Shōgun (Chapters 10-46) – James Clavell – Episode 86

The Buddies are back! After a bit of a hiatus (someone selfishly decided to travel), the Buddies are back at in covering books 2 & 3 of Shōgun (chapters 10-46). A lot to cover on this one as the Buddies got into the meat (or the rice and fish if you’re Japanese) of the James Clavell’s epic novel. The Buddies got to talking about scholarly things like: Karma, Religions, relieving yourself outside, and why Star Wars Episode 8 was awful. We hope you’ve followed us on this spiritual journey, jump on in and join us for chapters 10-46, because next week we’ll finish Shōgun and achieve full nirvana.

Intro (0:00-1:58)
Stock Up/Down (1:59-36:42)
Love/Hate (36:43-38:51)
Favorite Scene/Character (38:52-41:26)
Conclusion (41:27-42:31)

NEXT BOOK: Shōgun (Part 4 – Finish) by James Clavell

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to the Book Club.
I’m Dylan, here with my sworn vessel.
Yes, he is vain, difficult, terrible,
petulant, horrible, marvelous, most rarely.
But born with that single, incredible redeeming feature,
which we in the trade refer to as the Jade Root,
turtlehead, streaming shaft, male thruster, or simply,
piece of meat. Keith, what’s up, buddy?
I don’t even know what to say, I don’t know,
so sorry, but I don’t understand.
Oh, Wakarama Sen?
Oh, stock of my learning Japanese through this,
and also bothering the wife so much by just saying,
Wakarama, Wakarama Sen, Honto, all the time.
But here at the Book Club, we’re bringing down the best others,
and this week we’ll discuss saying showgun parts two,
or excuse me, books two and three, by James Clavel.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read,
or reach out to us in any past episodes,
visit our website, buddybooko.com, or sign to our DMs,
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please download, subscribe.
Keith, last time we talked part one, or book one, of showgun,
which follows our boy, Anjansson, from Angero to Osaka.
We stopped pretty much there.
You know, we talked about kind of what’s going on in Europe at the time,
what happened in Japan in the last 30 years.
So we did more of a zoom out than, you know,
a zoom into the actual story.
I’m kind of talking about like how those two things fit together,
you know, pretty much just setting the scene for this epic,
because there’s so much going on.
We hadn’t even yet met Mariko or Torinaga.
On this part of our quest, we’re going to bonsai into parts two and three.
We get to see Osaka, meet some new friends and frenemies.
Most importantly, witness Black Thorns transformation from barbarian pirate
to honored
in the past.
In general, it’s one of my stock ups as well as religion, which I’ll get into,
but probably more, just like Buddhism.
I find that like ads I’m reading this book are like maybe a Buddhist figured it out.
Why did we have to create all these new religions afterwards?
Because in terms of karma, and whether you believe in karma,
and all like, okay, you have this predetermined destiny, that kind of thing,
but it’s nice for the little moments when like you were saying bad things or good things happen to you.
It’s like, okay, let’s not get too up and down about it.
It’s karma.
Hey, we’ll move on.
And then especially in a place like Japan, because I often think we’ve said this before in the
podcast, but we both grew up Christian or Roman Catholic, or at least I don’t know Irish Catholic
or free, I don’t know how that works, but I could understand it in like 1600s Japan,
thinking that you were part of this divine community, like the land of the gods,
because we’re talking earthquakes just happen.
Like, how do you explain that?
You don’t.
All of a sudden, a tall town gets swallowed up.
There’s no way to explain it besides being like, oh, karma,
nae, or typhoons and tsunamis, like all this stuff is happening to this island nation.
I can see how our ancestors, Native Americans and such, like, thought that all of these powers
were due to gods.
Well, the fact that they’re not just sacrificing Virgin’s left and right is there’s a merit to them.
We see an eclipse back in North America and we’re murdering 50 people because of that.
They’re like getting, like, every other day is an earthquake and they’re like, uh, karma, it’s fine.
So they’re actually kind of level headed.
But with all this stuff, it just makes me think like, oh, I could totally believe in a higher power
and something was going on. It also probably just keeps you sane with all this crazy stuff going on.
Yeah.
Specifically for Japan.
I mean, they were talking about how the Mongols came over, which is true.
These Mongols came over with like a thousand ships, which must have been a wild sight to see.
And then a kamikaze divine wind comes in and destroys all of their ships.
I’d be like, oh, we are blessed.
Like,
I was about to be murdered.
And now I’m not.
We are the land of the gods.
Yeah, I’m into Buddhism in general, I think.
I actually did start meditating a little bit, not because of this, but yeah, just, you know,
I’m trying to get it 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there.
But just listening to them say, you know, look and watch the stone grow.
Stuff like that is like, oh, bring some harmony into your life.
And I just love, love the karma vibes.
I’ve also been saying that too.
And once again, the wife gets upset because she’ll be like,
that I got stuck in traffic, 10 and I go, karma, nah.
She’s like, what are you for going to the land?
You’re more angry now.
And I’m like, sorry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You’re, you’re ruining my wall.
And then she tries to murder me.
So that’s how we go.
My first stock up is immersing yourself in another culture.
So without doing this black thorn, he would most likely be dead.
You know, his head would have been chopped off.
Or if not, he surely wouldn’t be hot to moat.
You know, they talk about also in this boot isn’t thing or like the eight folds
or just like compartmentalizing stuff in your life.
You know, he totally puts his past life in a different compartment,
especially after his Sepuku attempt, which was awesome, by the way.
So he kind of puts that stuff inside and just like totally embraces the Japanese culture,
whether it be like the cleanliness, respect, the ceremony of it all.
Just the general idea that life and death are the same thing.
Karma is karma. You know, you might as well enjoy the moment and not
tell you where about to much about what comes.
And that’s a lot of what happens.
I feel like in books two and three, it’s not a ton of action.
I mean, it’s almost zero.
But there’s a lot of relationship building and also just like learning about
Japanese culture and seeing his journey through this as someone who’s
completely a fish out of water.
The kimono is starting to fit a little nicer.
You know, that kind of thing.
Well, could we talk about the Sepuku ver, ver, ver, ver, ver,
because I feel like he went zero to 100 real, real quick there for a guy that’s, you know,
Christian and says like, oh, you can’t commit suicide.
You can’t do all this stuff.
He just starts saying like, can you chew on?
And then like five minutes later, he’s like, fuck it.
I’ll take my own life.
I’m like, whoa, whoa, wait, what?
I can’t live with the shame.
I’ll just send you can’t live with the shame.
What kind of reminded me of like, Neo seeing the Matrix after he did that?
He just started like seeing things differently.
I was like, that’s actually pretty sick.
Yeah.
But I didn’t understand how do you block a sword
that you’re about to stick into your heart?
He just straight up grabbed the blade like a psychopath.
Like, oh me.
Oh, this hand.
Like straight up grabbed the blade with his hands.
But I think blackthorn was kind of doing like, the thrust, you know,
you have to kind of like pull out to like thrust in, you know, to kind of get that momentum.
So I think Omi was just waiting for that moment.
And he just grabbed the actual blade itself, because they said like his hands were bleeding
all over the place and stuff like that.
I was more wondering how he still had fingers, because that blade’s super sharp.
A grown man is trying to push that into his chest as hard as he can.
Like, your slice and yourself bad.
He’s like double the size of everyone there, right?
Yeah, I don’t know about double, but yeah, we’ll say 1.2.
Well, in certain places, winged.
Yeah, absolutely.
We’ll get there.
Yeah, it was a wild scene.
And I think it was kind of funny to me.
And like, that was more of a lingering question.
He cares so much about these peasants.
And they’re like, you know, why do you care about these peasants?
You know, why do you care about their lives?
And blackthorn’s like, oh, that shall not kill.
But wasn’t he just in South America murdering people and taking villages and shit?
So what’s the difference?
But well, let me finish this with immersing yourself in other culture.
Because it’s very important today considering you’re about to embark
on an epic adventure of your own.
And I thought I’d get you started on the right track.
Okay?
So Australians, in case you didn’t know, they speak English.
I’m going to Australia, by the way, just tell us that.
No, I know that.
No, I’m people that don’t know you’re just going to be like, so.
Yeah, so Australians, they speak English, although they have a very colorful vocabulary.
Okay?
I think you’re going to like this part.
The attentive value sincerity, this is from the internet,
like some Australian, Australian hospitality things.
That’s the fact.
The attentive value sincerity, humor, informality,
whilst loathing pretentiousness.
And you’re going to really like this part.
There is often an element of humor, often self-deprecating in their speech.
So you don’t need to do your black throwing transformation.
This is you.
Yeah, I’m already in here.
You’re already Australian.
They often use call for language that would be unthinkable in other countries.
So if an Australian calls you a cunt, don’t take offense.
That means they think you’re a good bloke.
That’s all you need to know.
I’ll be dropping that day one right off the airplane.
I’m like, “Oh, good day, mate.
Yeah, cunts.”
Yeah, they be like, “Let’s go grab a fulst as I’m having a Bobby.”
That’d be great.
What else do you have for stock up?
stock up being insane and hypocritical.
We don’t talk about themes in this part, ever really.
But this is a major theme of the book, right?
These two factors.
Being insane and hypocritical?
Yeah, both of us.
So let me start with Dath Overall, the earthquake hit.
Right before that,
Mariko is talking to Black Thorn about how these things hit the island all the time.
And she’s like, “And that’s why as Japanese people,
we savored life so much.
And we just live it up to the fullest.”
And I’m like, “Oh, that makes sense.”
But then I’m like, “Wait a second.
What?”
You guys aren’t about that all.
Every single paragraph,
one guy’s like, “I’ll kill myself right now.
I don’t care about shit.
I’m ready to die.”
I’m like, “Once again, we’re hearing a story from pretty much the royal class,
which is the thing about history is like,
unfortunately, as it is.
The people that write history are usually men and they’re usually wealthy.
It’s a really bad way of looking at things.
So I think that in these rich people’s mind,
they’re like, “We live life every day.
We enjoy it because they’re doing flower arranging
and they’re meditating and they’re going swimming when they want to and hawking.
They’re doing lots of hawking.”
Well, the peasants are legitimately waiting for you to shit in a bucket
so they can mix it with water and put it in a rice patty.
Like, I don’t think that guy’s living life to his fullest.
Okay, that, I guess, makes a little bit more…
I mean, but still, on every single second,
there’s someone being like, “I’ll kill myself right now.”
100%.
And gladly do it.
I will happily do it.
I do want to know how you felt about the brief explanation
that people just relieve themselves
whenever they want, however they want, wherever they want.
Who’s writing that history down?
They’re talking about like farting and pissing and all this stuff.
Like, they’re getting into details.
I’m like, is this written in some history books
that he’s pulling this over?
Or does like James Cavill just have like a funny sense of humor?
No, supposedly he did.
I mean, obviously he did extensive research.
That goes without question.
But yeah, this is…
people have said in terms of like Japanese history and…
No, they’re farting.
Oh, yeah, that still happens.
That still happens in turn-up, yeah.
And that’s like the sumo wrestling one sushi contest too
and then farting contestaries that like the hierarchy.
And I could be totally making this out,
but I’m pretty sure I read an article about like a town
that still has like a farting competition
or whatever in Japan.
But I respect-
Just the idea of like Lord Torinaga
in the middle of a walkway,
just like chatting with someone.
You know what?
I gotta take a dump and squatting down, pooping.
Everyone just politely looks away while he poops.
Yeah.
And then a peasant comes up,
finds it and scoops it up like you would your dog’s poop
but then mixes it with water and puts it in his rice paddy.
It was hilarious and I was a little bit jealous, honestly.
I was like, that’s…
I’m, you know, we’ve talked about how, you know,
in a corporate culture, if you’re in the bathroom
and someone else is there, it’s like, well, I’m waiting now.
You know, I’m…
I wanna push back on that.
I think the…
My Zen and my karma, when I open up my third eye,
my inner vana is the five minutes of taking an argy in the bathroom.
Okay, so don’t…
You dare take that away from me.
I need that.
Five minutes arrive on that.
Five minutes of in the Zen,
the other 15 minutes I’m trying to push it out.
I’m not.
All right.
You continue your insanity, yeah.
Yeah, I think you’re delvening it.
You’re insanity.
And then they talk about how Japanese are so well trained
and like, emotion-wise, they’re like so superior.
Someone like slurps like their ramen
or their, like, sake wrong and they’re like,
“What a great offense!

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00:12:57,200 –> 00:12:58,240
I’m gonna take this dude’s head off.”
There’s so many instances where like someone says a slight offense
and they’re like, “I need to protect this dude’s body.
I’m gonna if I can stab him or kill him.”
They just jump to these like extremes so quickly
yet they’re like, “Oh, we don’t have emotions.
We hauled everything back.”
It’s like, “Huh?
Like, I don’t…
It doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
You’re doing the most insane things
over a little, smallest detail.”
Yeah, but maybe, you know, kind of like Father Domingo said
when we met him in jail when Black Thorne was, you know,
sat the Osaka jail, it’s that the Japanese have one punishment
for everything and it’s death.
Like, yeah, sometimes, randomly,
they’ll decide, “No, we’re gonna crucify them.”
But 99.9% of the time, it’s, “Okay, you’re gonna die.”
So it kind of simplifies things a bit.
So it’s like, instead of being like, “Oh, what’ll happen if I
offend this person?”
You’re just like, “Oh, I’ll die.”
Like, that’s it, you know?
That’s fair, but I would think that if someone were like,
“Hey, I don’t have any emotions, then things don’t get on your skin.

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Things don’t make you upset.”
Yeah, but unlike Australia, where like,
face doesn’t matter, face matters so much here in terms of like,
saving face and making sure you’re not insulting another person
outwardly.
And that’s why I love this book for some reason is because they have all these subtle
jabs, like when they were talking about Ashido or his messenger that came
that they ended up killing like Jojian or whatever his name was.
They are like, “Oh, I can’t believe, like, we wouldn’t allow peasants like that,”
or whatever the case is knowing he’s a peasant,
but it still passes by as like, an insult, but it’s not an insult.
So I love that, like, interracity of the language, but I do agree with you.
I seem like the insults there, but they’re pretty emo.
They’re like, “How dare you say that about my vessel?”
You know, and then just like, go off the hinge off that.
Them always being like, “We’re so superior in terms of like hiding.”
It’s like, “No, you’re like super emo about everything.”
Maybe you’re not showing it her face, but you’re still about to go to war over the smallest.
Yeah, well, and this was in one of my loves,
so I’m going to burn it right now, but with this section of the book,
is like the ever-increasing scope we’re learning so much more about
who the power players are, how they’re maneuvering,
but also the continued learning about the Japanese culture of the time,
because I totally agree with you.
It seems like there are so many conflicting things,
like killing in honor, but then also,
you can like, terribly kill people sometimes,
like the guy I was talking about before is Shido’s messenger,
Joseph, who they just brutally murdered him and all of his men,
including him, who they like stabbed and then like, let him crawl and then like,
stabbed again and then like, cut his belly and then like,
and let him continue to die.
It’s like, “Whoa, like that’s fucked up.”
And women in this society, they have status and power.
It’s not outward power, but they have power.
At this time, if you could be in any culture,
being a rich woman in this society would be probably up there compared to other places.
So at the same time, they have to like,
dot on the men and run the household.
They eat before or after the men eat because they have to have all their attention on the men.
It’s just like, there’s so many juxtapositions in the culture that it’s fascinating,
yet it obviously works because I would probably rather be in this culture,
even though I could die immediately, then going back to it, Black Thorne, he was reminiscing about
home with shit everywhere and like, fleas and dogs sleeping on your face.
Like, I mean, my dog does that sometimes, but you know what I’m saying?
You know what I’m saying?
It’s like, “Oh, this culture has this order works.”
I think that is what the book is about is just like,
it’s really just about culture and insanity and hypocrisy.
But anyway, there’s a couple more real quick, I know I’ve been going along here.
Oh, them getting disgusted over meat, Black Thorne likes meat other than fish?
Yeah, what that fesin?
If I went to a butcher shop, I would be disgusted too.
I’d probably be throwing out.
It’d be shocking to me, but you just mentioned, “Oh, what’s going on in the square?”
Like, “Oh yeah, Subhukko, you just watched this guts fall out.
I saw some seafood come through his stomach and fall on the ground.”
Yeah, typical Tuesday, not a big deal, you know?
How’s everything going with you?
Like, that’s their Tuesday afternoon for them.
So the fact that they’re like, “Wait, a fesins there?
Why would you be disgusted by that?”
I can see them being disgusted by someone like eating it
because, to us, it’d be like eating eel or something.
It’d be like, “Oh, I don’t want to watch someone do that.
That’s gross because I’m not used to it.”
I get that, but then being like, “How could you even kill this animal
and put it somewhere?”
It’s like, “You guys see human bodies and entrails everywhere?”
Yeah, this is not a big deal.
I couldn’t agree with you more when they’re gutting the fes-
or when Black Thorne’s showing them and it’s he’s gutting the fes-
and everyone’s like, “Oh, it’s like what?
There’s literally men screaming and dying in the streets and getting gutted.”
I’ve also had the privilege of going to Japan when I was a young man
and watch them prepare eels for sushi or whatever.
It was pretty messed up in that they grab an eel from a barrel.
They drive a nail through its head while it’s slidding around,
cut open its belly, pull all its innards out,
and then prepare the eel.
It’s just like any other, like, a fish is the same way.
If you can, they said they go whale hunting.
What do you think they do when they get whale?
A whale is a giant, intelligent mammal.
That thing’s not so pretty when it’s dying, I’m sure.
But I agree that the eating aspect of it, I can understand that being.
I could get that.
And not just the Japanese, the Europeans obviously,
but Black Thorne is more the definition of insanity.
He keeps on having these temper tantrums and like,
Wow, would you ever do that in screaming at people?
And because of that, someone has to die.
And then he gets upset that they die.
And then he starts getting upset, moody, or is that-
A little gardener?
– Yeah, and then he gets more upset,
and then they kill another person.
And then he keeps doing it in this circle of unending moodyness and death.
And he just can’t figure out, maybe I should just not freak out every time
saying bad happens and just learn from my mistakes.
It’s like, what are you doing?
And then I don’t even need to mention religion
and all the hypotheses around that.
That’s clearly been covered in very, very obvious in this book,
how stupid a lot of this thing is, things are around religion or so.
I’ll leave it at that.
But yeah, Europeans aren’t any better.
Spain, Yeah, the Spaniards and the Portuguese.
Like, oh, we’re doing it for God.
Just terrible. – But they have conquistadors.
– Yeah, the old gardener’s death, it hit me a little hard.
It was one of the things I did remember from reading it was the fessant,
him letting the fessant rot, and then old gardener
having a go to the great void.
But I thought Tornadoga handled it well.
I thought it was A really good explanation.
– Yeah, it was like, who’s going to decide to do it?
It’s not a democracy, but it is.
The people can get together and decide, okay, what is best for the household?
It’s disturbing the wall of the community.
The old gardener’s like, I’ve been feeling a lot of pain.
I’m not doing my job very well.
I think I should be honored to take this fessant down and bury it
and then we’ll give my life for it.
So, okay, cool, cool, cool.
Everyone agrees?
We’re in. Done.
I did like how Black Thorn afterwards had realized, okay, I’m at fault too.
You know, you can’t just sit there and blame everyone else.
Like, I said, don’t get the fessant.
Yeah, well, he still does it continuously, But yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
– He gets to do that’s hunting killed later on.
And he’s like, oops, but can I add an addendum?
I would be all for this society if instead of doing that,
we get a little opium or something going.
You know, I know opium’s a little bigger out there.
Get that going, a little ritual before, and then you cut my head off.
Instead of cutting my guts open and suffering for a long time,
we do a little something, something, take the pain away, and then, you know, it’s over.
– Yeah, old gardener should be like, give me 15 minutes with Kiku and…
There we go.
See, now you’re speaking my language.
Yeah, then, you know, put me out.
I’ll be happy.
Speaking about Kiku, my next talk-up is going out for tea.
So, tea houses are much different in 1600s, Japan,
then they are like going out for high tea in England.
It’s kind of crazy to me that it took until the swing in 60s
and a special guy named Austin Powers to start loosening up the morals
of the Western world.
And not in Japan, though.
You know, they’ve been sexually free since before the Kami.
I honestly loved, and this is the beginning of part two,
the conversation when Mariko really had just met
Black Thorn, and there in Osaka Castle,
and she’s asking if he wants to be pillowed,
or whatever the case is, they’re pillowing,
and he got all upset and no one understood why.
And so, like, the samurai there was like,
Oh, please, excuse me.
But maybe he’s impotent, and she’s like,
I don’t think he’s impotent, or whatever,
and they’re like, “Oh, so sorry, Mariko-san.”
But maybe the engine wants a duck.
Should I fetch him a duck?
He was like, “There was that other guy who liked to have sex with ducks.”
Like, maybe he likes ducks.
It was… I thought that was probably the funniest part
of the book for me so far, because they just couldn’t possibly
understand why this guy was so chast when it came to pillowing.
But back to the T-house, though,
you know, we learn about a lot of stuff
when Black Thorn has his night with Kiku,
Mariko as well, is there, but we learn, you know,
about the importance of prolonging the moments
of the clouds in the rain.
How have you been practicing?
I had to stock up edging back in the day,
you know, that was.
I didn’t know, yeah.
Right, right.
Have you been practicing as a question?
I’m always practicing. I’m constantly learning.
How about any pillowing apparatus, you know,
the Harugata or the Konami Shinju, aka the Pleasure Fools?
I had the fan over my mouth
and was blushing, furiously reading that,
so I couldn’t even feel what was going on.
It was just a wild scene.
I’m now like, I’m getting obsessed
with Japanese culture of the time.
And…
We’re gonna watch this show, right?
Oh, a billion percent.
I’m so jazzed, because I love the 80s one.
And if people are like itching to see it
and haven’t seen the 80s one, it’s so good.
Yeah, I just thought the T.L. stuff was super funny
and like, oh, I was saying I’ve been kind of diving
to the culture, but I watched Blue-eyed Samurai,
which is on Netflix, or I started watching it.
And it takes place in 1630, so it’s like, kind of like,
right after this thing finishes.
And it’s funny seeing some of the similarities
between the stories where, you know,
there’s guys selling his daughter off and he’s like,
“Oh, you have to learn the 12 and 20 positions

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00:23:06,640 –> 00:23:09,360
and like gives her like pictures of the 12.”
And he’s like, “Don’t worry so much about the 20.”
Like, that’s more for women of the willow world.
I just enjoy all this, this sexual stuff.
It’s kind of, it’s funny to me, not like, sexually enjoyable,
but I enjoy it either way.
Do you have any other stockups?
Yeah, last stock up, second amendment.
Is this book secretly written by the NRA?
Is that what you wanted to get out of this?
Is that what we’re going for?
I know it’s 50 hours in, but you know,
secretly it’s just the whole thing is about why guns are important
to a society in the only way to keep the,
the popular’s down is to not give them guns.
I was like, “This is straight out of the handbook of the NRA.
Is that what you’re giving me, demon?”
We were like, “What was going on here?”
Yeah, it’s a good point.
Unfortunately, it just allows any old person
to have a gun and kill a samurai or anyone really,
so that’s the unfortunate part of it.
Yeah, well, yeah.
That’s not gonna be funny,
but let’s go get to our Jesus.
Oh, I’m sorry.
I had, my last one was keeping your own council as a stock up.
You know, people think, you know,
you got to feel it out by getting other people,
but not our boy who we really haven’t talked about.
Yoshi Torinaga, no chicky-tada minowar, Sama,
our absolute gangster.
Torinaga, he always keeps his real plan so close to the vest
in a society where spies are known, like everyone has spies.
I could understand not wanting to let really,
even he doesn’t even let Naga, like his own son,
know what’s going on, or Kiro Matsu.
Kiro Matsu is like, to your point,
has asked to kill himself like 20 times,
because he’s like, “Why are you doing this to yourself, Lord?
Like, let me just slip my own belly now.”
I guess he doesn’t really keep his plan close to the vest.
He keeps it close to the kimono.
The thing is, he’s such an interesting leader
because he does listen to counselors, especially Mariko,
which is interesting, you know,
he puts a lot of stock into what she says.
But he never tells them what he’s actually doing
and is constantly saying one thing,
but probably planning another.
I really liked the, when he had all of his counselors together,
and then pulled Mariko to the side afterwards,
and was like, you know, what do you think is going on?
What are the cases?
And she is probably the smartest, I know of all of them.
And like, broke it down.
I was like, “Uh, I think humans at Zataki
have like a, see their sidebargain
or your planning to bring them over.
Like, there’s no way you’re just going to submit.”
Like, it’s just not going to happen.
Yet, he’s continued to toe that line.
So, I’m interested in what you think he’s going to do
because he’s been saying, you know, “I don’t want the Shogunate.
I’ve never wanted it.
I don’t want more lands.
I’m not interested in that.
I’m also going to do Crimson Sky
at some point.”
But then he’s kind of like backing off Crimson Sky.
What do you think about that?
You really set me up for my “Stock Down,”
which is kind of bright aligned with that.
You’re not going to like this one, probably,
but “Stock Down” star wars episode eight
because of this.
Which one’s episode eight?
The last Jedi.
So, one of the worst movies of all time.
I mean, this stock is bankrupt.
It’s Enron.
So, I mean, me selling it is, really, not doing much for that.
Terrible movies.
So, that’s the one where they’re just on a ship the whole time.
The main person, Vice Admiral Holdo.
Remember, she’s doing all these things,
but she’s not telling anyone about anything.
Yeah.
And just like,
everything seemingly doing the dumbest things.
She must want something bad to happen,
or she must be a bad person.
You know, all you’re just assuming all these things,
but she’s just not telling you anything.
That’s what Toronaga is kind of doing to all of his people, right?
He’s just like not telling them anything.
Everyone’s like, “Yeah, bro, what are you doing?”
And they’re all rightfully questioning him.
So, I like Toronaga and have strategic ears
and he’s like, “I know there’s spies in here.
I can’t tell him everything.”
But at the same time,
there’s people that are about to like,
fuck and cut your head off
because you’re doing so dumb stuff
and they don’t want to follow you anymore.
You’re just lucky that no one’s done that yet.
I’m sure he has something up his sleeve.
I’m sure he knows what he’s doing and he’s smart,
but he hasn’t built up that trust enough
and he’s not really confiding in any of his like,
top people what his actual plan is.
So, no one really knows what they should trust him or not
because all their lives are in the line too.
So, I don’t know.
That’s what I kind of feel like.
Yeah, well, spies are a foot,
and I’ve read this before,
but I don’t remember like the specific details,
so I’m not really giving anything away.
But we also have to remember that Torinaga is a great actor.
But they’ve said that several times
that he loves to not only see plays,
but like act in plays because they keep saying,
Oh, Torinaga is weak,
and he’s just like submitting to Ishito.
Like, why is he doing this?
Well, I figured that in the Star Wars thing also,
they try to throw a mutiny.
They try to overthrow the person.
That could happen to him,
or he could assassinate by one of his own people.
Like, that’s not out of the realm of possibility
that happens all the time.
This is pretty risky to act like this, you know?
Yeah, and it’s interesting just in power itself
and how to obtain power,
because more often than not,
you have to really risk it all.
And in a culture like this where they risk it all
in the daily, as you’ve already pointed out,
like, he’s going to the max with that.
Yabu could see that I’m weak,
especially that time when he came off the boat
when they brought Anjin back,
and he gave Yabu his swords,
and then turned back and asked to view his regiments
and then got on his boat.
Like, he could have just been killed right there.
He strategically got out of that situation.
So I think he’s pulling together all the stuff
that we’ve kind of talked about,
especially when it comes to like,
Buddhism and karma, and saying,
“I’m gonna go down this path.

679
00:28:32,800 –> 00:28:35,120
If it doesn’t work out, that’s karma, ne?”
But I’m gonna go for it no matter what.
I do agree that maybe, you know,
he should let some people in on
on what his eventual real plan is,
but he can’t really trust Naga.
He talks about everyone as a hawk,
which I really like, you know,
“Oh, is this person, you know, someone

688
00:28:50,000 –> 00:28:51,280
that you let them die of at?

689
00:28:51,280 –> 00:28:53,520
Is this someone you put them on your sleeve?”
And feed them gently.
You know, so he knows how to deal with people.
It seems like he’s kind of operating
on a different plane than everyone else.
I trust that Torinaga has a master plan,
and he’s not just gonna go in
and go to the regents and submit,
and consent to him.
– I do too, but you know what I’m all about.
Let’s get the team, let’s get the boys involved.
Let’s get everyone fucking rallied against,
you know, I’m more for that.
Like, if we’re gonna win, I’d rather win with everyone,
rather than win and just me take the credit.
I like to him at first,
because he’s kind of moving the chest pieces
around the board,
but at the same time, I want to bring the whole squad with me.
I don’t want to just be like, this is the guy, you know?
– And we’ve seen glimpses of him as like a general,
like when he’s reviewing the company and whatnot,
and being like, “Oh, okay, this guy’s a guy that’s a leader.”
Like, you know he’s a leader.
So right now, we’re really seeing him,
like you said, move around the chest pieces and whatnot,
but I think once we get to the point
where he has to rally his banners,
it’s gonna be like, “Oh shit,
this is why this guy has literally never lost a battle.”
– I also think once Omi starts questioning you,
that’s when I’m like, “Oh, because I feel like Omi
seems to be smart, pretty smart, pretty on it.”
And like, once he’s like, “Oh, this dude’s an idiot.”
I was like, “Uh-oh, like, you don’t want that.
You want Omi on yourself?”
Yeah, well to me, I totally agree with you.
On the Omi stuff, but to me, it’s like when Omi starts questioning it,
that’s when it’s like, “Wow, you’ve actually tricked everyone.”
Like, Toronaga, you’ve actually thrown everyone off your scent.
Spoilers?
– No, I don’t, like I said, I don’t know,
but he actually like has thrown everyone off of his scent
of what he’s actually gonna do, that Omi can’t even see it.
My first talk down, speaking about Yabu,
is hand-shake deals.
People say, “Oh, let’s shake on it.”
This doesn’t do anything.
No, let’s piss on it.
So, Yabu and Toronaga,
they have a very interesting conversation in Osaka,
and they’re at like the top of a tower.
And Yabu thinks he’s going there for one thing,
but Toronaga is actually like being super nice to him,
and he’s confused.
There’s tons at stake here.
It’s a heavy scene.
We hear Matsu’s there with them, and he’s like,
What are you doing?
And he pretty much–
– You’re Matsu just only says.
Yeah, exactly.
Let me kill myself.
Let me do it.
– Um, and he pretty much tells Yabu,
“Yeah, I’m gonna give you this musket regiment.

755
00:31:06,800 –> 00:31:07,520
You’re gonna train them.”
You’re gonna use the enchanted sign in.
Yabu’s like, “All right, great.”
And they stand on top of this giant castle,
and piss hundreds of feet down onto it.
Like, either of them could have pushed
the other one off kind of thing,
but it’s just, it’s a great way to sign a deal.
Yeah, I stood for it.
I stood for it.
So, that’s my stocked down hand-shake deals.
We’re gonna start peeing out of it from that one.
you can still shake on it.
Oh, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
That’s good, anyways.
what else do you got?
– You kind of looted it earlier, but stocked down,
doctors/medical studies.
I haven’t been to a physical in like 15 years.
I don’t really know if things have changed.
Every physical I went to back in the day
when I was growing up.
You know, the standard checkups, you know,
measure height, weight, blood work, any of that stuff,
maybe do any drugs, you know,
much to your alcohol intake.
What are you eating, all that stuff?
But no, what they don’t talk about, D-Man,
is your pillowing habits.
Specifically, being like, “You need more.”
Get the ginger out of here, get the apple of days,
keeps the doctor away.
Get the pillowing into the school books,
into the medical studies.
The Japanese, no, no, they’re doing.
That is really what keeps your spirit alive.
That’s what you need for a good health,
breach it.
And that’s why I was unhealthy for like 30 years of my life.
So… (laughs)
– I always see every time they talk about this stuff,
like when’s the last time he’s pillowed?
Or like, it, Murray goes like, “Angean son,
you should take someone else besides me. Like, you’re gonna need some time to like, have some pillowing.”
It just reminds me of Matthew McConaughey’s character
in Wolfel Wall Street when he’s like,
Hey, how many times do you jog after that?
He’s like, “What?”
I jog after like three times a day.
It gets rid of the things or whatever.
It’s like, “That’s all I see is like,
“Japany’s Matthew McConaughey being like,

808
00:32:37,760 –> 00:32:38,960
Oh, that’s bad.”
You’re getting bad commies around you. You got to fix your wall, man.”
– Well, Blackdorn’s a perfect example too,
because he’s in like this moody,
wild-to-hingeous guy.
And once he starts pillowing,
he’s like, “All of a sudden in a good mood,
he’s feeling good about himself.
He’s like, “Yeah, right there.
That’s perfect.
That’s the case study.
– Yeah, he almost kissed Kiku on the porch, he was so excited,
which would have been, “Oh, oh, oh, not good at all.”
No.
– I can’t be doing that.
– Yeah, I can’t be doing that.
My next talk down are,
I know, I talked about Yaboo before, but here we go.
Fences, in general.
Yaboo is living on the fence.
He shouldn’t have a fence.
He shouldn’t even understand what a fence is.
He can’t commit insensivity to Torinaga or Aishido.
And his wife seems like she gives decent counsel.
For some reason, she’s not doing it
and he’s like deciding in the moment one thing
and then switching over the next.
I just feel like it’s all gonna come back on him
because Torinaga is the–
– He’s a politician.
he Just blows up the wind, yeah.
– He’s a western politician in an Eastern world
and in this world, it’s not gonna work.
So I feel like bad things are coming for Yaboo.
– That’s pretty evident.
And I mean, once you said, “But character that loves torture,”
there’s really no redeeming arc for those people
who goes kinda to the characters usually.
– Yeah, when like Goku or Giyoku,
or someone is like remembering his dad
and he’s like, “Oh, yes, he used to also, yeah, it was Giyoku.”
he also loved him.
he also loved to boil barbarians and boil his enemies.
It’s like, “Oh, wow, these people are fucked in the head.”
what else do you ever stocked up?
Saying hand up, or so sorry, stock down.
stock down?
– Yeah, I feel like everyone’s tripping over themselves
to take blame for things.
Things will happen that’s like the guard on the other county,
you know, let someone buy them and that’s my fault.
It’s like, what?
They just keep on saying, like, “Oh my bad,
you should kill me for the incompetence of like some dude,
three miles away who didn’t cook the rice the right way.”
It’s like, what?
All it’s doing is making actual apologies, not worth anything
because if you just say sorry for everything,
then sorry doesn’t mean anything.
So it really just repeats the whole purpose of saying hand up.
When I say hand up, I mean hand up, you know,
I know I messed up.
If I just said hand up every second, then what does it matter?
There’s no such things, hand up, everything’s hand up.
– Yeah, and it calls for a saving face, it’s important.
I do like when the conversations, especially like arguments,
because you can’t have arguments, of course, not,
like in a formal setting.
So it’s always like, “Oh, so sorry.”
Like this is what it means, like, “Mmm, so sorry.”
Even Giyoku and Mariko, or Giyoku and Torinaga,
negotiating about contracts or something,
like in these negotiation settings, it’s like,
so sorry, and then they humble themselves,
and then you have to, so say, “So sorry,” and humble yourself.
– Well, you can beat the shit out of your wife,
but as long as it doesn’t disturb other people around,
it may cannot, you can’t do that.
That’s the apology, to say, like, if it’s too loud.
Yeah, exactly.
I ruined the town’s wall.
Like, “Oh, sorry, I beat my wife under your household.”
Like, that’s the apology.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
Crazy, crazy.
That scene with Boontaroo and Angin’s on,
and having a sake off straight out of beer fest.
And then–
– That’s gonna be really good.
– That’s gonna be good on the show, yeah.
And also, like, how often does Boontaroo practice archery?
Because he shot four arrows through one slit
in the tabby, or whatever, and they all hit the post,
where he hadn’t seen it in, you know, an hour,
and he was drunk, like, I don’t know, good for him.
I was speaking about Boontaroo,
my next knockdown in last one is couples therapy.
So people do this in the Western world,
but you don’t need it.
You don’t need it.
Just have a child know you.
You know, have a tea ceremony.
You settle your differences.
You know, you make a beautiful,
far, far arrangement, you clean the place up.
You pour her tea.
She says that, “Oh, no, no, no, you.
You say no, no, you.”
And she says, “No, you.”
And then you say, “No, you.”
And then she drinks it and she says,
“Wow, it’s perfect temperature.

921
00:36:19,920 –> 00:36:20,840
This is beautiful.”
All that stuff.
And then you both agree that at the end of this,
you’ll kill each other.
And you’re fine.
– Yeah, that’s a cult.
It’s a fairly cool.
You get to drink the tea, you know,
the puncher ever?
Yeah.
That’s that’s what you want to do.
– In autumn, we’ll kill each other.
Or I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill myself.
It’s like, “Oh, I’m so happy right now.
I could die.”
Is an actual saying there.
That’s what basically what happened.
yeah.
– You didn’t have any loves you wanted to discuss, right?
Yeah, I pretty much covered everything.
Yeah, I talked about mine In terms of the scope
and whatnot.
And I’m just going to run through it quickly
because, you know, we’ve got to talk about
some like general ideas and whatnot,
but these two books, book two and book three,
are two individual books on their own.
Like, we didn’t even talk about so much stuff
that could be in here, you know.
The whole Osaka stuff we really haven’t talked about,
like a Shido’s trap, the, you know,
Onginson’s time in jail,
where he meets father Domingo.
And by the way, the black ship,
which is supposedly going to cast off
with 100,000 ounces of gold this year,
that’s $200 million in today’s market
just so people know, like, how much the black ship is worth.
We got the ninjas or whatever coming for Onginson
like those ninjas deserve a book themselves.
They’re bred from childhood to have for one kill,
like one kill and then afterwards,
they can get Nirvana or something like that.
Toronaga’s escape from the castle
where the Ongins save some again
and as well as the harbor
and then in a sticky situation with Yabu,
we should kind of talk about black throwing being reborn.
Like, there’s so much stuff.
Black throwing pillows, Mariko,
we haven’t even really talked about them pillowing.
And then at the end, they’re on this trip
and they’re just pulling left and right.
It’s, it’s crazy.
We talked about the dinner party,
but yeah, we kind of end it with like,
Toronaga capitulating to Lord Zataki,
so his half brother.
So we’ll see.
So I just think the scope in itself, I love,
there’s so much going on that we can’t even talk about
in this pod where it’s usually,
we’re trying to kind of find things sometimes.
And then my other love,
and this is maybe my number one love for this book,
are the sexual metaphors and insults.
Whenever they come up, I just laugh.
Toronaga talking about the taiko.
Him a stote who sprayed more joyful juice
into more heavenly chambers than 10 ordinary men.
This is so good.
Or Giyoku talking about Mariko and she’s a hagglinger.
She goes, “Mishiri born as a back passage whore
of the 15th rank.”
And then none of the men are used
could unwind the knot of her golden pavilion,
her Jade gate with their turtle heads.
They’re steaming shafts.
I fucking love it all.
It’s so good.
They got so many awesome euphemisms.
It’s great.
Do you have like a favorite scene
or favorite character at this point?
the captain of the other ship.
Brad Riegel.
– Yeah, that guy’s a man.
Yeah, well, love him.
You know who I’m a figure.
Yeah, I remember.
– Yeah, just ’cause he’s just a complete wild card
and he’s playing both sides and I just like them.
– He saves Black Thorn when they’re trying to escape.
He throws him off the ship.
He has this whole plan to save him,
but then towards the end of book three,
he goes and tries to kill him potentially.
He shows up at his house and tries to kill him.
It’s interesting, his passions and his feelings
and obviously he wants his take of the Black Ship.
Like I think he gets like 10%,
so 10% at 200 million and he gets $20 million.
Like he’s gonna be one of the wealthiest men,
but he’s still at the heart of it is a pilot.
Pilots kind of stick out for each other.
It’s gonna be an interesting relationship going forward.
I’m interested to see what happens.
Especially once you saw Black Thorn
is like now becoming Japanese.
He’s like, holy shit, like this isn’t my friend.
This is someone else now.
In terms of my favorite character,
I don’t really, I loved the scene,
the Booter scene that we talked about,
I thought that was great.
I loved the Onjin and the T-house.
That was quite enjoyable.
I mean, Torinaga has to be my favorite
just because he’s enigmatic and also–
Not yet.
I feel like you’re sudden we’re gonna set up for him to be–
– Yeah, but that’s what makes him mastermind.
But again, right now I was upset with his
not bringing the team along, but–
– I just think there’s been so many things
like when Black Thorns and Jailer,
he puts Black Thorn in jail for two reasons.
One, it makes–
it’s so Aschido thinks, oh, he doesn’t care about this guy.
Like he’s throwing him in jail.
So he’s not important because Torinaga
doesn’t think he’s important.
But Torinaga also knows that Father Domingo is in that jail,
but he hasn’t been able to get to him.
Like he hasn’t been able to get someone to talk to him.
He knows this guy knows something who’s in that jail.
So he’s like, I’ll throw Black Thorn in there.
And then the whole thing with Aschido taking Black Thorn out
of the jail, but then Torinaga figuring out a way
to get his hands on him.
It’s like, he’s such a masterclass in strategy
for this particular culture.
So I just think that everything he does,
you kind of have to look at like three different ways.
He’s just so interesting.
So that’s why I like him.
Yeah.
‘Cause even with Kiku’s contract, it’s like,
oh, is he gonna do it for Omi?
Is he gonna do it for Black Thorns?
Like, nah, she’s mine.
It’s like, oh, okay, yeah.
And I like that he’s shrewd.
You know, he’s leaving the end and he’s like,
what’s the bill?
Like, let me look at the bill.
No, Samurai shouldn’t care about money.
He’s like, let me see the bill.
Consider we’re gonna have a brief hiatus
while you’re on your walkabout.
Is there anything that you’d like for our parting words?
Finish up this book.
We’ll be doing that next after this episode.
And then we also got Slotter House 5
by Kurt Vonnegut coming up
and we got a couple more books coming down the road.
Couple movies, couple shows maybe.
Stick with the buddy book club.
Sorry for the break here coming up.
Where I guess some,
this episode’s not gonna be released until after the break.
So sorry for the break, but.
– It’s funny because we’re gonna finish this book
which is like 45 hours or something
and it kind of reminds me of a long road trip
where when I go drive to Michigan, it’s like 16 hours.
And then Slotter House 5 is five hours.
And I’m like, oh, that’s actually just like,
driving to the grocery store.
Like compared to this, you know, cross-country road trip.
– I’m excited for what we got coming up here
and should be good.
All right, love that.
Well, you enjoy your trip and in the interim,
we’ll hold down the fort, but Keith,
that’s show gun part two and part three.
We’ll come back with our final installment
in a couple weeks.
All right. – Sounds good.
Bye now. – Bye now.