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Hiroyuki Sanada has made an entire career by being 1 of 2 Japanese guys (the other being Ken Watanabe) that western audiences recognize, good for him. I've read the book and enjoyed it, so I think this will be a good watch. The political scheming stuff is a lot of fun and some of the action scenes were great, I'm looking forward to seeing how it translates to TV. That said, as a Japanese-American person and a history buff I expect to roll my eyes at some of the "Real Japanese Values" they'll probably showcase. So just like the book, more or less.
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Feb 26, 2024 22:20
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"The Last Samurai" is also in reference to the actual samurai (plural!) that feature in the movie, but it's also very easy to understand why everyone assumes they meant "Tom Cruise is the last samurai" Anyway watched the first two eps of this and it's great. There's some of the historically inaccurate stuff still, of course, but it works for the story/character development so it's a minor quibble for me. Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Feb 28, 2024 |
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Feb 28, 2024 23:08
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counterfeitsaint posted:Wait are those real? I thought they were just like a fake thing Bob's Burgers invented. Lone Wolf and Cub is real and it's a very famous manga/series of movies
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Mar 1, 2024 22:03
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Ishido and Toranaga are significantly stronger and more influential than the other three, but the advantage the smaller Christian daimyos have is that they are favored by the Portuguese and control trade with them. Ishido is working with them for now to try and remove his chief rival, but he knows if Toranaga is gone that the other three (maybe with the backing of Portugal) would probably try to gang up on him. The fact that they want this one specific barbarian dead is making him wonder what's so important about him to the Christians. Why is executing one random barbarian who showed up last week more important to them than their long-running plan to remove Toranaga? The other thing is that while Ishido does want Toranaga gone, he doesn't seem to actually want him gone right this second. He wants to remove Toranaga from a position of power but not actually destroy him until he (Ishido) has consolidated enough power that he could resist the other three ganging up on him.
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Mar 3, 2024 18:46
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Yeah. Ishido is from a low-born background, and Toranaga is descended from one of the most powerful clans in Japanese history. I think they call them the Minowara in the show/book IIRC, but that's a reference to the Minamoto clan of real life. The real life Minamoto were members of the imperial family who were excluded from the succession line and "demoted" to regular nobility, but obviously as blood relatives to the emperor they were still extremely powerful and influential. So that's the kind of family background Toranaga is from.
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Mar 4, 2024 16:13
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ShowTime posted:It sounded like his lineage had an actual Shogun in it previously, which is great for him, but makes him a target. Apart from the man himself, it seems like everyone is fearful or subservient to him and his lineage because of that mark from the past. When I first heard them talk about his Minowara background, I thought maybe it was a term for something, like warrior, but I guess it's just an ancestral name. Assuming the Minowara are analogous to the Minamoto (and I think it's safe to assume they are) the Minowara didn't just have "a shogun" but rather "every shogun for the last 400 years". The last Minowara shogun would have been less than 30 years from the time when the story is taking place.
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Mar 4, 2024 16:34
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Collateral posted:I hope the show will explain the recent history of Mariko's family and why she became a Christian, and why she wishes to join them. It's pretty critical to the plot and understanding her character/motivations, so it should come up Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Mar 4, 2024 |
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Mar 4, 2024 17:29
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Henchman of Santa posted:I like that Blackthorne is supposed to be like, conversational in Portuguese yet apparently knows the equivalent to terms like slatterns and trollops and buggery. He's actually supposed to be fluent in Portuguese, so it's not that odd that he knows how to cuss
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Mar 6, 2024 02:28
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Steve Yun posted:Great episode except one thing made me squint It was not at all uncommon for women of the samurai class (which she is) to be trained to use weapons just like men were. Especially a woman of her age, who is from a high-ranking samurai family and who lived through the Sengoku (Warring States) period. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna-musha
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Mar 6, 2024 03:26
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The only thing that sucks about this show is that there will only be this one season. They've been going at a good pace so far though. Not as much of the politicking and intrigue as the book but hitting the same beats overall. I started rereading "Taiko" because of the show, though. It's a good one to read if you want to get a feel for the time period directly before when the show is set.
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Mar 6, 2024 03:50
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:I mentioned up thread but in the initial announcement foe the series a few years ago they mentioned they bought the rights to all of Clavell's novels and subsequent seasons might be those books. The next season could be Taipan, which is all about the founding of Hong Kong and the Golden triangle. I've actually never read the other books Clavell wrote, but I've been thinking about checking them out.
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Mar 6, 2024 05:00
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Book spoilers re: Buntaro. It would be very odd if Buntaro died in the show. He has a relatively minor, but important, role in the book that helps develop some of the other main characters. The historical person he is based on was also an important figure, so it would be odd to kill him off and give his role to someone else - but this isn't meant to be 100% true to history so there's no reason they can't. In the book it is clear he's probably not going to escape and he prepares to kill himself, but Toranaga orders him to try and escape. The way they did it in the show makes it much more ambiguous, but I think that will make it more impactful in the visual format when we find out he's still alive, so it's probably a good change.
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Mar 6, 2024 22:47
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The cool thing about the book is initially you're super invested in Blackthorne, but as it goes on it's like "who cares about that guy, what's going on with Toranaga?" I hope the show follows the same pattern. The ending is super satisfying and if the show pulls it off even a little bit they'll win every Emmy
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Mar 9, 2024 03:53
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Yeah Blackthorne thinks about his wife and kids in, like, the second chapter of the book.
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Mar 9, 2024 22:20
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Book spoilers, but one thing we'll come to learn about Yabushige's nephew is he is much smarter and more clever than his uncle, who as noted, is fairly clever and capable himself.
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Mar 13, 2024 00:30
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Phenotype posted:So hey, all those samurai who shaved a big patch on the top of their head? Please tell me this was because of a decree from some historical shogun who was going bald and really hated seeing all the young samurai with their thick black hair. It's just a different hairstyle (it's called a chonmage) but the origin has a couple theories. One is that it helps your helmet stay on your head better, and young men tend to be doing more of the fighting than the old generals. The other is that aristocrats wore specific caps and it also fit better with the forelock shaved. But there's also an phenomenon around this time going on about appearances. You probably noticed that most of the older men sport beards and full heads of hair. In the preceding generation, this is the look most associated with the warrior class, but in the early 1600s (honestly a little after the time period the show is set) that same look comes to be associated with the barbarism and savagery of the age of warring states and you start to see younger men sporting less facial hair. Eventually being clean shaven is the look the comes to be associated with being classy and presentable, and it becomes an entrenched cultural norm. It's why most Japanese men are clean shaven still today. Personally I have to shave my beard every time before I go to Japan or my (older) relatives make comments about how I would look so much better without it. Younger people tend to not care as much. Edit: I realize this became more about beards than shaved heads, but there are some hair facts for ya. Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 01:52
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Pretty sure in the book they just killed them all with swords and arrows and stuff. But that was more stealthy and the cannons is a more overt way to signal to everyone (meaning the viewer) that the war is officially on. In the book Blackthorne is actually teaching them musket tactics too. Wasn't sure about the switch to cannons for TV but it worked out.
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Mar 13, 2024 03:03
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hailthefish posted:In the book blackthorne is helping train musket troops, some of which are under Omi's command, they do a big training demonstration for the messengers, firing blanks, then Omi has his troops load live ammo and gun down most of the messengers, a few wounded ones commit sudoku, and their leader, Nebara Jozen, gets disembowled and his hamstrings cut and left to die slowly You're right I'm thinking of the few messengers that Ishidos men sent that they track down later, which is a part of the plot that doesn't seem to exist in the TV version because of their need to simplify/condense things
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Mar 13, 2024 03:35
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The cannon version worked out great but I kind of preferred the whole "haha nice try" aspect in the book with the messenger pigeons and stuff as Ishido's guys slowly realizes they're hosed.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:06
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Yeah it's been a few days/weeks at most. Time starts to move a little faster at this point but the entire story takes place within 1600. Because that's when the battle of Sekigahara happens
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Mar 13, 2024 17:36
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Dessel posted:This admittedly had me in cold sweat when Mariko was talking about her past history and maybe a name drop is about to happen and I was like maybe it's a name I might have managed to remember from actual history this is going to be a cool moment except it's a fake name she's gonna drop and I need to google.... If you know Japanese history you will recognize the name. I believe it's one of the few that is not changed.
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Mar 13, 2024 23:03
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Chances are your dad or an uncle probably has a copy of it
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Mar 14, 2024 20:46
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nine-gear crow posted:When there was talk of this version being made a few years ago, I bought my mother a copy of the original miniseries on blu-ray as a birthday gift because she loved it so much. She's been re-watching it in tandem with the new series and she's told me a couple of times now that the new show blows both the 80s mini AND the novel out of the water it's that well done. I like the show better too so far even if I liked a few of the book versions of scenes better. The book lets you understand the characters a little better in a way that visual media can't, by actually explaining what's going on in their head, but that's not a fault of the show. If the show sticks the landing and the rest of it as as good as the first four episodes, it'll probably supplant the book for me.
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Mar 14, 2024 20:58
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Cojawfee posted:Book readers are desperate for everyone to know that they read the book. The way I see it, the book rules, and the show rules, and book readers (or most of them anyway) are excited to talk about which version of certain events they liked better. Some people are definitely weird about it though.
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Mar 15, 2024 01:44
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I said it before but if you like Shogun I always recommend you read Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa if you get the chance. It's a different tone but it's all about Hideyoshi, and it more or less leads directly into this time period. That's another one of my favorite works about this general time period.
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Mar 15, 2024 03:14
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Nobunaga has been dead for close to 20 years when the series starts, as mentioned already, the Taiko was Hideyoshi and the little kid they're all serving as the regent for is Hideyoshi's son.
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Mar 16, 2024 01:52
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I don't know if his name will come up in the show much but "Goroda" is how they refer to Nobunaga in the book. Because it's Oda with a few extra letters I guess.
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Mar 16, 2024 02:33
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Peanut Butler posted:the changed names thing is, a choice Well the show/book, while broadly accurate to history, is mostly made up stuff obviously. IIRC Clavell changed the names so he could have them do whatever he wanted them to do for the novel and not be accused of being a historical revisionist or whatever. There's more leeway to say "and then he was over here doing this" because theres no actual historical record that definitively proves that the real person wasn't.
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Mar 16, 2024 14:46
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socialsecurity posted:I feel like any society where everyone kills themselves over slight things like that would have population stability issues. Reminds me of Game of Thrones where they mention every Dothraki wedding has like 8 murders, at that rate your civilization would disappear after a generation or two. It's because it is silly. Did people kill themselves? Sure. Did people get killed for trivial reasons? Yeah, sometimes. They for sure had different ideas than contemporary westerners about honor/death and all that, but the book/show really play up the stereotype that samurai Japan was a bunch of goth kids obsessed with death. It's one of the few things that makes me roll my eyes a little about the show, but it's what's come to be expected about drama/period pieces for this era so we're stuck with it.
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Mar 19, 2024 17:04
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No Mods No Masters posted:Also in the book everyone ahistorically acts like it's wildly weird to eat birds in japan, so the servants are kinda just like "maybe he is a goblin who likes eating rotten things IDK" This is actually largely accurate. They were relatively lax about a lot of things to do with Buddhism, but meat wasn't commonly eaten by the Japanese until the 19th century. Rich people did occasionally have boar or deer from hunting, and sometimes beef or chicken too, but it was rare. I don't think they would have thought "nasty this guy is eating a BIRD?!" but it wasn't common for many people.
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Mar 19, 2024 20:05
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counterfeitsaint posted:Then what was the point of giving him a dead pheasant as a gift? The way I took it they were being nice to him. Realistically they'd eat it too, the weird part of the book/show is having people be revolted by the idea of eating birds - they wouldn't have been, but they knew he'd like it a lot more.
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Mar 19, 2024 20:30
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One other thing that was weird to me was the snow this episode. In the beginning of the show (and real life) Blackthorne/William Adams arrives in Japan in March or April 1600. It should be summer right now. Without spoiling the things to come, the entire story should be finished before winter in the same year. So what's with the snow.
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Mar 20, 2024 01:59
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:I thought the reveal of Mariko's family name was well done. Having read up on the period recently, I recognized the name from actual history so it landed well. It was a real Oh poo poo moment, and really did explain a lot of the subtext that we've seen in her relationships. Yeah I liked that too and I also like that she clings to the idea that her dad was actually a Good Dude even though he was a huge traitor who tried to seize power for himself and ended up hated by everyone.
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Mar 20, 2024 12:09
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Dr.Radical posted:Interesting in the context of the show where so many of the lords and their retainers are scheming but there’s still this idea of “geez can you believe that guy was a traitor??? What a piece of poo poo!” I guess it sounds dumb but there's acceptable scheming/political maneuvering, and then there's what the Akechi clan did, which was raising their army against their lord without warning and marching it into the imperial capital to assassinate him. Historically, even the Akechi army didn't know what they were doing (allegedly) until moments before the assassination was launched. Historically the Akechi army gets crushed by the loyal retainers/Nobunaga's sons, led by the future Taiko. In the show Mariko said her father was forced to kill his own family (which is more dramatic for sure) but historically most of them get killed in sieges or kill themselves when it's obvious they're going to lose to the loyalist forces. Mitsuhide flees after losing a major battle and gets killed by bandits in the woods less than a month after his attempted coup.
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Mar 20, 2024 13:43
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Pacing feels mostly fine to me. We just got up to chapter 40 or so of the book and there are 61 total. So a little more than halfway, 50% through the show. The back half of the book is a lot more dense in terms of plot and there are things in the epilogue that I suspect they'll show on screen instead of just being reduced to one sentence at the end of the novel.
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Mar 20, 2024 17:31
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Tankbuster posted:When Sekigahara? I dunno that you can "spoil" something that happened over 400 years ago but it might be a good idea to anyway
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Mar 20, 2024 22:12
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Getting extremely poo poo faced drunk is a big part of Japanese culture
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Mar 21, 2024 02:22
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I wish they'd portray Ishido a little more sympathetically - I guess there's still time to do so though. He's kind of just been played up as Toranaga's rival (this is how it is in the book too) but the thing that gets glossed over, the main reason he opposes Toranaga so strongly, is because Toranaga is a serious political threat and Ishido firmly backs the young heir of the Taiko. He's taking his role as regent more seriously than anyone else on the council.
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Mar 21, 2024 02:41
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No Mods No Masters posted:I don't think toranaga or ishido are portrayed that sympathetically, but that's probably appropriate, they are both absolutely sociopathic schemers. One just happens to see the use in blackthorne, and is generally better at playing the manipulator game I think your take is correct if you take a look at it from 10,000 feet, but for most viewers Toranaga is definitely being perceived as "the good guy"
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Mar 21, 2024 02:53
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No Mods No Masters posted:This is part of why I think it could be genuinely interesting to take the story beyond sekigahara. You could take a lot of the bullshit evasive sheen off of toranaga watching him come directly to the point and finally ruthlessly obliterating ochiba and the heir Yeah it'd loving rule and you'd get good stuff like Sanada Yukimura's "The Hero who appears once a century" defense of Osaka against the Tokugawa clan
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Mar 21, 2024 03:03
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