Shōgun – TV SHOW – Episode 99

After reading 1,000+ pages, and dedicating 3 episodes to the Shōgun book, the Buddies finally got a chance to complete the new Shōgun FX/Hulu series. They didn’t want to be the people that say “the book is better than the show”, but they spend most of the pod (hopefully not too pretentiously) saying the book was better than the show. They got to talking about the positives of subtitles, swimming naked, and seppuku. So join us as we discuss and watch Mariko, Anjin, Toranaga, and all of our other friends from Shōgun.

Intro (0:00-2:06)
Stock Up/Down & Love/Hate (2:07-30:17)
Book vs Show (30:18-33:50)
Characters & TV Show Notes (33:51-41:21)
Recapping Series & Conclusion (41:22-45:12)

NEXT BOOK: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, welcome buddy book club.
I’m Dylan, here with a guy found on the cutting room floor, along with three quarters of the
novel, Keith.
What’s up, buddy?
Hello, demand.
Well, here’s the buddy book club where we’re going to add some streaming show stoppers.
And this week we’ll be discussing FX slash Hulu’s mini series Shogun.
If you’d like to recommend a book or movie for us to read or watch or we talked to us
about a past episodes, you can visit our website buddybookhub.com or slide into our
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You can listen to us at the end Spotify, wherever you get your podcast.
Download, subscribe, give us a review.
All right, Keith, we read Shogun.
James Claville, Claville, not 100% sure.
We read it.
We did a three-parter on it.
It’s one of my favorite novels of all time.
We did it because I’ve always wanted to do Shogun.
I figured if we did like 50 or 60 episodes, I could convince you to do it or I’ll say
turn to my papers, which I would never do.
I wouldn’t do that to you.
But it helped that they were coming out with the show so then I could even convince you
more because it’s going to be popular.
And we like that stuff.
I will give a caveat to this whole episode.
I don’t know exactly what you’re going to say, but I have a pretty good feeling.
It’s always tough when you watch something that’s adapted from any sort of book that
you’ve just read because it’s a thousand-page novel.
It was so fresh in our minds to then turn around and watch a 10-episode mini series on
it.
I feel like we’re going to have some qualms that I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t reread
the novel after 10.
The last time I read it was 10 years ago and I just watched the show, I would probably
be like, oh, that’s interesting that that happened, which for those that haven’t read
the book, I will say if you watch the show and you felt like, oh, now I can’t read the
book because I’ve seen the show.
Ocon Trier Monfraer, this is a great time to read the book because there is a lot of
differences.
The tone is similar, but just in general, if you want to read the book and feel like you
can’t now, you can.
So enjoy it.
Keith, let’s get into some stockups stockdown.
Stock up for showgun.
The series.
What do you got?
Stock up.
I can ever say it’s where it’s Sepuku.
Sepuku.
Sepuku.
And sex.
Stock up.
Wait, sorry.
Sepuku and sex.
Yeah, that’s right.
I got the same.
I’ll give you the floor.
There’s two things I took away from the book that I don’t think the TV show did a great
job of portraying.
Sepuku and sex cure everything according to the book and I wanted more of that.
I didn’t get enough of it.
I mean, they basically brush over the sex part.
They talk about it a little bit.
There’s talk about love in the show a lot, which isn’t a thing in Japan according to
the book.
That even talking about feelings and love didn’t make any sense.
They talk about more of like sex as like a cure.
It’s like, yeah, yeah, it’s a necessity.
Everyone needs to do it.
We’re in this.
There was a lot more modernization of sex and love in the relationships, which I didn’t
care for.
Honestly, I liked it in the book better.
Yeah.
The other thing is Sepuku or Sepuku.
I didn’t see enough of it.
I mean, anymore.
I wanted more.
I needed more people demanding it and more people asking for it.
Marie Co herself.
That story I thought was a little convoluted at least it was confusing to me.
And knowing her back story from the book, she’s like basically asked her to kill herself
multiple times.
Well, she’s asked her husband to kill her or to let her kill herself.
She comes from her father is disgraced her by killing the Taiko or whatever the case is
like disgraced her family name.
So yeah, she’s got some complicated situations, but she definitely feels like she’s asked
for death many times in the book and doesn’t really happen like that.
I also think it was weird to she’s like, I come from a prestigious family, but like
at the same tone, like everyone’s like, your family sucks.
You’re like, disgrace.
She’s like, my father is a catchy gen side.
It’s like, yeah, the traitor.
You mean the traitor?
That’s why I was like, would you take your grandfather or someone that’s like famous or
yeah, you do.
I think she just that you would say that your line, what she said in the in the show is,
you know, my family’s been Sam right for a thousand thousand years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I went all over the place there, but I thought those those are the two biggest, I think, things
just in terms of how to be more funny than anything.
Those two things were such a big part of such a culture shock as someone that’s reading
how they treated those two things.
So I thought that was kind of funny and they didn’t do a good job in the show, I thought.
By sex, you’re talking about the moment of the clouds in the rain, of course.
There’s too much actual love and relationships, which are gross.
We don’t want that.
We wanted that.
Yeah, it’s interesting that like Kiku, who is the prostitute is like a character in
the first couple episodes, and that’s kind of when you get the more free love and sex,
you know, when Yabu is like, get the boy and her.
It’s like, okay, you know, this is what we’re talking about.
It’s like the swing in sixties, but then after that, yeah, you’re right.
It’s like more relationship based.
And it’s not that sex in the book is portrayed as like transactional.
It’s more of just open.
It doesn’t really matter.
Like it’s, it’s, it’s supposed to be.
There’s no shame.
There’s nakedness everywhere.
Yeah, it’s not even bad.
It’s very open.
And there is that a little bit of that in, in the show, but I don’t think to the level
that you and I were expecting based on the book.
For sure.
My first stock up is subtitles, because I got to say the subtitles in the show were great.
I’m so glad they went that route as opposed to having the whole thing in English because
you just feel more immersed in the story when it is in Japanese.
And this mini series, unlike the 1984, I think it was 84, 1984 version is so much more focused
on the Japanese characters.
And we’re in Japan.
We’re focused on Japanese characters.
Let’s speak for it in Japanese.
So I think that was a really good decision by the producers and whatnot.
I also read that the actors spoke a very old Japanese dial actor, whatever the case
is.
So it’s people that are Japanese from what I understand that were watching the show still
had to breed subtitles for the most part.
Like you could pick up the general idea, but it was like, this is not, it’s not one to
one.
It’d be like, if we were watching a show and they were speaking in like Shakespeare in
English, you’d be very confused.
I saw an interview with Bill Burr recently.
I don’t even know what it was on, but he, I think he was talking about Bill Mayer, who
I can’t stand, but he was talking about making Breaking Bad and how they were so tied into
the details that it made it awesome.
He said when him and the other guy were sitting on that giant pile of money, the showrunners
calculated how much Walter White would have made in the whole process and made sure that
the money was a very good approximation to that.
So I was like, what?
It seems like an unnecessary detail, but you know when people take those details that
they care?
Well, I guess I’ll ask you first, like were you cool to subtitles?
Yeah, I liked it because when we talked about the book, I thought that if they made the
TV show, they would have to have be in Japanese.
Otherwise, you don’t really get the experience.
If you want it from Andrew in the experience, you don’t really get that unless they’re not
speaking, you know, it wouldn’t make any sense if they’re speaking English and he comes
and he’s like, what do you guys say?
It’s like, what?
It doesn’t make you sad.
Do you have a favorite subtitle movie?
What’s the World War II World War I one when we launched?
That was a good one.
Oh, yeah, there you go.
Quite on the Western Front.
Yeah, that was really good.
Yeah.
I think one of my favorite movies for especially like a warm military movie is Das Boot, which
is about like a German U-boat during the end of World War II.
That’s a really good movie.
And you don’t really see World War II movies from a German perspective, but I mean, I think
Germany was losing like 40% of their U-boats.
So it’s pretty crazy to think that you’re stepping on it.
It’s literally a 50-50 if you step off.
I also like Pan’s Labyrinth.
If you haven’t seen that, that’s wonderful.
It’s like, Hori Fairy Tale thing.
It’s really good.
That’s a D-Man movie all day.
Oh, man.
Heart CD man.
Stop it now.
Here we go.
And you might like this Cinema Paradiso, another very good movie.
My mother introduced me to this.
It’s a rom-com, I guess you would say.
Oh, yeah.
It’s more rom-com.
But that’s a good one.
And there’s also this new Godzilla movie that just is on Netflix, Godzilla-1.
Also in Japanese, that’s supposedly really, really good.
So check that one out.
What else do you have for stock-up?
Well, I told you before the episode that my notes were terrible and this will just prove
that out.
No, that’s not what you said.
You said, my notes are terrible.
Yeah, that’s right.
I think you should leave in the Goonies stock-
Oh, yes.
Especially, I think you should leave.
It’s probably the latter for you.
I know you’re making me go.
Why am I blinking on what I think you should leave is?
That’s the sketch show.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Tim Robinson.
But when they go to the regions and they’re showing them around and that one guy has the
mask on and I’m like, oh, what’s that all about?
And they’re like, oh, yeah, leprosy.
And I’m like, oh, yeah, that’s cool.
That’s a cool, like, a little mysterious thing.
I like that until they took his mask off and he looked at, like, I don’t know if you’ve
seen the sketch of, and I think you should leave.
He’s wearing the prosthetics face.
Sketch, have you seen that?
You can see the mall, but he’s in a mall and he’s wearing prosthetics.
He’s like, this is so warm.
He’s like, this is a terrible decision.
That’s what the guy looked like, a combination of that and the guy from slaw.
And the guy that says, hey, you guys.
It’s just two combinations.
So any time the scene happened, they showed him.
I just was thinking that the whole time I couldn’t read.
I couldn’t do anything.
So it took me completely out of the show, but it did remind me of those two great show
and movie.
I was thinking of the general from Lord of the Rings, the bad guy general.
The stone flies at him and he spits on it.
He’s like kind of like warthog looking.
We’re saying some pretty good looking people here.
So yeah, so it was definitely a I had to look up leprosy just to make sure that what
it looked like.
I think it’s like kind of like that.
That would be like a very, very extreme version.
I also thought it was super contagious.
So I’m shocked that he’s just like chilling out there and hanging out with everyone.
I think my only knowledge of leprosy from like Princess Mononoke, which is also Japanese
and maybe it was big in Japan at some point.
Yeah, and there’s like a bunch of lepers in that as well.
My next and final stock up is being visually unimpaired.
And I apologize to the visually impaired out there.
It’s not a dig by any means.
But I had to say the unimpaired action because I felt like one of the other great things
that the show did was the costumes and the set pieces.
Yeah, for sure.
After reading the book, there’s so much dialogue and there’s so much to learn about these
characters that it’s hard, especially for someone like me who have talked about before
having trouble visualizing things.
It was hard to really put them in a scene.
It could have been in stranger things when they go on the upside down and it’s just
character standing in the black talking to each other.
That’s kind of how I was when I was reading the book.
Still very enjoyable, but I didn’t get the epicness of how cool that era must have been
in Japan.
I mean, just the intricacy of the clothing.
They got four different kimonos on that are all different colors and they’re over kimono
is this incredibly decorated silk.
I didn’t even know there was hats.
They were hats, the men.
Those hats, I was like, oh, did they mention that?
The woman walked too was crazy to me.
They were doing the little like each foot.
The tiny steps.
Yeah, because you can’t with the kimono, you’re tied in there.
Oh, that’s why?
I thought that was like a…
Well, I think it’s both.
I think it’s also diminutive, but also…
Oh, I was thinking of it’s like the better you can do that walk, the more prestigious,
not prestigious, but like it’s like a classic.
Oh, like to have grace while you’re doing that is difficult.
Yeah, just seeing them go into in and out of buildings and seeing the backdrop with
all of the stuff that’s in the set itself, I thought was super cool.
It brought a lot of life to what was happening in the story.
And I just appreciated that.
It was beautiful.
It was definitely beautifully shot and there was lots of cool set pieces.
So I appreciate it.
Yeah, I agree with you there.
Okay, let’s get into stockdowns.
What do you got for stockdowns?
Beauty stockdowns.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though.
And I…
I knew you were going to say that.
But, well, I didn’t know you were going to say that.
I have a quote that’s better for you than that.
Turned on Agra’s stepbrother, who’s a great character by the way in the show.
Beauty is a fleeting pleasure.
Like trying to grasp a river or fuck a sunset.
Have you done either those things, demon?
I don’t know if I’ve grasped a river.
Yeah, you just put your hand through it.
Yeah, I’ve tried to do that.
I mean, as a kid, I used to try to grab the P stream.
You’ve ever tried that?
It’s difficult.
You know, like your P in?
You’re on P.
You try to grab it?
Yeah.
I don’t know.
I was little.
No.
I was little.
You know, whatever.
You didn’t just spray on your hand.
Yeah, it’s a healer quick.
You learned quick.
I knew it.
A fuck a sunset.
I’ve had like a…
No, that’s a tequila sunrise.
Never mind.
No.
Kids I have.
Sex on the beach combined with tequila sunrise.
Oh, now we’re talking.
Yeah.
Yeah, it seems delicious.
Two good drinks.
I don’t know.
And either of them.
Other than tequila.
I think sex on the beach is a rum drink.
But yeah, it made me re-question things.
I don’t really know what the reference was.
I think he was talking about…
Can I also gripe a little bit about that meeting?
You’re talking about when Toronaga’s half brother comes to see them and is just mean
to hear Matsu and Toronaga, right?
Yeah.
They’re meeting and they’re supposed to be like a good ally ship.
They’re like kind of doing the traditional, okay, let’s not discuss business right now.
Let’s like have a good time first type thing, right?
And he’s like, nah, fuck that.
We’re talking business now.
And then he just kind of like insults him for like five straight minutes and not one
of our leads to the words boys does anything.
They just sit there and take it.
I couldn’t stand for it.
There’s a little bit too much things that didn’t add up because in the beginning one
of the first episodes one of Toronaga’s boys steps forward after like someone makes
an insult and I was like, hey, he’s not wrong.
He’s gonna have to get killed because of that, but he’s not wrong.
He was coming to his guy’s defense.
Now we have people openly insulting someone talking about beauty which now I’m assuming
he’s just talking about his wife or something like that is not beautiful anymore.
I just want to say and no one does anything.
Not even like not even a look at the samurai sword.
Like what are we doing here, D-Man?
Can someone defend our boy?
Yeah.
So I had some issues with that as well and it’s going to lead into my other stuff that
I got.
But the issue at the beginning that you’re talking about is Fuji’s husband stands up
for Toronaga.
I look at your adding actual information to my meal.
Like, do you know what I’m talking about?
That one thing of the guy did the thing where the…
So Ashido comes in and like talks shit to Toronaga.
In the book, his shit talking is pretty subtle, but it’s obviously there.
So Fuji’s husband steps up and is like, I can’t allow this, you know, and tries to like kill
him which obviously then he dies for that.
So we get that in the show.
Granted in the show, Ashido is terrible to Toronaga.
Like this shit would just not fly from the story that James Claville, Claville has set
forth.
No one would see that as anything but a terrible slight.
And then like you’re saying with this later, it just doesn’t add up.
It’s like, okay, sure, that’s how the show’s going to run like that.
That’s going to be the case.
But then his half brother comes in and is so disrespectful.
The book, there’s so much majesty and in the way that they talk to each other and there’s
so many like under…
It’s just like a battle of words.
There’s so many undertones.
And there is some of that in the show.
There is.
And they’re speaking an old Japanese would be like Shakespearean.
So I would think that they’re doing the same thing.
Or even like disloyalty disrespect, the way that people talk back to Toronaga would
just not really even happen.
Even Blackthorn, he does that in the book a couple times and Toronaga treats him like
a hawk, which is kind of like a big thing in the book.
And they didn’t really tie a bunch of that in at the end for the show, except for Mariko
when he lets that his hawk loose.
But Blackthorn just like keeps doing it in the show.
Where in the book he kind of learns from it and changes the way he talks to people so
that it’s not like that.
So I think I’m just going to agree with you in general that the tone of the way that people
talk to each other was a little bit different than I expected.
Which leads me to my first stockdown, which is stockdown shows that are quote unquote
based on books.
I just think that whenever we get one of these, we need qualifiers.
Like it shouldn’t just say, oh, this is based on this book or whatever the case is.
I think it should be like, this is loosely based on the book or this is very loosely
based on the book or this is strictly canon of the book or this is just using the name
to grab more viewers based on the book.
I think that Shogun, like I would put it under the loosely category.
I would say this is loosely based on the book.
I think coming into it, like I said at the top, as someone who had just read the book,
I was super excited to get that.
And I wish I had stepped back a little bit and just said, hey, these people are going
to do their own thing, which I would understand.
If I was a creative person, which I’m not, I would not want to just recreate something
that’s already been done.
I would read the story.
I’d write my own script like they did and go for it.
And you also have 10 episodes for something that’s 1000 pages long.
So I can understand that.
Well, I would have done different though.
And I think we talked about this during the pods, the three pods we did on this book is
the plot line itself wasn’t amazing.
I didn’t think.
It’s kind of like, oh, it’s kind of an interesting situation and things happen.
It’s not like this like, holy shit, Game of Thrones, like backstabbing, all this craziness
hat.
It’s not really that.
Well, there’s some of that, but I know what you’re saying.
I know what you’re saying.
Yeah, but it’s not like this revolutionary story that you have to keep the same story,
the same, which they mostly do keep the story somewhat similar, which I would on the opposite
is like the thing that we, at least I took away from it was the culture and the stark
differences between European versus Japanese and like the, just setting the stage of that
time versus what it is now is such a big difference to me and to, I would say most Japanese
people probably too, that you’re just like, that is cool to me where they don’t even,
they don’t, they kind of like piss on that.
And then they keep the story.
And I’m like, why won’t you do the opposite?
Like write a new story, but keep that all that stuff the same.
I don’t know.
It didn’t make sense to me.
Yeah.
Well, this Rebecca Nicholson critic from the Guardian who quote unquote praised the battle
sequences and their respect for the source material.
I don’t know what she was watching.
Yeah, this is, I mean, it’s from Wikipedia, so it could be a lie, but I was looking at
the critics reviews and, and it said Rachel Nixon praised the battle sequences and their
respect for the source material.
It honestly sounds like she got super drunk the night before and woke up next morning
and her editor was like, Hey, where’s my show gun story?
And she’s like, Oh shit.
Show gun.
Worrying Japanese feudal lords.
Okay.
Yeah, the battle sequences are great.
And it had a lot of respect for the source material.
And that was her quote because it has neither of those things.
I mean, we’re talking about blackthorn meeting Toranaga and Mariko in Ep 1.
That happens like a third of the way.
Yeah, but that was a good change.
Okay.
I like that a lot.
I’m okay with that.
I was fine with that in the sense of Toranaga and Mariko and blackthorn are three main characters.
You can introduce them at the end of episode one.
Totally fine with that.
We don’t need an entire episode of just his crew suffering in the in the village in Aido.
We don’t need that.
So I’m okay with it.
But there was a couple of lines that just that bothered me and so they referenced the
blackthorn’s line, which is like, unless I win line, it happened early on.
It’s important to the book, but it’s important to the show alike because Toranaga looks back
on it in his final monologue to Yabu and blackthorn’s line in the book is supposed
to be about revolution, like treason against your liege lord.
You know, Toranaga is pretty much saying to him, like, whoa, what you’re telling me here
is you’re going to have treasonous acts.
And he’s like, well, it’s not treason if I win.
And in the show, they turn it into something about him warring against the Portuguese,
which has nothing to do with the meaning behind the line that they even kind of go
on to talk about later as the actual meaning.
So it bothered me a little bit there.
And additionally in that conversation, or maybe it’s later, I don’t know, but Toranaga asked
blackthorn to train his men in Western tactics, which at this point, blackthorn is trying
to make sure that he is important to Toranaga.
Like that is his goal.
Hey, make sure make yourself useful to this guy.
So Toranaga is like, hey, can you train my men in Western taxes?
And he goes, no, I’m just a sailor.
So what?
One, it didn’t happen like that in the book.
Two, it’s an unnecessary change because it doesn’t apply to anything else going forward.
And three, he’s not a sailor.
He has experience in a pirate.
And what exactly?
No, he’s a pirate, but he has experience in Western combat.
Like he goes on to land and raids villages and raids cities and whatnot.
He knows tactics.
So why do they make it as if he’s dumb in that area?
Oh, I do the cannon stuff.
The whole thing.
I mean, this is one of my biggest hits.
It’s just engine.
It’s just not a good character.
He’s just he’s just a dumb dude.
Like he doesn’t learn Japanese.
He’s just sitting there 90% of the screen time from episode once he like has that love
story and it kind of ends from episode five to nine.
He’s literally they just show him and he’s looking on being like, what’s happening here?
Yeah, there’s no purpose for like five episodes other than just look at the conversation and
be like, what are they saying?
Yeah.
And as I said before, I’m totally fine with the story shifting because the book is more
about from his perspective with these other characters playing parts, but it has a thousand
pages to do that.
So I understand if you’re going to make a 10 episode show and turn it on its head.
So it’s really the Japanese perspective and Black Thorns a character, but you still he’s
still a main character.
You still have to have him go through that same character growth, even at the end.
We also don’t see in Torinaga for like three episodes.
And I’m like, all right, I’d rather see Torinaga than this fucking Black Thorn guy just listening
in on a conversation and being like, what’s what happened?
What did they say?
It’s like, but he’s also like his whole thing is that he’s supposed to be super intuitive
in like learning the culture and immersing himself.
Oh, this is why I should do this different layer.
Yeah, easily adaptable.
Yeah.
Episode nine or 10.
He’s learning how to bow.
I’m like, bro, you’ve been here for like six months.
You’re just learning how to bow.
That’s such a that should be day one stuff.
That’s not like, you know, like completely different.
In the book, it is day one stuff.
He asked, he was how he was there.
Like, you’re going to meet Torinaga.
He was okay.
And he someone else passed and he was okay, I’m going to copy what this guy does.
He’s like, wait, this is not your best.
Six months later.
Oh my God.
And even at the end, someone’s talking about Japanese and he’s like, I don’t know what
this person is saying.
It’s like, I know he’s not fluent at the end of the book, but he could hold the cover.
Like he’s impressing people by his ability to speak Japanese.
We’re here.
It’s like, oh, you know, a little bit of Japanese.
And he’s like, oh, sign on.
So yeah.
I wasn’t some of the other changes I think I was okay with, like Naga getting his head
caved in just totally unexpected.
No, I didn’t mind that either.
Yeah.
I mean, again, I think they could have changed the story for a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
And using Naga getting his head caved in as a reason why Torinaga’s like has that delay
to get to Osaka, that’s understandable.
And it’s a useful tactic there.
I think you do lose a little bit of the slyness of Torinaga because it makes it seem like this
was just a fortuitous happenstance.
Yeah.
As opposed to his whole plan.
Well, he wasn’t super sly in the book.
He was like, I’m sick.
I’m not feeling well.
Yeah, but he was using the rules of his society, which allow that.
Right, right.
That’s true.
So I was okay with that, although the Torinaga reveal that, oh, he actually does have a plan
and it’s super smart comes kind of like just in the last minutes of the show.
And it definitely comes in the last hundred or 150 pages or so of the book.
But there’s so much setup to it that it’s almost like the second you realize that it’s
a domino effect backwards to all of the stuff that we saw Torinaga do.
And you go like, oh, this guy’s a genius.
Or this, you get a little bit less of that.
Yeah.
I mean, I thought the two main characters, Angin and Torinaga, that neither came off as
particularly smart or why their main characters, other than being the head guy and the guy
that’s official to water.
There’s no real reason other than like we’re in the book.
You’re like, oh, I get it.
These two dudes are like super smart.
Know what they’re doing.
You know, figuring things out.
What did you think about here?
Matsus Sepuku because you did want Sepuku.
Hey, didn’t happen.
He hated it.
He hated it.
Absolutely hated it.
There was no reason for it.
It didn’t make any sense.
It was his best friend.
What did it do?
Like, that’s a, I mean, we’re basically doing hate love.
Yeah, we’re talking about the whole thing.
What was the point?
The point of it in the story.
I’m not going to defend it.
The point of it was this shows everyone that Torinaga has officially given up.
But what did that matter?
Is the whole reason that he was showing that he gave up, he actually wanted Yabu to go
over there and like, betray him forever and bring Rico?
He could have just been like Rico, go get my people.
No, 100%.
The whole plan with Rico to go in there and stage her little ploy there to then get
all the hostages to leave and make a Shido lose face, that’s still going to happen.
I think the idea was, oh, it gives him more time.
Like, a Shido’s not going to come after him and like, start war right now.
He’s still going to believe, oh, he’s coming because the point is in the book.
But right before that, the priest was there and he’s like, go tell, go tell him that we’re
like, you know what you saw here of like, I’m giving up, which is all you needed.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah, the only reason why I liked it was because once again, it was so unexpected that I was
like, oh, interesting.
They’re putting this like, fake, another fake Sepakur in here.
And the next thing I know is belly slit.
I’m like, oh, she he’s actually dying.
They made a lot of changes to make it so the characters weren’t as bad.
You could hate an engine for a lot of stuff he did.
In the book.
Yeah, for sure.
And this, they like softened his edges a lot in the same thing, Toronaga, whereas this
when they when he killed his best friend, I’m like, I don’t feel bad for like, there’s
no reason for this.
There’s so unnecessary.
I don’t know.
It didn’t make sense to me.
Yeah, I’m with you.
I’m I’d be interested to know from someone or hear from someone that didn’t read the book
what they thought of here.
Matsu dying right there.
There’s so many other wonderful Sepakurs that we could have had.
They would have made a lot more sense if he’s like, I need more time and his son didn’t
die.
Right.
And he’s like, I’m gonna commit Sepakurs so you have more time.
And he was just a sacrifice.
Yeah, like it really upset me because here Matsu dies without knowing that Toronaga has
this ruse because in the book, he’s the first person really that Toronaga tells.
He takes him aside.
He goes, Hey, this is all a ploy.
And then here Matsu, like, Oh my God, thank God, Lord, because like you hear Matsu so
self-deprecating, he’s like, I’m an idiot.
How did I not see this?
Like, I’m going to go kill myself because I’m so dumb.
So many times.
Yeah.
And Toronaga is like, absolutely not.
You’re my number one vassal.
Like you’re the most important person to me.
Don’t kill yourself.
He was way more likable than Teronaga.
And he sacrificed multiple times.
And that’s he’s actually smart.
We’re teronaga.
It just seems like he’s just like you said, he’s kind of just like flying by the seat of
his pants.
And he’s like, fallen into things.
Yeah.
And at the end, you’re like, Oh, I guess he has his vision.
But it’s like, who knows that that comes through.
I think that scene would have just made a lot more sense if they put in a two minute scene
where Toronaga takes here Matsu aside, tells him his plan because as the viewer, it’s like,
we’re ready for Toronaga’s plan.
We’re ready to know he’s not an idiot.
So he tells here Matsu’s plan.
He’s like, but I need more time.
I don’t have it.
And Toronaga’s like, or here Matsu’s like, what can I do for you, Lord?
Anything.
And he’s like, I’m going to need you to try to like to get angry at me and commit seppuku.
And he’s like, done.
That would be awesome.
It also locked you into like, Oh, the lead Lord thing is for real.
Yeah.
This isn’t a fucking joke.
If I watched this and I didn’t know the lead or thing, I would be like, why are they
falling this guy?
It doesn’t make any sense.
Whereas if they’re showing him where the half brother was like, Oh, there’s yearly a
little bitch and all people from the table studs and it’s like, would you just fucking
say like, pull their swords out?
Like, then you understand the leads or something.
But I was not convinced of it.
Yeah, that that part almost reminded me of like the game of Thrones aspect when they have
someone in their castle and the person’s just talking shit the whole time and they don’t
know what to do.
Infutile Japan, that is not the case.
No, you talk shit.
You get shit.
Yeah.
All right.
I got a couple other things that I didn’t, I mean, I didn’t want to make this like, Oh,
books better than the movie.
And here’s where here’s why.
I didn’t want to make that the theme of the pod, but you know, I feel like we’re
just on that.
So I got to just a couple other books and movie things.
One that really grinded my gears was his reunion with the crew, which in the show, he walks
up and he finally gets back to the crew in Edo.
It’s been months since they’ve seen each other and they’re like, Hey, is that you pilot?
He’s like, yeah.
And the guy’s like, Oh, hi, you want to get into a fight?
What do you want to fight about?
It’s like, huh?
This is his, this is a guy he sailed around the world with.
They would be so excited to see him.
Obviously there’s some level of animosity there for other situations, but initially they’d
be so jazzed to see him and you don’t really get that, the point of that moment.
I just cut that.
Yeah.
It’s, it’s such a quick scene and you don’t get the point of that moment in the book,
which is he has turned Japanese at this point.
He realizes by seeing his crew, I am becoming more Japanese than the person I was before.
I’m a different person because he sees them.
He realizes, Oh my God, they’re filthy.
The way they’re living is disgusting.
Tim, even though it’s the way he was living, not very long ago, all their doxies that they’re
trying to like push onto him.
He’s like, no, no, thank you.
But instead he just gets into a fist fight and leaves.
Yeah, they’re like, we thought you were dead.
Oh, no, I’m alive.
All right.
Great.
Well, why are you wearing that shit?
I’m wearing that jap-o gear.
It’s like, bro, chill out.
Like you should die.
So it was tough where, you know, I thought it was just done so much better in the book.
And then most importantly, the swimming scene after the escape from Osaka, when he’s teaching
Tor and I got how to dive, where are the penises?
You know, I knew it was coming.
I knew you were going to say that.
It’s like, yeah, the whole point is that these Japanese people do not care about people
judging them on their bodies, you know, which is such this Western Christian thing
that’s being created.
And their wing wings are wagging all over the place.
Someone asked me who’s watched this show, they’re like, I don’t get what Marie-Coats
sees in the engine.
It doesn’t make any sense to me.
And I said, oh, he’s got a big old elephant hug.
And I’m like, they haven’t talked about that in the show yet.
And he’s like, no.
And I’m like, yeah, that’s that’s big.
That’s crucial.
Yeah, it’s literally big.
But yeah, even when I think the point that bothered me the most was when he’s torn
out of challenges him to a race.
And Tor and I got like two kimonos on.
It’s like, no way you’re going to be able to beat anybody in a kimono.
They probably drowned out.
Waterlogged silk kimono.
Are you kidding me?
Using that wiener as a rudder.
That’s what we’re doing when we’re racing in 1600s Japan.
So for sure.
I think they swam naked in like actual pools until like the 60s.
I think that was not frowned upon until.
So I don’t know.
What do you mean?
Like your dad on a swim team was swimming naked?
Not my dad.
He didn’t swim.
But like I remember hearing that they would yeah, they swam like they’d swam without any
like bang suits or anything on.
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
So I make me make that up.
Maybe it’s the dreamy yours yet.
Yeah.
Obviously I’m being somewhat facetious here.
Like it’s an FX show.
Like they’re not going to show the penises and whatnot.
But you know, at least look just, let’s get some loincloth action.
There’s no reason to dive into water with a kimono on.
I didn’t care for it.
Didn’t care.
As opposed to picking a character, I just want to talk about the cast in general.
I thought the actors were great.
Yeah.
Overall I thought the cast was really good.
Hiroyuki Sanada who played Torinaga.
I thought he was really, really good.
And it’s big shoes to fill as the last person to play the character was Tashiro Mafune who
is one of the greatest actors, if not the greatest actor that’s ever come out of Japan.
Excuse me, big sandals to fill or whatever they call them.
But I thought he was good.
Obviously we have our issues with the way that Torinaga was written.
But I think considering that a lot of what Torinaga does is in facial expressions and
like pensive looks and whatnot, I thought he did a really good job there.
Who else stuck out to you as like, oh, I really like that.
Yeah, I thought I’m Rico did a great job.
I also thought the brothel owner, Jin, I think she stole a scene.
I needed more of her.
She was like, every time she was on the camera was incredible.
Yeah.
Because Guioku’s a big character in the book and she wasn’t really.
You felt that tension when her and Rico met.
I was like, this is like what the Game of Thrones tension should have been like for every scene.
It didn’t come through in every scene like that one does.
And that was such a good scene in the book too.
So I’m glad it translated to the screen.
It wasn’t cut because you see not only how shrewd this woman is, but also you see how
bright and how good of a negotiator or business woman, Mariko is.
So yeah, I thought she was really good.
I was unfortunate.
We didn’t get more of her.
Speaking about other people in Blackthorn Circle, I thought Fuji was really well cast
as well.
And they nailed the relationship she had with Blackthorn.
I thought that was like maybe the best relationship because even his mariko’s relationship wasn’t
that great in the show.
I didn’t think compared.
No, the love story didn’t wasn’t really.
Yeah.
But him and Fuji I thought was really good because it’s such a complex relationship and
they tied together really well.
Although I was expecting at the end when he takes her out on the boat and.
To kill her?
No, they’re not.
Not like a Talbot mr. Ripley situation.
Instead, I was thinking more of a big Lebowski situation when they go to pour those ashes
out and they just fly back in the face because I was like, there’s you’re out at sea.
There’s zero present chance those ashes are just going straight into the water.
It’s just not going to happen.
I do like also how they portray the sea as this violent.
That’s what they crashed into the rocks that raining every day and then they’ll like swim
in it and they’ll be like, Oh, nice and calm in this row boat.
I’m like, Wait, what is it?
What are these?
There’s earthquakes left and right.
There’s tsunami.
They’re like, Nah, Nah, we’re good.
I mean, pick a lane ocean.
Pick a land.
I did also want to say that Yabu, I thought what they do with him was actually a good change
from the book.
I thought that was kind of interesting.
I agree.
I also love that he was sick.
He was sick in the head a little bit.
It wasn’t that he liked torturing people because he got pleasure in it.
It was, I don’t know.
Torture is really cool.
When you kill me, we should torture me because I want to see what else is there.
I’m like, Holy shit, this guy is nuts.
Yeah, he was like the Irish guy from Braveheart.
It’s my.
What does he say?
He goes, he goes, yeah, they’re like, you talk about Ireland?
Yeah, it’s mine.
Yeah, that’s a great actor.
Wow, well done.
Thanks.
I’ve been practicing.
Don’t ever do it again.
How dare you take my culture.
I thought Rodrigo Nester Carbonell, okay, okay.
He’s no John Reese Davies, the guy who played Gimli, who’s in the 84 version.
I thought he was so much better.
But I did like that in this one.
They gave him our friend Guioku’s line, the back passage horror of the 15th rank.
It’s such a great line in the book and I’m glad they gave it to somebody.
And for anyone, if they’re not going to give it to Guioku, I was like, okay, that belongs
in the hands of Rodrigo because he’s the only one that has a dirty enough mouth to use it.
So I felt pretty good about that one.
He wasn’t really a character in the show though.
No, yeah, he just disappeared after.
Yeah.
One couple minutes of them chatting and then that was it.
They should have just got rid of all the other priests other than the main one.
And although I did like the clear and present danger guy being in the prison.
Do you remember clear and present danger?
Great movie, my favorite.
Yeah.
I actually watched Patriot games recently.
Oh, okay.
And not as good.
No, not as good.
But I watched clear and present danger not as recently, but I have watched it this year.
Because you know, like the drug dealer that breaks the girls back.
Oh, yeah.
He’s the priest in the prison.
He sure is.
What a role.
That was a spot role for them.
I was like, oh, he must get out of prison.
And this guy needs to be in the show.
Yeah, it’s unfortunate that he did not.
But who else I got?
Fuck, I love clearing present danger.
It’s like, I mean, the sniper scene is everyone’s favorite, right?
Although the rock-a-lantra scene was probably the most insane scene I’ve ever seen as a
kid there.
They’re going down the street, big Mac trucks down in front of them.
They can’t back up and they’re going to rocket shout at them.
That was insane.
The ambush scene when he somehow gets away and drives through like somehow or something
like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now that would be like a typical action scene.
But that one like you felt like, oh my God, they’re going to get hit by rockets.
I feel like that scene was just stolen for lots of other movies in the future.
Yeah, or anytime a car just in front of you and back up, back up.
And then the other one’s behind you.
It’s like, oh shit.
Yeah, love that.
This couple, maybe the last one, Boon-taru, he needs to be recast.
That guy was not Boon-taru-san.
Boon-taru in the book is like the Randy Savage of this world.
You can’t have this skinny guy playing him.
The actor should look like a 1600s samurai version of like Yosemite Sam.
He’s supposed to be like, stocky and massive and super strong.
You’ve hidden him a roasting down now.
Yeah.
I’m sad about everything.
Yeah, he had the like angry but hurt face facial expressions.
But then I didn’t even under like at the end when it’s like, we’re going to pull this
boat up together and it’s like head nod, head nod here, have some water.
Why did he like him?
Yeah.
That didn’t make any sense to me.
Yeah.
Like, why are you buddies now?
No, you’re not buddies.
This guy was cuckolding you.
Like there’s this, you’re not friends.
That’s an absolute lack of respect.
That’s what that is.
I could have done without that.
That’s probably it for characters that I had in terms of like, opera down.
I agree with you, marico is good, tornago is good, blackthorn.
We didn’t really talk about blackthorn.
He was people loved him, like the actor in it.
And I thought he was like, he just looks like Bane.
Okay.
Yeah.
You know what I’m talking about?
Yeah.
That actor.
Yeah.
Tom Hardy.
I wasn’t a big fan of like the way he talked for was like, but I’m a bit bit of it.
But I’m a bit of it.
But I’m a bit of it.
Yeah.
He’s like, I don’t know why they couldn’t just cast someone that could speak Japanese and
then you pretend like he’s learning Japanese.
So, quick studio notes.
It’s got a 99 on Rotten Tomatoes for the critics and the 91 for audience.
People liked it a lot more than we did potentially.
It’s the most expensive show in FX history and a second and third season were announced
last month.
I don’t know if it’s like, they’re announcing that the writers are going to get together
and start putting together ideas.
I don’t think they’ve purchased the rights for subsequent stories.
So it’s probably going to be in the works for a while, but at least they were announced.
So you never know.
Would you recommend the show to people that have read the book and people that have not
read the book?
I don’t think in general, unless you’re really into Japan and like the beauty of all that
stuff, I think that stuff was cool.
But the overall show and the overall, especially after reading the book, I wouldn’t recommend
it.
I thought it was boring at times.
I thought the story didn’t really make a ton of sense.
Everything else around it was great.
I think the writing was just not as up to par as well as it wanted to be essentially.
I’m having a tough time because I built it up.
They said don’t put that pussy on a pedestal.
I put this…
People were comparing it to Game of Thrones.
I was like, oh my God, is it going to be insane?
I know the backster.
Yeah.
This is it?
This is Game of Thrones?
And I put it on a pedestal as well because I was so excited for it.
I have such fond memories of the 84 version.
I just assume it was going to be better than that.
Granted, those memories could be apocryphal in my own mind.
Like I might not even…
If I re-watch the 84 version, I might think it stinks.
I don’t remember.
I watched it so long ago.
But basically what I’m trying to say is I was so excited to see it.
And after the first few episodes, I was kind of like forcing myself to watch it.
The last two episodes, I had to kind of binge the other day because I knew we were
having this conversation.
But I was watching Rick and Morty on the side.
I was watching Seinfeld on the side.
I couldn’t…
I was watching Below Deck on the side.
Okay.
Like, I am not a proud man.
Yeah, I think that if you’re a huge fan of the book, probably watch it because like…
Watch at some point because like, why not?
If you haven’t seen any of it…
Yeah, if you haven’t read any of it, you don’t know anything about it.
You might enjoy it more honestly.
So…
In that case…
It’d be a good binge airplane.
Because you have to focus on it, you have to read.
So you’re just sitting there, you’re getting that entertainment.
But I would…
Yeah, otherwise, if you’re sitting at home, I think that’s…
I would do some now.
So you’re saying if all of your freedoms are taken away, you would watch it.
But if you have the ability to do anything else, you would…
Well, you can’t like make dinner and watch it.
You can’t do…
You know what I’m saying?
So you have to focus on it.
And I was like, this isn’t a show that’s given me the thing where I have to focus on it.
It doesn’t earn that.
It didn’t earn it.
I will say it did do a good job of because it was subtitled and whatnot.
I was trying to pick up my phone and distract myself several times over.
But I was like, I can’t do it.
I have to watch this because I have to read it.
So…
Good job on you.
Anywho, that’s showing the series.
I’m sure we’re probably a little bit on an island with our takes.
So, you know, it is what it is.
We’ll take it.
Alright, Keith, what do we got coming to next?
Episode 100, we did it.
What?
Harry Potter, the first one, Sorcerer’s Stone.
Excuse me, it’s Philosopher’s Stone to me.
Hey, Philosopher’s Stone to me.
Yeah, that’s the British version, I don’t know.
Oh, okay.
I was just kidding.
Sorcerer’s Stone.
America.
America here.
Yeah, it’s going to be Street.
So we’re going to do, I guess our next 14 episodes are going to be Harry Potter related,
which is wild because that’s 10%, 14% of our total catalog.
I could do the math.
Is going to be Harry Potter.
Keith’s never seen the movies, so that’s going to be super fun.
I’m super excited.
I don’t, I like want to start talking about things right now, but we’re not talking about
that.
We’re talking about Shogun.
So, anywho, we’ll have that probably coming to you in the next week or so.
So that should be, that should be a great time.
Indeed.
Alright, Keith.
I’ll let you and your muggle ass at Hogwarts in a week.
Squib says what?
Alright, that was so good.