For my trailer analysis and first reaction I did a blind look into what was represented, meaning that at that time I hadn't watched the 1980s series and I hadn't read the book so in that case I was trying to examine strictly the historical accuracy of what was shown at face value.

But today our analysis will be much more complete. It will be structured on a comparative key, so to speak, in the sense that we won't just look at what is shown on screen and then compare it with real historical Japan, we'll do that too of course, but we will also compare this 2024 Shogun series with the original 1980 series, as well as directly to the book itself. So 3 elements of comparison.

Link to my original blind review of the trailer
   • I Can't Believe This...  
Link to the video by Schola Gladiatoria about Pistols I mention on this review
   • SHOGUN TV Show Big Historical WEAPON ...  
Link to the Royal Armories YT Channel as mentioned
   / @ucsmx-xuiekbi4-gdryuniwg  


As of the filming of this video I've watched the first 4 episodes and I really like it so far, the series is very well made and if you are into Feudal Japan you should totally watch it.

As the show begins we are told that it's set in a specific time period, namely 1600 and we want to see how faithful it is to the customs, armour, weapons, clothing, religion, culture, and many other factors as we always do on this channel. However do keep in mind of course that this is not a history book, it's a novel and a good one at that, so anytime these characters or events appear to differ from the original historical ones, well it's justified. Once again historically inspired fiction.

I'll tell you this however, the level of attention to correct historical details on this show, is insane. You'll see what I mean in a second.

So for context, we are at the end of the Sengoku era, right before the beginning of the Edo period. Perhaps I should say Azuchi Momoyama period, anyways there is a lot of overlap between different terms and Japanese periodization can get a bit tiring so, 1600.

This is a time of political struggle for power, inner fragmentation. This is a land struck by roughly 150 years of relentless war. Arguably this is the time of the most battle hardened samurai, the most brutal warlords. It's also a time of change within domestic and international politics with new paradigms of interaction withing said international discourse. We see this articulated in the literature, visual arts and laws.

Moreover it's a time of cross cultural exchange with European powers, which among other things came in the form of trade, religious expansion, military evolution and as we will see, religious inner rivalry as depicted on the show, Catholics and Protestants, although this latter was not represented in the most accurate of manners in my opinion, as we will see.

Main Characters

We have a few major characters we might want to clarify from a historical perspective.

This is of course a fictional depictions of real historical characters, so much so that real historical names were swapped for fictional ones.

With that being said I think it's interesting to see how similar to the actual historical counterparts these fictional characters are. Are they loosely based or do they match almost 1 to 1?
Let's begin with:
- John Blackthorne: Played by English actor Cosmo Jarvis in the 2024 version (image John Blackthorne 2024). Played by American actor Richard Chamberlain in the 1980s version. (John Blackthorne 1980s) I can already hear the typing I know Mr. Jarvis was technically born in America, but he is English.

Blackthorne is based on the historical William Adams 1564 – 1620 aka the English samurai, born in Gillingham, Kent England in 1564. A small point of divergence with the character John Blackborne who in the tv series says he is from London, and in the book specifically says he is from the outskirts of Chatham, a small port near London. William Adams was an English navigator, pilot, chief officer working for the Dutch East India Company who ended up in Japan just like John.
The book describes John as being very tall, having very fair skin, blue eyes and golden hair.

Link for further study and reference
https://www.google.com/books/edition/...
On Jesuits
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cg...
On seppuku
https://chent3.files.wordpress.com/20...
On William Adams
https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/is/IS39...
Original European Accounts
https://libguides.colorado.edu/JPNS38...

#shogun #shogunfx #historicalanalysis