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AFewBricksShy posted:Yabushige's Crow (?) feather armor looks cool as poo poo. FX has a nice featurette about the costume designs, including that outfit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7k65stCQJE The show is doing a fantastic job buffing out all the "This was obviously written by British/American/Australian dude from the mid-20th century who was wrestling with some WWII trauma and thought Ayn Rand was just dandy, but was also trying to be respectful in his own middle-aged horny teenager way" stuff, and balancing Toranaga's story and Blackthorne's story. Which makes me wonder about the final act of the whole story: I'm betting we get to actually see the Battle of Sekigahara instead of a "Then a battle happened" two-paragraph coda. In fact, I would be pleased to bits if the final episode is maybe a half hour wrapping up Blackthorne's story, with him working on a new ship, and then a full half hour of the battle focused on Toranaga and Ishido in the thick of it. Also, shame on the book publisher. They have pulled the one-volume version off of Amazon's Kindle site (though I bought it years ago and it still is working fine on my Kindle) and are now selling it as a two-parter, for about $9 per volume. And, if one of the one-star reviews are to be believed, they have Special Editioned it, so to speak, such as removing the early bathing scene. Can't confirm though. Which makes me wonder, especially considering Clavell's daughter is a producer, if they could just wholesale update the book to eliminate anachronisms and such -- while still making the original version available. Call it the FX adaptation version or whatever. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Mar 11, 2024 |
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Mar 11, 2024 18:08
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No Mods No Masters posted:I have mixed feelings because the ending of the book is really great, maybe even the best part, but yeah it will need changes of some kind to work in a visual medium. The exact balance they strike, well it will be interesting to see. Much as I personally would enjoy toranaga's wild 30 minute sociopath soliloquy about just how completely and totally he's manipulated everyone Yeah. I like the ending a lot as well. (Shogun book spoilers) It was kinda clear that Clavell was trying not to add another 200 pages to the brick of a book, but also focusing on Toranaga's inner thoughts and how Blackthorne will just have to be content tinkering on his ship designs until the day he dies, and that is the destiny Toranaga makes. And then the two-paragraph bit about how Toranaga succeeded. Something about how blunt and sudden that last page hits is really great. I just fear doing a similar thing in TV would feel like a cheat. Also, it's one of the few books in Clavell's Asian Saga that doesn't try to wrap everything up with a disaster conveniently sweeping away half of the unresolved plots. Whirlwind, for all its faults, has a great final act driven by the characters hatching a plan and then trying to make that plan work. (Minus the grenade bit.) It's the middle 400 pages or so that drag it down.
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Mar 12, 2024 02:31
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Jehde posted:I kind of hate this show. I mean, there's already a thousand slow-hang Ghibli-adjacent Japanese TV shows and movies. Actually, now that I think about it, if you haven't already, look up The Twilight Samurai (also starring Hiroyuki Sanada), The Hidden Blade, and Love and Honor films from 20 years ago by director Yoji Yamada. High-quality, but less plot-within-plot-within-scheme samurai movies.
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Mar 12, 2024 13:04
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Panzeh posted:The 1980 miniseries is an adaptation that leans more toward the action-adventure elements of the story rather than Japanese politics, and is much more strictly the Tale of John Blackthorne. If one's looking for a stranger-in-old-Japan story, then it's pretty much Shogun or Last Samurai. I don't think anybody's itching to make the story of Basil Hall Chamberlain or Lafcadio Hearn. Is there a Yasuke movie? Anyway, Episode 4. I'm impressed at how they managed to lift directly from the book but still not let it step into blatant Orientalism. Mariko's explanation of the eight-fold fence is, in the book, just her introducing Blackthorne to the inscrutable ways of Japan (at least as I remember it), but in the show, there's a definite hint of, "Hey, you're not the only one going through some poo poo right now, so maybe chill." As confirmed in the outdoor pool scene later. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Mar 12, 2024 |
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Mar 12, 2024 13:35
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Oh man, I just realized that we're probably not going to get village life delights such as the rotting pheasant/dead gardener and the threat to wipe out the village if Blackthorne doesn't learn Japanese in six months that are in the book.
Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Mar 12, 2024 |
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Mar 12, 2024 15:19
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The way she barked out the "Anjin-sama!" was her knowing what happens when hot-headed husbands do stupid things. She's not going through that again.
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Mar 12, 2024 16:49
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Shut it down, boys. Apparently Blackthorne's pistols are late-1600s flintlocks instead of late-1500s doglocks. Will Western media ever get Western culture right? Sigh.
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Mar 12, 2024 17:55
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Yeah, I'm not going to miss it if they don't have it. But for some reason it's one of the biggest memories I have from the whole book. Meanwhile, I don't even remember the stuff that happened in the final scene of this episode. I just looked it up in my copy and even though it's different, it's still a similar story beat and involves the same characters and goes on for pages and pages.
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Mar 12, 2024 18:03
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Arglebargle III posted:Sun Tzu actually said you should stand in your enemy's artillery training ground, it's a very good idea. Isn't waiting for your enemy to make a mistake an actual part of the Art of War? It's one of those books I own but have never read (including the edition edited by Clavell.) I may be looking too much into the scene, but the grounds already looked pretty muddy and cratered at that spot; as if some target practice had been done beforehand. Eh, then people would have heard it. Nevermind.
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Mar 13, 2024 03:00
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Yup. They even had a baby-sized urn ready to go. The only reason Fuji didn't have to as well was because her grandpa is a mensch and pleaded with Toranaga using the "She's the only member of my family that's not a fuckup" argument.
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Mar 13, 2024 03:31
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Meanwhile, during all of this, and most of feudal Japanese history, the Imperial family is just chilling in Kyoto, writing poetry or whatever.Collateral posted:It's puzzling I can't tell if this was accidental or clever. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 04:18
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Dingleberry2 posted:I think up until this point it's just been foot soldiers that have been killed in the line of duty, so no biggie. Diplomacy and politics were still on the table. Now that Ishido's right hand man is a sloppy Joe, there's no more feigning polite ignorance in order to avoid outright war. Yeah, everything before this were the equivalent of border skirmishes or localized gunfights -- stuff that could be contained if needed. What Toranaga's son did can't be undone. Though, I do appreciate the zoom-in at the end. "Are we in some sort of ... Shogun total war?" Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 04:30
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Saganlives posted:I'm not too happy about the subtle focus vignetting they do in some scenes, but the rest more than makes up for it. I forget the technicalities of it, but I really like that when the rack-focus changes, the whole frame warps a little bit. Real old-school lens feel to it.
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Mar 13, 2024 05:17
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edit; on second thought, I am sure the show will tell us in an episode or two.
Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 08:03
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:I love that he's consistently presented as sharp, but not always extremely quick, often wrongfooted conversationally but he tends to pick himself back up. I like how Jarvis' acting shows the gears churning in Blackthorne's head and then clicking into place. In Ep. 1 when he realizes the Portuguese have kept knowledge of other European powers from Japan. In Ep. 3 when he realizes the Black Ship is their only chance of running the blockade, and when he catches himself from rejecting the offer to train a regiment. And in Ep. 4 when he realizes that anything he has to say about land battle tactics would amount to jack squat anyway, so time to come clean. Edit, and my favorite line delivery: "No one's going to stop him?" "No one's going to stop him!" Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 11:02
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I just reread the ep. 4 final scene as it happens in the book. (Edit; Spoilering it, just to be safe.) It could have easily been a five-minute gore-fest. Yabu and Omi and Naga are doing a phalanx musket mock battle for Jozen and his retinue, using 2,500 (!) soldiers. Meanwhile, Jozen is scoffing at how un-samurai it all is, but admits it's effective. Yabu boasts that it's mostly his doing, with some seed ideas from Blackthorne. So Jozen suggests: Why not kill Blackthorne, sounds like you got all you need from him? So there's kinda a nice incentive for the reader to be cool with Jozen getting killed. But Yabu dismisses that. Bayonets are drawn, and Jozen makes comments about swords. And then Naga finally announces it is time to avenge all of Ishido's insults. His men form up in musket rows. One of Jozen's men makes a lunge for Naga, gets his head blown off. Yabu is all, What are you doing!? while Jozen's all, Haha, Ishido knows all about this musket secret already! I sent a pigeon and a messenger last night. A Naga lieutenant presents the strangled body of the pigeon and the severed head of the messenger, which rolls to a stop when it hits a rock. Naga's men laugh at this. Another Jozen man makes an attempt, and he too gets shot 20 times. Omi offers to intervene but Yabu turns it down; he sees the writing on the wall. ("It had been so easy to maneuver Naga," Omi thinks.) Yabu decides to leave Naga to it, and orders Blackthorne and Omi to stay as witnesses. Jozen shouts, Yabu-samaaaaaa!" and the scene cuts to Blackthorne hours later in a daze at what he witnessed -- They have no sense of sin, he thinks of everybody, including Mariko, as he watches them go about their night during a gale (symbolism!). A few pages later, after some comic relief about Blackthorne's botched Japanese, we learn that Jozen "had been allowed to crawl away, then gutted slowly while he screamed, his blood dribbling with the phlegm, then left to die." The dogs eventually get to him. Also, all his lieutenants do the seppuku. Heads lopped, guts spilled. Yeah, cannon paste and a swift beheading was the way to go I think. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 15:48
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Megazver posted:
I 2x-speed watched one video of some right-wing chud argle-bargling about this article and now YouTube is recommending me every right-wing chud argle-bargle about it. It's really helpful in compiling a list of blocked channels.
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Mar 14, 2024 04:54
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Cojawfee posted:I didn't tell you my family name. It's Mariko Hitler. I'm sure the show will get to it in either ep. 5 or 6, but I like to equate her name as Mariko Brutus, maybe a decade or two after the death of Julius Caesar.
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Mar 14, 2024 06:05
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Gotta say, Blackthorne has excellent chopsticks skills. He's only been there a few weeks and is snarfing that natto like a pro.
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Mar 14, 2024 08:24
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Fortunately the thumbnails aren't subtle, and all it takes is a click on the three dots and "Don't recommend channel". edit; haha, just after I posted this I got another one. This channel appears to use a cartoon fox/cat avatar to convey how we should be upset. edit2; Oh good lord, even Japanese ChudTube is at it. 
Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Mar 14, 2024 |
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Mar 14, 2024 11:33
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Anyway, I actually learned something interesting from the Reddit Shogun page about "I'd sooner pull a gourd from a horse" that Fuji says. She's quoting a proverb: 瓢箪から駒が出る "Hyoutan kara koma ga deru", which just means something completely unexpected. Literally, it translates as "A pony emerging from a gourd". Which is reversed from how it's subtitled. The best part of the Reddit thread is people who are watching it with non-English subtitles, and the line is translated as: “It’s going to rain red” (Mandarin proverb) "I'd sooner thread a rope through a needle" (Romanian) "I was not expecting that" (Brazilian Portuguese) "I would rather jump off a bridge" (Spanish) Interesting that for a show so fastidious about its language usage that there is so much difference going on here.
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Mar 14, 2024 12:18
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The "polycolle" in that autotranslate is "political correctness". Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Mar 14, 2024 |
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Mar 14, 2024 12:26
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Mantle posted:It's not a mistake to change the idioms in localization instead of literal translation, it's a choice. (Other than the reversal of gourd and horse) Never said it was a mistake.
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Mar 14, 2024 16:10
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The other Shogun thing YouTube keeps recommending is reactions to the show. And like most reaction channels, 95% of them are just not that good, but mostly in a boring way. Like, they have nothing interesting to observe or they're too busy mugging to the camera to catch the subtitles, but in general they like the show. So far all the chuddery seems to be contained in the orbit of that rage-bait article. The best negative reaction I have seen is a guy on Reddit who seems a tad too upset that his favorite scenes in the novel are not being recreated precisely as they unfold in the book. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Mar 14, 2024 |
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Mar 14, 2024 17:52
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kiimo posted:ah yes, the Tom Bombadil faction He apparently wanted the boat chase scene to be just like the books: Guy on Reddit posted:Blackthorn boards the ship with Toranaga and Mirko. He gorges himself sick. The catholics want Blackthorn as part of the negotiations. Rodriguez throws him overboard to save him. It's an entertaining scene in the book; I totally forgot Blackthorne was drunk. But talk about tonal whiplash for the TV show. The 1980 miniseries hewed closer to the book scene, but was clearly filmed in some studio backlot pool. edit; Plus this new version gave us ride-or-die Captain-sama.
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Mar 14, 2024 18:14
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Yeah, I'm really liking the changes they are making. It's like when a composer writes a piece based on another composer's theme. Besides, the book will always still exist. edit; I was responding to Bombadilling chat, not subtitle chat. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Mar 14, 2024 |
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Mar 14, 2024 18:19
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withak posted:There are also probably a million paperback copies scattered around used bookstores for a few dollars if anyone is looking for a physical book. It's been years since I was there, but Powell's in Portland had an entire shelf of Clavell's novels (those chunky spines are easy to spot from a distance. Same with the James Michener shelf) ranging from grandpa's old, taped-up, tobacco-stained 2nd edition hardback copy of Shogun for $2 to brand new paperbacks of all the books. That's where I got my untouched 1987 mass-market paperback of Whirlwind. Any used bookstore is bound to have some copies. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2024 02:47
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It's one of the three novels I have ever read twice. (The other two being The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye; make of that what you will.) First time I was 16, loved it. Second time I was 31, after I had read all the other Asian Saga books over the years, and still enjoyed it, but not as much. I think I got Clavell burnout after that. There's only so much Great Man historical fiction I can take. And I held off watching Shogun until I started hearing the hype for how good it was. I was not expecting much going in so I am very much pleasantly surprised and just how drat good they've made it.
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Mar 15, 2024 03:08
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I read Musahi, by the same author, about 10 years ago. It begins with the aftermath of Sekigahara, and runs from there -- sometimes running uphill in a storm as a way to cure a cold? I might be remembering that wrong. Anyway, good book. Though the serialization nature of its publication is kinda obvious. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It allows the reader to dip in and out if needed.
Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2024 03:38
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Goatse James Bond posted:well i guess you have 33% acceptable taste Admittedly that one I read again because I had to read for high school, and rushed it. Second time around I still failed to see how deep Holden was supposed to be. Maybe that's the point?
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Mar 15, 2024 03:41
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Toranaga: Shogun Blackthorne: Show's goon Fuji: Show gun
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Mar 15, 2024 05:37
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Mordja posted:Haven't read the book, but I find it interesting to hear what's changed in the adaptation from fans of it. An interesting, and I think wise, choice the show made was to put the Taiko deathbed flashback at the start of episode two. In the book it happens much later.
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Mar 15, 2024 15:45
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Yeah, that deathbed flashback scene was only a year before the events happening in the show.
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Mar 16, 2024 06:56
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Dante posted:Is there a digital edition/kindle edition of this book where parts haven't been cut out for some weird reason by the publisher? For what it's worth, I just went through the Kindle "Read sample" section, which covers the prologue and Chapter 1, which is where the bathing scene is that has the village ladies commenting on how endowed Blackthorne is, and I can't see any changes compared with the copy I bought years ago. So maybe that 1-star review was just wrong.
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Mar 16, 2024 10:03
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Jamwad Hilder posted: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. The Japanese trailer just straight-up says: Toranaga, inspired by Tokugawa Ieyasu; Mariko, inspired by Hosokawa Gracia; etc, etc. It's a nice touch because I guess it's like a Japanese-US production about the American Revolution based off a Japanese manga with the main character named Grant Waterson, inspired by George Washington. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr1vH-7robk (warning, there are shots in there from beyond episode 4) On a different note about the names, in one of the promotional interviews, Hiroyuki Sanada mentions that in translation, Toranaga is 虎長, "tiger" and "long", but they changed it to 虎永, "Tiger forever". The official podcast mentions that they changed other names, because Clavell didn't run this poo poo by a feudal Japan expert (they were more polite in how they said that). So Fujiko became Fuji, Kasigi Yabu became Kashigi Yabushige, and the village name was changed from Anjiro to Ajiro. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Mar 16, 2024 16:00
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LMFAO if you haven't read the original Wire books.
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Mar 16, 2024 16:41
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That scene in ep. 2 in which Ishido banters with Yabu about pulling him out of a pile of bodies is a reference to the time the Taiko tried to conquer Korea. All the daimyos were there genociding their way across the peninsula, except for Toranaga.
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Mar 18, 2024 04:35
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kiimo posted:In our giant meeting at Universal today everyone was raving about this show and also mentioning that you can't look at your phone while watching it so there's a level of paying attention that enhances it. Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Great, studio heads are going to take the wrong lesson again and put subtitles in everything. Off-the-cuff thought: I think some of the secret sauce to Shogun is that the book, which the show is doing a good job adhering to, was written before Save The Cat-style rules to audience engagement became the be-all, end-all way of crafting a plot. Audiences have had about two decades of being able to see where a show is going, which is either wasted-potential mystery box poo poo, or super-predictable hero's journey stuff. That and the world-building is really, really good. Edit; made my words match my thoughts better. Nice Tuckpointing! fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Mar 19, 2024 |
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Mar 19, 2024 04:34
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It's been over a decade since I read the book, but I am still a filthy book-read snob and holy poo poo they nailed it. I can't imagine a better portrayal of the pheasant, the earthquake, and most of all the drinking scene . If anything, they improved upon already stellar scenes.
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Mar 19, 2024 12:29
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Subtitle talk. Twice, people talk of Blackthorne bringing "tatarigami" into the house, which loosely translates to cursed demons or evil spirits; bad juju. (And a quick google search after I wrote that tells me some anime talks about tatarigami, so maybe some people know the word. Whatevs)
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Mar 19, 2024 13:12
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