‘Shōgun’s Historical Advisor is Responsible for Episode 4’s Gory, Gross Cannon Fire Ending — A Bloody Shift from the Book

Shōgun Episode 4 “The Eightfold Fence” crescendoes with brutal and bloody attack on Lord Toranaga’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) enemies. Over the course of the entire episode, Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) has been teaching Toranaga’s camp in Ajiro English cannon tactics. However, a problem arises with rival lord Ishido’s (Takehiro Hira) men arrive on the scene. If they return to Osaka with the information they have learned, it ruins the tactical edge. Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano) and his nephew Omi (Hiroto Kanai) manipulate Toranaga’s impressionable son Naga (Yuki Kura) into massacring Ishido’s messengers. He does so using the chain shot Blackthorne has taught them, resulting in a truly disgusting scene of bodies ripped apart, blood and organs scattered everywhere. It’s a scene that prompts a haunted Mariko (Anna Sawai) to say, “It is war,” at the end of the episode of the FX series.

It’s also a scene that has been slightly adjusted from what goes down in James Clavell’s original 1975 novel. To be sure, Blackthorne teaches Yabu, Omi, and Naga European battle tactics which Naga then turns on Jozen and his cronies. Blood is shed, peace is shattered, and, yes, Yabu and Omi masterminded it. However the big difference between Clavell’s version of events and FX’s depiction comes down to the level of firepower involved. In James Clavel’s Shōgun, Blackthorne teaches Toranaga’s men the nuances of using muskets in combat; the cannon and its deadly chain shot are FX’s invention.

That said, Shōgun co-creators Justin Young and Rachel Kondo explained to Decider during an interview at Winter 2024 TCA that they made this subtle, but seismic shift because it was more historically accurate.

“We all make mistakes in our presentation of what we’re doing in the moment and the research that Clavell had had was such that it was muskets, right?” Rachel Kondo said. “And yet Japanese had already been introduced to muskets fifty years earlier.”

Justin Marks said that this historical hiccup was brought up a lot in conversations with Shōgun Episode 4 “The Eightfold Fence” writer Emily Yoshida.

“Like we knew that the Portuguese had brought muskets when they first arrived, around the time when Toranaga was born, so they had been there for his whole life leading up to it,” Marks said. “So how do we get around the kind of classic cliche of what that scene has become over the years, of like ‘foreigner shows up in a strange land, bringing the tricks of their trade and becomes important because of it’?”

According to Marks, the answer came from Shōgun‘s chief historical adviser, Frederik Cryns, a Japanologist who teaches at the University of Kyoto. Cryns pointed out that although the Portuguese had brought both muskets and cannons to Japan in the 16th century, they weren’t known for great cannon tactics. That was what the English were known for.

“Frederik also brought up the chain shot being a very — which I knew nothing about at that time — but being a very popular way within the [English] Navy. Now I watch Master and Commander and I recognize the chain shot when I see it because it can take out a mast,” Marks said.

Because a chain shot can take out a ship’s mast, the writers then had to grapple with what it would feasibly do to the human body. “Instead of firing muskets into their enemies, they would fire that chain shot and then we would have to deal with the fallout that occurred,” Marks said.

The answer, as Shōgun fans now know, is a gory mess.