‘Shōgun’ Episode 1 Recap: Shukumei

1600 Japan was a place riven with tension and the guarantee of violence. With the death of the ruling taikō, and his heir too young to take over, five regional warlords known as daimyo, each with an army of fiercely loyal samurai, were all vying for total control. That kind of absolute power had an ancient name: Shōgun. And it was only a matter of which daimyo would use his ruthlessness, cunning, and military might to seize it. But there was another power center, too. A newer one. By the seventeenth century, Portuguese Catholics had established a monopoly on trade with Japan, basically by keeping the country a secret from their sworn enemies, the Protestant nations of Europe. And in 1600, that’s when a cocky, mouthy Englishman shows up as the pilot of a busted Dutch warship. Did fate bring him to “The Japans”? Will his presence and powerful ship turn the tide of the inevitable war? Or will he be dead before he ever gets the chance to find out? 

That’s the setup as FX/Hulu’s vivid new adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel Shōgun begins, an adaptation that nominally follows the nine-hour 1980 miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain, though it makes the immediate and important decision to remove the white Westerner protagonist from the center of the story. This Shōgun instead focuses on Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), and the regal, principled, and brilliant daimyo’s plans to thwart his rivals on the Council of Regents, a group led by the unscrupulous Ishido Kazunari (Takehiro Hira), who rules from the grand and impenetrable Osaka Castle.

Toranaga does have a few dedicated allies in his corner, like his eager but impulsive son Yoshii Nagakado (Yuki Kura) and the salty old General Toda Hiromatsu (Tokuma Nishioka). But once brash, valiant ship’s pilot John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) shows up in Japan, Toranaga’s most crucial asset becomes Lady Toda Mariko. (Mariko is portrayed by Anna Sawai, who’s really on a roll after being the best thing about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters). As a convert to Catholicism, Mariko speaks fluent Portuguese. And as a translator, she’ll be the vital link that enables communication between Blackthorne the barbarian and Toranaga, Lord of the Kantō. And hey, if the crafty daimyo’s long game works out, maybe they won’t all die when the four other regents’ armies – and the Portuguese priests – align against them. 

Blackthorne could not be more out of place in Japan. Totally ignorant of its culture and initially committed to his Dutch employers’ edict of plunder and conquest, the pilot soon discovers how powerless he is in this land that any sailors not Portuguese have been trying to find for decades. Like when he and the few other surviving crew members of the Erasmus are doused with offal in their village holding pen, or when Kashigi Omi (Hiroto Kanai), the ambitious junior lord of Ajiro, slices off an interfering Catholic villager’s head right in front of him. Cosmo Jarvis plays wild-eyed and stubborn pretty well, and even carefully calibrated the growly voice he uses throughout Shōgun. But from the visual aesthetic, the meticulous costume design, stirring score, and acting that represents the Japanese characters’ subtle moves and secret motives, it’s everything going on around Jarvis’s barbarian Westerner that’s so captivating in Shōgun. 

With 20 cannon, 200 muskets, and loads of plundered gold and silver, the Erasmus is a valuable, potentially game-changing catch for Toranaga, who quickly confiscates the warship from the grabby hands of Kashigi Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano), his coarse but formidable vassal. And when Toranaga dispatches Hiromatsu to Ajiro to collect Blackthorne and bring him by ship to Osaka, we also meet Rodrigues (a highly enjoyable and bearded Néstor Carbonell), a Spanish ship’s pilot who has worked in Japan for years. With the ability to communicate in Portuguese, which they both speak fluently – while Shōgun uses subtitles for Japanese speakers, it inserts English as a stand-in for Portuguese; just go with it, OK? – Rodrigues drops a lot of fast facts on Blackthorne about where he’s found himself. Like the concept of Shukumei – “it’s like an attitude out here, karma” – and a brilliant little speech that counteracts Blackthorne’s characterization of Japan’s “madness. “Zehi mo gozaimasen,” Rodrigues tells the English pilot. “One cannot resist the unseen path of nature. All we can do is accept our small part.”   

So much of what John Blackthorne encounters in Japan is couched in mystery, unseen motive, and traditions he neither understands nor respects. At least at first. Shōgun fits a ton of character backstory, setting of the seventeenth century Japan political scene, foreboding about the pivotal conflict to come, and cultural insight into this first episode, and by its conclusion, not only has Blackthorne learned to speak a few words of Japanese, but we’ve become immersed in this layered world full of metaphor and bursts of righteous violence. “There’s a saying out here that every man has three hearts,” Rodrigues tells the pilot. “One in his mouth, for the world to know. Another in his chest, just for his friends. And a secret heart, buried deep, where no one can find it. That is a heart a man must keep hidden, if he wants to survive. You’ll understand soon, Inglés.” So will we. 

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.