Review: Shogun is a Masterclass in Slow Burn Storytelling

In the age of binge television, Shogun on Disney+ stands apart as the paragon of thoughtfully paced television. Released in weekly installments, this latest adaptation of James Clavell’s novel is on the verge of wrapping up one of the modern masterpieces of television as it drops the miniseries finale on Tuesday, April 23 (Wednesday in Manila). Some have compared Sh?gun to HBO’s Game of Thrones, but that does the historical drama a serious injustice as Sh?gun is a singular, superlative work that elevates television storytelling to an art.

A fair number of streaming services follow the weekly format as opposed to the binge-format of releasing all episodes at once, but no other show has displayed as much mastery and restraint in its use as Sh?gun. Much like the feudal Japan it depicts, steeped in tradition and ceremony, each episode of Sh?gun is a careful and controlled demonstration of storytelling. Every component of every scene, from the cinematography to the dialogue to the acting, is a masterwork of television. 

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In 1600, navigator William Adams became the first Englishman to reach Japan by way of the last surviving vessel in a five-ship expedition funded by a group of Dutch businessmen. He later gets appointed as advisor to the sh?gun Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first sh?gun of the Edo Shogunate and the third “Great Unifier” of Japan. James Clavell’s novel, Sh?gun, is based loosely on the life of Adams and his role in Tokugawa’s ascent. Exaggerated in parts and completely fictionalized in others, Sh?gun is nonetheless rooted in history and the show goes to great lengths to depict Japan and Japanese culture accurately. In so doing, Sh?gun educates as it entertains, giving audiences a glimmer of understanding of one of the world’s most fascinating cultures. 

“We live, we die, we control nothing beyond that,” Mariko (Anna Sawai) tells John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) as the latter struggles to understand why the Japanese so easily throw away their lives by committing seppuku or ritual suicide. Blackthorne is the protagonist of Clavell’s novel, his version of William Adams, an Englishman thrown into the midst of warring feudal lords like a Protestant monkey wrench into their political machinations. It’s culture shock of the highest order, as Blackthorne witnesses how the Japanese so easily and readily give their lives up, sometimes in the name of honor and sometimes, for almost no reason whatsoever.

But it starts to make more sense when you consider that Japan is at the mercy of nature, a country that has over 2000 earthquakes a year on average. When an earthquake devastates the Lord Yoshii Toranaga’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) camp and neighboring town, scores of soldiers and villagers lose their lives. Toranaga, the novel’s analog for Tokugawa Ieyasu, is almost lost himself before Blackthorne rescues him from the rubble. When Kashigi Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano) finds himself about to drown, he unsheathes his katana, ready to take his own life rather than succumb to the waves. People live, people die, we control nothing beyond that. Suicide, then, becomes a way for the Japanese to reclaim some measure of agency in a world where lives can be snuffed at any instant.

For the Japanese, being able to choose how and when one dies is one of the most powerful expressions of freedom, a punctuation mark to a life well lived. Yabushige, who has a morbid obsession with death, ranks one character’s tragic, accidental death as “lower than boiling, but higher than eaten by dogs.”

Each episode of Sh?gun is a stanza of an epic poem, and the character deaths the spaces in between. Sh?gun is a show that lets the story and its audiences breathe, one that demands every episode be savored and digested, keeping viewers full until the next episode. To binge on Sh?gun would be to lose out on the nuance of ceremony, akin to rushing the slow pour of tea or telling a courtesan to skip her performative dance and get straight down to removing her kimono. Sh?gun embraces the weekly format fully and has impeccable pacing.

At times, the storytelling is slow, but never dragging. Toranaga is a master of the long game and Sh?gun’s pace is a reflection of the warlord’s closely guarded plans to secure the future of Japan. Each episode is an insight into Japanese culture, served up in easily digestible morsels. One episode, titled “The Eightfold Fence,” explains how the Japanese are able to compartmentalize their emotions and personal interests, allowing them to perform their duties—sometimes at great personal cost—without conflict or hesitation. This attitude also reflects the way Japan has managed to maintain a strong sense of identity while being open to the rest of the world. It’s maintaining a poker face while holding a very bad hand. When Usami Fuji (Moeka Hoshi), who loses her husband and newborn to seppuku and execution, is ordered to serve as Blackthorne’s consort, she survives as only the Japanese know how: to retreat within their Eightfold Fence.

There’s an inextricable misogyny to Japanese culture, to the patriarchy, where women are treated as property and wives serve at the whims of their husbands. This confuses and frustrates Blackthorne to no end, having developed feelings for Toda Mariko, who is based on the historical Hosokawa Gracia. This is one of Clavell’s creative liberties with his novel as Gracia doesn’t actually have any relationship with William Adams, but Mariko is almost as pivotal to the series as either Blackthorne or Toranaga. In fact, Mariko’s demonstrates far greater strength and power than almost any other character as she operates within the restrictive confines of Japanese womanhood. Sawai’s performance is sublime, shedding light on the difficult, constricted existence of women during that period, the echoes of which are still felt today. 

The episode “Ladies of the Willow World” is an homage to the mysterious and ethereal courtesans of Japan, who are no mere prostitutes. Highly educated and skilled, the oiran command exorbitant fees that scale according to their mastery of various arts beyond mere sexual favors. Sh?gun reveals the Japanese’s pragmatic view of sex, euphemistically called pillowing, and how it is almost purely in service of the male. There’s a subversive feminism to Sh?gun that owes everything to Mariko, who exercises power through silent protest and in one of the series’ most poignant and painful scenes rebukes her abusive husband with one line that cuts so deep his heartbroken face will likely be immortalized in memes.

Every component of Sh?gun is exceptional, with an authenticity and scale beyond most of what we see on television. From form to fabric, Carlos Rosario’s costume design is a mind-blowing, if not necessarily completely historically accurate depiction of Japanese history. The costumes and production design alone deserve an entire essay on its own, deserving of the kind of coffee table book that usually accompanies blockbuster films. Even without its exceptional cinematography Sh?gun is a visual delight through the sheer beauty of its costumes and sets.

Sh?gun  on Disney+ is the absolute best television, setting the bar high for historical dramas and literary adaptations. It is one of the best arguments for the weekly format of storytelling, a reminder that all the best things take time. It is no longer unreasonable to have the highest expectations for the series finale as Sh?gun has, with every episode, exceeded itself and raised the tension to a rousing crescendo. It has been an exceptional year for television so far, and Sh?gun has led the charge.