.
There are a couple of 'core' concepts to the story that have been mistreated here. One is Blackthorne himself. He is based on the real-life William Adams, the first Englishman to reach Japan, and it happened very much the way Clavell wrote it in Shogun. Central to the story is the conversion of Blackthorne from a European man to a European man with a Japanese heart- a transformation catalyzed by his relationship with Mariko and her teachings. She teaches him how to be Japanese, and he teaches her what it means to love someone with a whole heart, in the western way. The Blackthorne we get in this version has not made that change in any way shape or form- now he's just a European man who speaks Japanese and, for some strange reason, walks really funny. Did the actor injure himself on set or something, or can he just not walk in tabi?
In this episode you see Mariko and Blackthorne act like they are so much in love, but nothing we've seen before now really shows us how they arrived at this point. If nothing else, she's treated him with a mild contempt for most of the show. They totally skipped over the trip to Yedo, which is where Blackthorne and Mariko created a world within a world for themselves for the duration of the journey, their love blossomed, and his outlook truly transformed into a Japanese one.
In this episode, Mariko asks Father Alvito to 'drink cha from an empty cup.' It's used almost as a throwaway line. In the original, Mariko had already gone to lengths to teach Blackthorne (and thereby the audience) what she means by this. It's a profound concept.
Another mishandled character is Yabushige. (Kasigi Yabu). His openly flip-flopping loyalties and actions are internally inconsistent with feudal Japanese culture. In the book and miniseries, he has the lineage and ambition to become Shogun himself, but he hides it all in his inner heart, and I'm curious to see how they properly resolve this character's fate after the shambles they've made of it here. Clavell understood Japanese culture and Bushido, I don't think the writers of this version really do.
Yabushige was the one to serve as Mariko's second for her seppuku when Kiyama failed to show, not Blackthorne. Her suicide was also to have taken place in full public view, in a garden, to achieve the desired effect of her mission. This was a bungled scene as written, although brilliantly acted.
The crap about Mariko being raised with Ochiba is all made up tripe, as is the meeting between Mariko and her son. In addition to never happening in Clavell's narrative, her son's words and actions in this episode are completely western and completely non-Japanese. It's not possible for the scion of a samurai family to reject the notion of loyalty to his liege lord, go against his family's wishes, or threaten to disown his mother. Obedience, duty, and sacrifice would have been ingrained into his personality from the day of his birth. The word samurai itself means 'to serve.' The things he voices, if he felt them, would be locked solidly behind the 8th fence in his inner heart, never to be spoken of. And if he felt the shame of his family, he would consider committing seppuku, not whining to his mother. And I just spent a whole paragraph complaining about something that never even happened in the book. All this screen time could have been better spent on the events actually surrounding Mariko. Blackthorne's rudeness to Lady Ochiba and Yaemon at the end of that meeting would have resulted in his immediate beheading by the guards- an unbearable insult. Just more proof that this version of Blackthorne is no closer to 'going native' than he was at the beginning, but again, something completely made up for this TV version.
All my own whining aside, this was a good episode. Liked the battle scenes as Mariko tried to lead the hostages out of Osaka. The ninja scenes were a little dark and hard to see, but the production values were excellent. I'm not sure how Yabu's betrayal is going to be exposed now, as those familiar with the original story know how he was outed in the end. Of course, in this version, Yabu pretends loyalty no nobody anyway, so it hardly matters.
Interested to see the wrap. Now they have to waste time on resolving things that didn't need resolving, like moving Blackthorne into Toranaga's 'camp' when he never actually left it. IRL, Toranaga would never trust him again, and probably just order his death as punishment for his disloyalty as hatamoto and retainer. But we'll see some sort of 'western-style' reconciliation, no doubt. All in all this has been an excellent production. I'm something of a purist and a perfectionist when it comes to TV and movie adaptations, so I know I'm easily frustrated. Despite those frustrations, I fully acknowledge the brilliance of this production and the excellence of the actors. In summary, I still love it and plan to buy it on physical media.
Onward to the finale! (And sorry for the mini-novel here...)
