Kind of Obsessed With Shōgun
I finished the last half of Shōgun, James Clavell’s 1200-page 1975 historical novel, on my recent vacation, riveted the entire time. I loved reading it and possibly enjoyed it more than Hulu’s TV series (which is saying something). The TV version hews pretty closely to the text but the major difference is in the amount of detail and explanation available to the book’s readers. There’s just so much more intrigue & plotting in the book and the reader is much more aware of what’s going on than in the show (the reader has access to the inner dialogue of multiple characters), but without sacrificing any of the suspense or drama. And the end of the book is devastating — I was completely gutted by it.
Anyway, I’ve been poking around to see what else I can read/watch/listen to about Shōgun and the historical period in which it’s set. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
- Of course, there’s the original TV adaptation of Shōgun from 1980, which I was surprised to find that you can stream on Amazon. Richard Chamberlain stars as Blackthorne and the legendary Toshiro Mifune as Toranaga.
- Just before the 1980 miniseries was broadcast, a group of scholars published a book called Learning from Shōgun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy. “This book is intended for those who have read James Clavell’s Shōgun and who are curious about its educational significance as ‘A Novel of Japan.’” The book is out of print but I found this PDF copy on Columbia’s website and have been reading it with interest. I wonder though how contemporary scholars would react to Shōgun.
- FX Networks’ viewers guide for the 2024 miniseries has a bunch of resources on the history behind the events in the book & show, including this 6-minute video on The World of Shōgun: History & Backstory.
- Naturally, there are podcasts. The Hulu series has an official podcast (also available on YouTube). The Prestige TV Podcast did 60-minute+ recaps on all the episodes (first episode on Apple & Spotify). A Short History of Japan podcast runs 35 episodes…it looks like the last few cover the period in question. (I haven’t listened to any of these yet, so ymmv.)
- There are also many books about the late Sengoku & early Edo periods of Japan, but it’s hard to pick out which ones are actually good. I poked around on various lists and found Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan, The Battle of Sekigahara: The Greatest, Bloodiest, Most Decisive Samurai Battle Ever, and The Company and the Shogun: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan.
If anyone has any advice on what to watch/read/listen to about this period of Japanese history, please share it in the comments. The resources I found are mostly Western, so I’d be especially interested in English translations of Japanese resources.
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You should check out the Soulslike game, Nioh, and also the anime Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix.
Also should note that some of Akira Kurosawa's films are set in the 16th century, including Seven Samurai and Ran.
Equally obsessed.
Some more reading in and around that time period that you might enjoy:
-The Imjin War by Samuel Hawley
-Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
-The Samurai by Shūsaku Endō
-Taiko: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan by Eiji Yoshikawa
Seconding Musashi. Loved that book so much. You don’t think a book that length can be a page turner but it manages.
I very much recommend Musashi as well, it portrays the Japanese and especially the samurai way of thinking a lot better than Shogun, being written by a Japanese who saw the last samurai himself (Eiji Yoshikawa was born in 1892). I didn't sleep for a couple of days the first time I read the book, I couldn't put it down :)
@kottke Not Just the Tudors had a podcast on this from a historical perspective.
“In this episode of Not Just the Tudors - suggested by listener Lucy Canning - Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out more about the real history behind Shogun with Giles Milton, best-selling author of Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan.”
https://pod.pe/podcast/not-just-the-tudors/shogun-the-real-first-english-samurai
Not following the Japanese angle, but his other novels take you down a rabbit hole too. Gaijin, Taipan, King Rat are all as much fun.
Tales of the Otori are set in a similar period in a fantastical Japan, and are among my favorite books.
@kottke I also LOVED it, I watched it twice. I also read the novel twice and I've seen the 1980 miniseries more than twice. The modern interpretation is excellent but the 1980 version also has its charm.
You should read Clavell's other novels to find out what happens later to some of the players in Shogun. Gai-Jin, specifically, calls back to what happened to Blackthorne and the legacy of Toranaga throughout the book (with more ties to world history).
If alt-history (with genderbending, romance and BL elements) if your jam- the 14 year long manga Ōoku by Fumi Yoshinaga follows an alternate history of early modern Japan (third through fifteenth Tokugawa shogunates) where a pandemic kills most of the male population, leading to a matriarchal society in which the Ōoku becomes a harem of men serving the now female Shogun. The anime-adaptation by Netflix is still lingering around, but the manga is fantastic and fodder for a dozen PhD dissertations.
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