If I could use words
Like scattering flowers and falling leaves,
What a bonfire my poems would make.
~a poem by Mariko
I admit, that for perhaps the first time in Shōgun’s limited run, I walked away with mixed feelings. While there were some powerful moments in the series finale, it’s hard not to feel let down by what we didn’t get to see. It was already going to be a hard episode, given the fate of Mariko (Anna Sawai) last week, but I thought we might make up for that with a final battle.
Instead, Blackthorne is smuggled out of Osaka and kept alive by the Jesuits, who made a deal with Mariko and Lord Toranaga to usher him safely back to Ajiro. The deal, we discover later, was the Anjin’s life in exchange for the ship, which Toranaga sunk and then blamed on Christian spies. He ruthlessly cracks down on the villagers as some kind of test for the Anjin, which Blackthorne passes when he offers up his own life in exchange for the villagers.
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The Secret Heart Of Yoshii Toranaga
By far the best part of this episode was the conversation between Yabushige and Toranaga before the former commits seppuku, with Toranaga as his second. While it was interesting to hear Toranaga finally lay out his plans—including the fact that Crimson Sky morphed into simply sending Mariko to Osaka in a bid to change Ochiba na Kata’s mind and weaken Ishido’s grip on the noble families—the more fascinating bits were just the two men talking, old friends (frenemies?) who have known one another for a long time and are saying one last bloody farewell. Yabushige, when he realizes that Toranaga has been planning his rise to power te the entire time, exclaims: “You’re no better than the rest of us in your secret heart!”
“How does it feel to shape the wind to your will?” he asks.
“I don’t shape the wind,” Toranaga replies. “I only study it.”
When he begs to know what comes next, Toranaga grimly replies: “Why tell a dead man the future?” I almost wish Yabushige had said: “Why not?”
Of course much of the brilliance of this final scene between these two compelling characters (whose names I can finally spell without looking up, just in time for the show to end) comes down to the performances. This is the longest scene we’ve had with just Hiroyuki Sanada and Tadanobu Asano in it, two legends of Japanese cinema, and they pull it off so perfectly, out there on the cliffs by the sea.
Of course, Yabushige wanted a different death. A good death, as he puts it, not ritual suicide but rather being torn apart by dogs or flesh-eating fish or whatever other imaginative death would suit him best (perhaps boiled alive?).
He writes a death poem. It lacks the stirring beauty of Mariko’s poem, but seems a fitting outro for the scheming Lord of Izu:
My dead body
Don’t burn it, don’t bury it, just leave it in the field
And with it fill the belly of some hungry dog.
The Fate Of The Anjin
Blackthorne, meanwhile, seas only part way through Toranaga’s scheming. He doesn’t believe for a second that Christians burned his ship, but he comes to the conclusion that it was Mariko acting alone who arranged the deal with the Jesuits, rather than Toranaga pulling all the strings. When he attempts to commit seppuku, Toranaga stops him and relents on his punishment of the villagers. He tells Blackthorne to rebuild the ship and then build him a fleet. Later, Toranaga tells Yabushige that he doesn’t think the Anjin will ever leave Japan, though we know he will given all the shots of a much-made-up Cosmo Jarvis as an old grandpa in bed, thinking back on his time in Japan (rather too dramatically, but then I found these scenes rather odd and out of place; I’d have preferred not knowing if the Englishman ever returned home).
Toranaga also explains to Yabushige why he’s kept the Anjin alive when he had so many opportunities to let him die. “Not because he’s important,” he says, “but because he makes me laugh. And it’s good to have something to distract our enemies.” This feels like a sort of meta-commentary, letting viewers know that Blackthorne’s character really wasn’t particularly important in the big scheme of things—almost a purposeful departure from the book, which centers on the European, but also to some degree the history that inspired James Clavell’s novel.
Blackthorne is based on the real life English pilot, William Adams, the first Englishman to land on Japanese soil. He become a key advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu, helped train his men with cannons, and assisted in two major battles, including the Battle of Sekigahara, which saw Ieyasu overthrow his enemies and rise to power. He was clearly at least a little bit more important than just a distraction or a clown. (Adams never went back to England, dying in Japan at the age of 55).
On The Matter Of Epic Battles
It is on the matter of battles, however, that I cannot help but take some umbrage with the series finale. The flash-forward didn’t work for me. Not only is it a flash-forward of the battle, it’s merely one narrated by Toranaga to Yabushige explaining to him what will happen in the future—a prognostication that lends fuel to the notion that Toranaga has a Dumbledore problem. Nor do we see any of the actual battle, just the armies arrayed for battle, and Ishido (Takehiro Hira) receiving word that Ochiba (Fumi Nikaido) has betrayed him. After all this build-up to some kind of epic confrontation between Toranaga and Ishido, I expected a little more. Maybe that’s just my TV brain, trained on Game Of Thrones and Vikings and so forth to expect epic confrontations and clashes of steel. But I felt a little deflated, wishing we had one more episode to make room for the war.
After all, the actual historical Battle of Sekigahara is quite incredible to read about, involving two armies with truly vast number—Tokugawa’s Eastern Army boasted 75,000 men, while Ishida’s Western Army dwarfed that number with 120,000 men. Its outcome resulted in a 200-year dynasty.
The battle took place on October 21st, 1600 on a morning draped in so much fog that neither side could plan an attack or even see where the other army stood. When the fog cleared and the battle began in earnest, the scale of it was truly epic. Two massive armies clashed along river banks and through the hills beneath the shadow of Mount Nangu. Here’s an Edo-period screen depicting the clash:
The battle’s fierce fighting ended in betrayal on Mount Nangu, where the commander of the Mōri army refused to help a retreating Ishida, who was forced to surrender and was later executed. Elsewhere, sieges were laid to various strongholds around Japan. Tokugawa emerged victorious and founded the first Edo shogunate. It would have made for an epic hour of television.
I still enjoyed the conclusion to Shōgun, however, battle or no. It was poetic and beautifully shot, and I suppose we didn’t need to see the battle play out for the story to come to a satisfying conclusion. There were many little moments that I loved. Ishido finding Yabushige, half-mad in the garden; Blackthorne,learning that Fuji had decided to become a nun, at first recoiling and then, at last, telling her in Japanese that she’ll be the best nun; Buntaro setting aside his bitterness and helping the Anjin drag the Erasmus out of the sea; Muraji revealing his true samurai identity to Blackthorne. The beautiful score, the gorgeous costumes and cinematography. I’m sad it’s all over.
Still, including the key battle culminating in Toranaga’s ultimate victory certainly would have been fun . . . .
Oh well! No points docked (not that I give out points). Overall, I’ve very much enjoyed Shōgun. It’s one of my favorite shows of 2024 so far and I’ll definitely watch it again down the road. What did you think of the series finale? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook.
