3 out of 5

Created by: Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks

covers season 1

Despite wanting to believe otherwise, I can come around to accepting that I can be a naysayer: that when something is (from my perception) “instantly” popular, depending on certain criteria, I might automatically dislike it. But that criteria can make it cut the other way, where my loyalty to something or another encourages me to lean towards thumbs up.

In general, I’ve had loyalty to FX’s original shows for the past decade or so, where even if I am not a fan of everything, it seems like the majority of their offerings do what they intend to do, and with a style and confidence – and originality – that I respect. I’d contrast this to a station like AMC, whose original offerings from the same era tend to arrive with a similar pedigree (good ideas; bold looking execution), but are often much trashier and clunkier in my opinion.

Now, Shogun is by no means trashy or clunky; it deserves the accolades it almost immediately received – there’s that instant popularity bit – and absolutely held my attention, week by week. My loyalty / fandom for FX was in effect. At the same time, I often felt at odds: that the show looked and sounded like the epic it is, but I was rarely immersed in the way such a presentation and story suggested I would or should be. In fact, I was quite restless at times. I’ll circle back to the AMC comparison: a lot of AMC’s shows (in my read) suffer from goals beyond their grasp. I think there were several goals with Shogun, adding thematic layers to the story while trying to modernize the source material for modern relevance while trying to nail historical / cultural accuracy while trying to make a successful episodic series… and the combination of those was a confluent sum somewhat lesser than its parts. On a micro level, I think this is well represented by the opening credits, which are of a stately, representational Game of Thrones / Westworld style, using a motif of sailing ships cutting lines in a Japanese rock garden: the GOT-esque score from Atticus and Leopold Ross and Nick Chuba swells at a point that doesn’t quite align with the visuals escalating to include elements of war – burning arrows flying across the screen – creating a moment where you’re wondering what the focus is intended to be, before the titles interrupt the sequence for a related, but also entirely different visual – that of a stone shogun mask / armor crumbling into view – before cutting back to the ships / garden scene. This sounds and looks weighty, but doesn’t quite fit together, and doesn’t quite tell its story most effectively.

Shogun, beat-by-beat, takes place in the 1600s, and concerns English Protestant ship captain John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) landing – in an unintentional fashion – on the shores of a Japanese region overseen by Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), or more directly, one who serves under him, Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano). Blackthorne, initially on a mission to establish trade, manages to express his disdain for the current Japanese trade arrangements with the Catholics, and eventually – through roundabout happenstance – ingratiates himself to Yabushige, and then to Toranga, who assigns him a military position, and a translator, Mariko (Anna Sawai). From there, Blackthorne’s continued navigations through the culture, and trying to find a way to return home, are a backdrop to larger matters: a war for the throne amongst the regents besides Toranga, who are aligning with regent Ishido (Takehiro Hira), and preparing to oust Toranga – a thorne in plans for power / money-grabs – via any means necessary, tip-toeing things to war, bit by bit.

I have not read the source book off of which this is based, or seen the prior television adaptation, but one might guess at the fish-out-of-water and white-savior tendencies that could have populated an English-written text / script covering this material. Whether or not that was the case then, it’s very much not the case now: Shogun 2024 is rigorous in its attention to detail, and weaves what feels like a respectably “true” line for how someone like Blackthorne – capable and intelligent, but riddled with his own prejudices and inherent cultural lens – might bounce off against the traditions of the Japanese; it is also arguably not Blackthorne’s story, only acting as our tether as needed, and otherwise letting the political intrigue (and the history driving that) be studied, as well as forefronting the struggles of Mariko, finding her place amidst somewhat conflicting allegiances – to her religion as a Catholic; to Toranaga, to her husband, and eventually to Blackthorne. Through this, strong themes of fate, fighting fate, and then the often blurred line between mis- and purposeful communications emerge, frankly becoming more impressive upon rewatches.

I cannot effectively underline how amazing our leads are in these roles. Jarvis is occasionally almost comically gruff, but he nails the more important “smaller” moments, and ultimately makes Blackthorne three-dimensional. But Sanada and Sawai are screen-filling standouts, commanding their every moments. Asano juggles a comedic relief-type role with some subterfuge perfectly; Hira’s Ishido similarly finds a great balance between bluster and insecurity; and Fumi Nikaido, Tokuma Nishioka, Shinnosuke Abe, and Moeka Hoshi all add much to their encircling parts.

So what’s the problem?

It’s two parts visual, one part narrative.

As the visuals maybe seem more shallow, I’ll start there. Fittingly: a shallow depth of field, effected rather pointlessly. The series was shot in a very, very wide angle, and though the technical details are beyond me, the result is that the majority of shots have a couple effects: a blurring of everything in the background, and a slight fisheye effect at the sides of the screen, to the extent that you’ll sometimes see rounded edges at the corners. While this may thematically work for shots that either highlight something very central or intimate or weighty, or as a way of expressing disorientation, applying it to almost everything loses that. This is part of why I made the AMC comment before: AMC shows sometimes are presented all dressed up, but the content doesn’t support it; again, Shogun isn’t that, but this visual style gives unnecessary importance to every scene, which feels… silly. And whether due to this stylistic decision, or just as part of the editing style, shots are stitched together subtly disorientatingly, changing angles in an uncommon fashion, and cutting between characters during conversations at off points. If, again, we wanted to be charitably thematic, this was maybe done to isolate people in a scene, to make them alienated from one another; but also again – it’s used too much. It’s used when it doesn’t make sense. And it frankly doesn’t feel used that purposefully. Instead, there are a surprising number of cuts to flash to different people, but not necessarily when they are reacting in a cut-to-them notable fashion. Along these lines, while this was surely a well budgeted show, achieving the large scale (and open) environments was probably achieved via effects, but regardless: there’s a discordance between the up-close and the broad views, partially because of this choppy editing, where it often feels like we’re lacking establishment shots. It’s up close, far away, up close; this undermines the impact of what we’re seeing.

This style then feeds into, or is reflected by / reflects the script. Although I’ve alluded to rewatches – I watched week-to-week, then wanted to double-check my feelings with a seamless binge – making the themes more rewarding, there are some cloudier, and sometimes somewhat amateurish parts of the storytelling. The cloudier parts harken back to the shifted focus I was mentioning in the opening titles: there are scenes where it’s just not clear what the camera / storytellers are trying to tell the viewer. A lot of this is meant to portray the (to my American eyes) quieter and more nuanced parts of Japanese culture, but I do consume / have consumed a fair amount of Japanese cinema, and this is maybe where these bits come across as a bit too Americanized – a bit too careful, to the extent of what I’ve mentioned: what are you trying to say? This can give scenes a strange sense of pacing. Furthermore, we have what I’d consider two tics of being based off of a book: the first episode in particular has some details we go out of our way to observe that never come up again – likely specific references – and though that’s much less obvious later on, when there’s a randomish beat, chances are, that’s the reason. But more impactful is how Mariko’s and Toranaga’s backstories play out: once we have pretty much been filled in on their rhymes and reasons, the next episode will… give us more. And not in a way that especially adds to what we know, it’s just like: oh, here’s another scene to kind of reexplain what we’ve covered. Again – this is maybe just nods to the book, or trying to pace out ten episodes, or etc., or etc.

Shogun, intended as a miniseries, is getting another two seasons. And I’m glad for it! I’m glad the show exists; I’m glad it was a big enough deal to create an arena for these kinds of conversations. And I’d much rather a show have individual pieces all working incredibly hard and occasionally fumble the ball versus a show where there’s not enough to support paragraphs of me prattling on. But, y’know, it also isn’t a perfect show, and its various mishmashes were admittedly enough to prevent it from being a great show. Hopefully I’ve given some other folks trying to piece together their thoughts on this some reasons why that might be.