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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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.

The Buddies take their 3rd and final crack at the ‘epic’ Shōgun by James Clavell. It’s been a long journey reading this 1,000+ page book, but if you followed along you’re now ready to dive into the new FX show. In their final installment the Buddies topics were very militaristic: ninjas, sacrificing pawns, pitched battles, and the dangers of pillow talk.  So join us for the last Banzai and our last time with our friends Toranaga, Mariko, Anjin, Omi, and Rodrigues.

Intro (0:00-2:36)
Stock Up/Down (2:37-36:21)
Favorite Scene/Character (36:22-41:28)
Love/Hate (41:29-51:30)
Lingering Questions (51:31-53:23)
Conclusion (53:24-58:32)

NEXT BOOK: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome buddy Book Club.
I’m Dylan here with…
Now?
Keith, what’s up buddy?
Hey, here we don’t.
You are my though.
It seems like someone would catch on to that.
Here at the Buddy Book Club, we’re bringing down some bestsellers in this week pool
once again, and for the last time,
be discussing Shogun by James Clevel.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us buddy,
past episodes, we visit our website, bydavilcottah.com,
our slide into our DMs, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, whatever you got.
That’s a Buddy Book Club podcast.
You can list to us wherever you’re podcast.
So please download and subscribe.
Keith, we did it.
We did it.
Honestly, is this the longest book you’ve read?
I have the paperback, you know, the like airport style paperback,
which is 1154 pages.
And I think the audiobook, what did we say it was?
Like 51 hours?
The only longer one was Brandon Sanderson’s, I think, the second wave king’s book.
I should honestly try to find a longer book because this is second place for me
behind the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Jesus.
That one’s a little bit much.
And it’s a very historical book on Nazi Germany, obviously.
But the cover of it is just a giant swastika.
So not a great way in the train.
Exactly. Yeah.
People just kind of give you the double, the double take on that one.
So yeah, maybe I’ll have to get into that.
But we’re not talking about Brandon Sanderson.
We’re not talking about Nazi Germany.
We’re talking about show gun.
Just a little insight for the listeners out there is we
had recorded the last episode, which came out, which was parts two and three.
Mm-hmm.
That was chapter 10 through 46, I believe.
Yeah.
So we recorded two and three and then you went off on a walk
about to Australia and now you’re back for our final installment.
So I think where we kind of left off was
Torinaga had capitulated to Zataki and he said he was going to Osaka to face the
Regents.
Anjansan had recently become Hattimoto after saving
Torinaga from the earthquake.
His love for Mariko continues to deepen.
And probably most importantly, he had some Kono Mishinju stuffed up his back passage.
I think that was okay.
I mustn’t miss that part, but the pearls, the pleasure pearls.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, go on.
Sorry.
Yeah, come on.
Get these together.
That’s my support.
Get that harry god out of your mouth and listen up.
Here we’re going to be doing the final installment, which is going to be
part four onwards.
Until the end, Keith, stock up, stock down.
What do you got for stock up?
Stock up, house of cards.
The TV show?
Yeah.
Okay.
I mean, this is kind of going to be cancelled, just like that show.
No.
Well, I think you described this book as an epic.
And when an epic to me is typically going to be some sort of heroes journey,
huge wars, big set pieces, type of thing.
Well, I think that’s a little bit of a misnomer for this.
I think this is more of a house of cards or a down-abbey of Japan, if you will.
Don’t give me starving down, Abby.
There’s nothing wrong with those.
Those are great shows.
I’ve never seen down-abbey, but I know I love it.
Yeah, it’s wonderful.
I think it’d be season one house of cards, like, you know, the best season,
like, holy shit, this is insane.
Tons of drama, things like that.
But the one thing that I would say does a point is,
if you go and think is an epic, that last couple chapters, a little bit of buzzkill.
I wanted the on the plane ride back, by the way.
I started rewatching Lord of the Rings.
And I wanted that, the defense of, in the second one, the second movie, that-
You want to help Steve?
I wanted to help Steve.
Where was Helves Steve for me here?
Yeah, I needed it.
I’m so jazzed up right now, although sex toys that you’ve been talking about,
I’m ready to go.
And then we get like an epilogue of him being like, so yeah,
I want everything.
It was awesome.
I was like, wait, what?
That’s it.
It was good.
It was house of cards, but I wouldn’t call it an epic.
It’s definitely an epic.
It’s not the kind of epic that you wanted, I think.
And I will agree with you in that my memory of this book
involved significant amounts of pitched battles,
in which they’re actually none.
So, you know, I was also doing the thing, Granted.
Does the movies have them?
I can see maybe remembering the movies having more battles.
Well, it’s not a movie, it’s a mini series from the 80s.
And I can’t really remember how that goes.
I think I just seen last samurai so many times,
and then they both kind of blended together in my head.
That’s fair, that’s fair.
And I was also doing the same thing,
where like at the end of this book, once I finished it,
I was kind of like, tipped it upside down and was shaking it
to see like, hey, the pitch battle is going to come out of here?
Like, did I miss the pages or something?
So, yeah, it is unfortunate that, you know,
the whole time they’re talking about this inevitable war
between Toronaga and Ishito and they’re posturing, you know,
it’s, the whole thing is moving pieces on a chessboard,
and then all we get is like two paragraphs at the end,
which is like, you know, we dug a hole for a sheet,
we captured and dug a hole in the ground and everyone said,
“I needed to see the cap here and the kicking his head

129
00:05:16,960 –> 00:05:17,840
for three days in a row.”
And then, come on.
Yeah, it is unfortunate.
I will agree with you there.
Luckily, there’s a TV show coming out that I’m sure
will not miss on some pitch battles.
And yeah, I’m going to get into that a little bit more later.
So, yeah, I agree with you.
But if you were interested in fighting,
my first stock up is ninja!
I thought the ninja scenes and just like the ninja in general is awesome.
Samarizer bad ass, there’s no question.
But these ninja are incredible.
I mean, the way they infiltrate Osaka Castle,
the weapon real alone, they’re talking about these knives
that are attached to sticks with chains on them.
We’re talking about cow-trops that are poisonous.
We’re talking throwing stars like all the super fun ninja stuff.
And when I was young,
I feel like there was a lot more ninjas in pop culture.
You know, we obviously had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
which I was Leonardo for like six years straight
for Halloween,
till the point that I couldn’t fit in the costume anymore
didn’t matter to me.
Three ninjas and three ninjas kick back.
Rocky loves Emily, who doesn’t love those movies.
And Beverly Hills Ninja, I mean, that was the movie’s terrible.
I’ve seen it again recently.
I’m just saying the ninja idea was so ingrained into pop culture
at the time that Chris Farley legitimately made a ninja movie.
You know?
Yeah, yeah.
So, I’m wondering if is there just not ninjas in pop culture anymore?
Did I just grow out of it?
And then I want to ask you if you ever had a ninja phase?
I wasn’t big in a ninja phase.
I was more of like a Navy SEAL Army phase.
Oh, okay.
I actually wanted to go to West Point until I was in middle school
and I remember we were looking up the how to get in.
It was like, you have to run two miles, six minute pace.
Yeah.
And I ran a mile and I said,
why in God’s name would anyone ever want to run?
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, yeah, I had a ninja phase.
I think I was in like kindergarten or first grade,
like obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
and then, you know, three ninjas came out
and I was like, this is freaking awesome.
Like these kids can beat a, oh, surf ninjas.
How do we even have surf ninjas?
I don’t know what that is.
Oh, wow.
You should watch that.
I guess I didn’t really understand the origins of ninjas.
So, that didn’t really…
I think that was part of the mystique.
You knew it was Asian,
but you didn’t know what.
You thought probably Japanese,
but you really didn’t care.
It was just, you know, they wore cool outfits
and they were stealthy and had awesome weapons.
My sister’s friends, like older brother,
convinced me he was a ninja
because he had, I mean, I was like six,
so can be a break.
But he had like some throwing stars or whatever.
And I was like, wow, like this amazing.
I feel like if you, it’s the first action movie
you watch, that’s whatever that is, you get into.
So if it’s like a karate movie,
you’re all of a sudden like,
John Codd, Bob Dottman,
you’re like trying to be a karate person.
I think I saw some sort of like,
Navy SEAL type movie when I was,
and it was the first action movie ever,
so I was like, okay, well, I guess I am now
going to be Navy SEAL, you know, one of those things.
So I think it just depends on what you see first as a kid.
How did you feel about the ninja scene in…
It was good. I mean, I thought it was cool.
Again, that was like the climax,
which I would have preferred to have Torin Augen
and that scene at some point, somewhere, you know,
something strategic around that,
which it just seemed like there was a lot of backstabbing
instead of cool, cool Warsaw.
It was kind of interesting that I feel like throughout
this book four to book six.
Torin Augen was like, kind of in book four a little bit,
and he was kind of in book six.
You know, there’s a whole part of Osaka castle
that he wasn’t really involved in.
But speaking about Torin Augen,
I’m going to jump into my next stock up
because it’s Appropo is stock up,
believing in your leader.
So I think we’re both…
I’m not going to speak for you,
but here, let me try.
I think we’re both, you know, disenchanted
to some degree with our own government.
You know, I would say that we’re not alone,
considering that according to Pew Research Center,
20% of Americans, trust the government,
quote unquote, most of the time.
So 20%, not pretty good, you know?
I think during the Eisenhower administration,
it was probably like 90%.
So it seems like what we need is a Torinaga
because his plans have plans.
He’s got contingencies on those plans if they don’t work.
We’re talking about a guy who masterfully plays
the Christian Dimeo’s against one another.
He’s getting little whispers in his ear,
sets his pieces on his chessboard,
and maybe it’s not even chess, you know?
He’s talking Falconry, you know?
He uses his Paragrand Falcon,
Mariko, he uses her perfectly.
I mean, he even associates it with chess saying
that he had to sacrifice his queen for a castle,
which is fair.
I don’t think you’d really do that in a game of chess,
maybe, but I’m not a chess player.
But, you know, setting up Zataki,
I thought the way he used Angenson was like so good.
He’s the definition of he’s playing chess
and everyone else is playing checkers
and living through his, like, monologues.
Like he has these, like, inner monologues that you hear
throughout the book.
I thought was a really good way of approaching
because like we talked about last time,
he can’t say these things to other people
because it’s all, you know, all the spies and whatnot.
So just kind of hearing it in his words.
And then figuring out at the end
because the whole thing was like who burned down the arasmas?
And it was like, oh, the, you know, Christian Dimeo’s did it,
she did it, whatever, it was like, not Torinaga did it.
And it was like, wait, what?
So I thought it was pretty awesome just like having
a leader like him in this.
And I think my only real question coming out of it
was whether he knew, we could save for lingering questions
but I’m just gonna ask an hour.
Because it’s like whether he knew that Yabu would betray him.
Because he finds out at the end through Omi,
that Omi’s guys were like, oh yeah, Yabu was down there
with the ninja.
So they figured out.
But Torinaga know because part of his plan was
for Marco to die.
So did he know Yabu would do that and let that ninja in?
Or exact, I’m not exactly sure what he thought
in terms of Yabu at that point.
Well, if he thought Yabu is gonna be
bad the whole time, I don’t know,
or like, get away, you just didn’t kill him in the first place.
Like he provided no value throughout the book.
Or anything, he was a deterrent.
Yeah, so he like must have, right?
You know, that was, because-
That’s part of the plan.
I feel like that’s like being like,
not mistaken they made, though, is, you know,
they fumbled the ball, but he knew they were
gonna get the ball back after they fumbled it.
It’s like, what?
It isn’t, I don’t give him much credit for that one.
Okay, okay.
But a lot of the interesting aspects of it tie into the fact
that this being like feudal Japan and Bushito code and whatnot
and Buddhism, all that stuff,
with him being able to make these audacious, like, gestures
in this political situation, because, okay, well,
what’s the worst case I have to kill myself?
That’s what I’ve already agreed to do anyways.
So I might as well swing for the fences here.
Like, what’s the point?
Yeah, I do think it was interesting too
that we find out that one, we had a little game of throne
stuff going on with-
So the tyco’s wife sleeping with-
Lady Ochobo.
Sleeping with a person that looks like-
It was kind of like a game of throne stuff going on.
Yeah, and that was a cool scene.
He knew about that, obviously.
But like, and then he gives him the option of being-
Yeah, you just take everything over and he’s like,
nah, I’ll kill myself instead of doing that.
Which, why?
You’re talking about the flashback when it’s Lady Ochobo,
which is a great scene when she is like,
this peasant thing she’s got us and-
Or, you know, a kami and then sleeps with her.
It’s awesome, awesome scene.
But then you’re saying about the whole meeting-
I think what he was saying in that meeting,
if he had said, okay, yeah, give it to me in one of the cases,
it’d be like, ha ha, got you.
Like, I knew that’s what you wanted.
He’s not bluffing in that he would commit Sepulchoo
because I think he would,
but he has to say that in order to not commit Sepulchoo.
Does that make sense?
You know what I’m saying?
Yeah, I mean, that’s how it goes.
But like, at the end, there’s one last throwaway sentence
that he’s like, I want to be showgun.
He just doesn’t even want it to be that the whole time.
That’s the whole time.
Wait, that’s the point is he’s denied it in public or whatever.
But even in his internal monologue,
he’s been like, nah, I don’t want to be in it.
The last throwaway sentence is like, and I want to be showgun.
I was like, he spent 50 hours, you telling us he didn’t want to be it?
I don’t think he ever said that in the internal world.
There’s just other people,
but because he was like, my plan the whole time was to be showgun.
You know, these idiots believe me.
Of course he’s going to kill the kid or how is he going to take it?
No, I think he is kind of like what you said is now what will happen is he’ll be showgun.
He could, you know, with Lady Ochoba, he could adopt Yaman as his heir.
So he could have just married her there,
and that would have solved things too.
I feel like there’s a lot of like circular logic here going on.
And he could have just married her when he was at the castle early on.
Yeah, I’m not sure.
He’s like, I’ll never do that because I’d give her too much power.
I’m like, oh, okay.
So he really doesn’t want to be it because if he wanted to be it, he’d just do it.
He also said he couldn’t sleep at night being married to her because she would slip his throat
and sleep.
I mean, she’s a cunning in this.
I’ll just have her do Cipico, Cipico.
What’s that word?
I can’t say it ever.
Cipico, just have her do Cipico, right?
Like five days after you get married.
Easy peasy.
I mean, let’s play with the rules, kid.
I mean, it’s easy day here.
I don’t know what we’re doing.
Yeah, okay.
All right.
What else do you have a stock up?
Stock up crossing your fingers?
Oh.
I ever do this as a kid.
Your parents are like, did you eat that last cookie and you’re like, no.
And they’re like, you did?
Why are you lying?
You’re like, I was crossing my fingers.
So like, it doesn’t count.
Like, it’s like an unoriverous card.
It’s like a, I’m familiar with the idea of crossing your fingers.
It’s opposite day.
You know, I’m just telling you all the things you could say as a kid again with stuff.
That’s what they do in this book when Torinaga goes to Boontaro and Boontaro is like,
she cheated on me.
She’s betrayed me.
She’d ruin my honor and he’s like, actually, actually.
I made her secret divorce before you left.
There’s all solved now.
Everything solved.
There’s a little unoriverous card, a little cross of fingers.
The whole time she was divorced.
She could be cheating with you and banging black them the whole time
and embarrassing you to your face.
Don’t worry about it.
I loved it.
Great move by the way.
Yeah.
Torinaga just, yeah, no, no, it’s all solved.
Post-ated that check, everything’s good.
Yeah, that was all a lie though.
No, I thought she actually did.
No, that was a lie.
He basically said that to make Boontaro think that she did love him and was honest with him.
And basically just to make sure Boontaro didn’t go and kill the engines on right there.
Right, right.
So he was like, no, actually, he was all this great stuff.
Like I said, you guys would be divorced and this, that, the other thing,
when really, it was blackthorn that asked for them to be divorced.
He was like, I want to marry Mariko.
Like can we you divorce them?
But Torinaga asked her if she wanted to divorce.
And she said at one point she said, well, I couldn’t dishonor him like that.
So I didn’t think it was that far of the realm of both his ability that he
would secretly say, you’re going to go to this place.
You’re going to commit suicide.
Also, I’m going to give you that divorce.
I’m going to force you to make that divorce now.
So you’re like free from this dude for that trip.
Yeah, I don’t think, um, I don’t think you can just like
do that in the sense you can’t be like, oh, you’re divorced and then not have anyone
aware and then the only one you should be saving, if you cross your fingers,
you can be able to be saving it from would be like her own shame.
But like she doesn’t have any shame about banging blackthorn, you know what I mean?
She, they seem very happy together.
So yeah, I think it was just to make sure Boontaroo didn’t like go crazy.
And then also just, you know, loved his wife in the afterlife and made it easier for him.
Unless, yeah, if I was him, I’d rather be lied to.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
You’d rather live your life out because it doesn’t matter one way or the other.
Like nothing’s going to change.
It’s only like your mentality.
It’s probably like more of a philosophical question as to,
if someone that I’m never going to see again,
slided me and someone was like, oh, no, they didn’t.
I’d be like, oh, all right, cool.
And then I just move on with my life.
So release the grudge?
Yeah, exactly.
No reason to hold on to that.
Either way, I liked it.
I don’t care what the, I just like the strategy.
I appreciate it.
Okay, I dig it.
Speaking about moving on, that’s my next stock up, which is,
which is, which is moving on.
And really, it’s a less than tall, the young folk out there.
Because people,
never been broad, broad, strong stocks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, you know, people tend to hold on to things.
So it’s time to move on.
And people in general, you know, we all grow and change in our lives.
And just because you were friends with someone for a long time,
doesn’t mean that you have to just keep being friends with them
because you were, you know, that was a moment in your life.
And it worked out then.
But I’m thinking about Blackthorn and his crew here.
Because Blackthorn, he learned to embrace Japanese culture
and the cleanliness that that entails.
But also just to kind of use this experience
to further himself and his crew.
He wanted his crew to join him on this endeavor.
But his crewmates, disgusting.
They live in filth in an eddavillage with their
lice-ridden doxies and they’re just obsessed with their doxies.
If you’re trying to bring those clothes with you on this journey,
but instead they’re more interested in horing and living in filth,
it’s probably best to move on from them.
It’s as simple as that.
And I just found it so interesting
because we haven’t heard from his crew throughout all the,
you know, the after the first book, you know,
we haven’t heard from books two and three.
And then all of a sudden Blackthorn, who’s now Hottimoto,
decides to, you know, oh, I’ve go see him see my crew
and they’s just like, where are they taking me?
It was such an interesting scene for me because then he’s like walking into that,
like, house, that was one of the ones I could like visualize.
Like I could see him like clean and samurai walking into this like,
smoky, gross place with all these like,
unclean, stinking people.
And they’re super jazz to see him like splash and grog in his face and no teeth.
Just smelling.
It was like, oh my god, I could almost like feel his skin crawling.
We’re thinking it from our perspective,
but I think a more analogous way to look at it is would be
if your friend, me and you, right,
and you go off and all of a sudden you come back
and you become a huge germaphobe.
And so you’re like, I like open a door and you’re like,
don’t, you know, like I would have rub like,
I’ll call on your hands immediately like,
oh gross, I can’t believe you do that.
And I’m like, oh, my bad.
Like, and then like we go to a bar and I’m like,
hey, you want to take a sip?
Like, no, get that away from me.
Like, oh, you do drink from that.
That’s disgusting.
Like, oh, this is gross.
And you’re like constantly.
So I think that’s the level of change that they’re getting into.
I would think you joined a cult.
I’d be like, what is fucking up with this dude?
Like all of a sudden being so,
mighter than now.
Oh, that’s so cleansing.
Yeah, you like that?
I kind of empathize with them.
I understand from our perspective, it’s obviously gross that like,
they’re living this squall or well,
but that’s just would be a huge, huge difference all of a sudden.
Yeah, no, I agree.
It perspective is is important.
And especially that’s how they always lived.
I think the, the life crawling all over you is probably,
that’s someone that lives in Cape Cod in like,
tick season is just starting.
And I’ve seen a couple of ticks crawling around on my dog.
I’m like, oh, this is disgusting.
Like, throw the dog out like,
yeah, I don’t think there’s any period in time
or the world where people were like,
like, okay, it was crawling around you,
but then again, you could think germs are crawling over me,
you know, so it’s same similar thing.
Yeah, maybe.
I think my limit is I have to be able to see them.
If they can be seen with the naked eye,
that’s a good point.
Yeah, yeah, that’s fair, that’s fair.
And you can definitely see life.
Trust me, my sister had them in third grade.
It was disgusting.
Oh, wow, blotter spotter.
Yeah, sorry, sorry, T.
Sorry, T dog.
Do you have anything else for us, doc?
Yeah, last one, rags to riches, doc,
yeah, little ragged dick.
Sorry.
We’re back.
So usually these stories have the same arc.
Come from nothing, you have the typical surge to prominence,
and then, you know, you get greedy or your prominent downfall, right?
Little commuppence.
Yeah, this one I think starts with Black Thorne
going from riches, you know, is boat, captain,
all this stuff to rags.
I’m by the major.
And then going to like, billionaire riches level,
basically going to a new planet and finding things
he didn’t realize were possible in terms of riches.
And then sorry ends with like, yeah, his girlfriend died,
but he’s in a pretty good setup.
Yeah, he gets Kiku, right?
Exactly.
Upgraded models, he’s, you know, he’s basically able to build ships.
He’s like, living the dream.
There’s no downturn.
What it’s bad’s going to happen to him.
Well, I can’t leave.
I don’t think he would leave.
Like I said, he went to another planet that’s so good,
why would you leave?
Yeah, I mean, he wants to leave.
I also looked up the real dude,
and he had a chance to go back, and he was like, nah,
Oh, really?
Let’s stay here.
And you think?
So he was like, oh, he got a chance to go back to Europe,
and he was like, nah, I’m good.
I’m gonna stay here.
Yeah.
Which I think after one or two more years, he would have been like,
yeah, I’m good.
I’m fine with this.
I mean, I would be just based on the cleanliness level,
but it is somewhat of a golden cage, you know,
you think about he’s got a wife and kids.
You know, he misses his wife and kids for sure.
And does he though?
Come on.
I mean, the dude took a four-year trip.
He don’t really miss your wife and kids.
That’s just the name of the game, though.
That’s just how you go.
I don’t know about that.
So, I mean, he expresses interest in–
I guess he’s like an astronaut, so I guess that is.
Yeah.
I guess that is.
OK.
But like an astronaut could still communicate with their family.
So it’s a little bit–
Yeah, well, of course.
This is different times.
I mean, we’re also talking about like, not long ago,
you know, a hundred years ago,
my grandparents came over on a boat
leaving their family behind to a new country to look for.
Well, that’s because they’re escaping their germ.
I mean, I–
No, I don’t know.
Yeah.
They were in German.
They were Italian, though, some miscellaneous.
But that was before–
That was after.
It came over right around 1945.
It was weird.
I don’t know why they’re leaving.
Move to Argentina, change their names.
Yeah.
No, yeah, it’s just–
I think it’s a different time.
And like, that thing–
that’s just the way it was.
You know, if you want to be one of the best pilots in the world,
you have to go out on many years trips.
Like, that’s just the way it is.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, I think that he’s kind of somewhat in a golden cage.
And I agree.
There’s no– there’s no hero’s journey.
There’s no, like, downside of–
Yeah.
of the fall.
It was good to see the Rags of Ritchers,
because I feel like–
or a different model of that.
Because I do feel like the last samurai had the Rags
of Ritchers still, where he’d be like, oh, he’s
going to have that montage where he starts learning
and doing– he’d have that.
There’s always–
and then he has to sacrifice at the end of the book,
or he has to do something that changes things.
It wasn’t really that bad in Last Samurai,
there, at the end, he’s like sides with the samurai.
Yeah, but he ended up dying.
He doesn’t die in Last Samurai.
He doesn’t die?
Yeah, it’s probably everybody’s dying.
Yeah, no.
He doesn’t die.
No, the other–
I thought he died.
the samurai dies.
Oh, OK.
But Ken–
The last samurai dies?
Yeah.
All right, we’re back.
The guy played by Ken Wontonave.
He dies.
OK.
So that’s why he goes and presents his sword to the emperor.
And is like, hey, don’t forget your roots.
And the emperor is like, no more Westerners here.
That lasted until the next war.
So my last stock up was Faining Illness.
Stock up.
So people do this when they’re hungover for work.
I’ve heard of that before in my 20s.
I remember those days.
But it’s actually pretty well used in this book,
because anytime someone doesn’t want to do something,
or just needs to delay, they’re like, yeah, he’s sick.
Even Hiramatsu is like that.
Once he figures out, or Torinaga tells him his plan,
he’s like, I’m not going to the sake of psychopath.
Why would I do that?
That’s so stupid.
Hiramatsu is like, let me kill myself,
because I’m so dumb.
I didn’t see that.
Chill out, bro.
I hope that that character is in–
Hiramatsu isn’t show.
Yeah.
All right, great.
I really hope he just doesn’t have any lines
other than, I’m going to kill myself.
I think just walks in.
That’s the first sentence of every time he walks in.
I think it kind of is.
I forget.
I suddenly saw the first episode.
But yeah, it’s like Hiramatsu is, I’m not going to be able
to play this part.
I don’t know how to lie.
You do.
I’m not good at this.
He’s like, so I’m just going to be sick for now on.
It’s like, yeah, fine.
Just say you’re sick.
And everyone is just saying they’re sick left and right.
And I love it.
I mean, I usually do it the other way where I say the wife’s sick.
If someone I haven’t hung out with in a while,
they’re like, hey, let’s do something.
And I really should.
And I want to, but also the couch is calling.
So I’ll be like, you know what?
Care’s not feeling that good.
Not going to happen.
That’s me a few times.
That’s weird.
What the hell?
Well, you know what?
That’s just the way it is.
It’s cat’s out of the bag now.
But yeah, it’s a great excuse.
And it’s good to know that in the 60 hundreds,
they were still using it to this day as we are.
Respect.
Yeah, respect.
I was stuck down.
What do you have?
I had one.
And this is the big one.
OK.
It’s sacrificing ponds, stuck down.
I mean, you already mentioned it that there’s a lot
of chess references, which I didn’t realize chess was a thing.
Neither did I.
I’m still not sure it is.
But there’s a common phrase in chess.
You sacrifice a pond because it’s something
lesser of a value to get in a strategic advantage.
But I don’t care what he says.
He treats Marieco as a pond.
He’s like, I’m going to bring you over there
and basically you’re going to play a role in this
and you’re going to die.
That’s sacrificing ponds is.
That’s the definition of it right there.
Why?
Why would you do this?
She’s a queen.
She’s a king if anything.
I mean, she’s basically the best military strategist
that she has.
He listens to her more than once anyway.
She speaks multiple languages.
She is the huge asset for trading, for the religious
kind of go between.
What’s the word for that?
Emissary?
Liaison?
Yeah, someone that–
Liaison, that’s the word I was saying.
She’s a liaison for the religious side, the trade side,
and even for the European side with Black Thorn.
He’s learning all these military strategies
because she’s able to communicate that to him.
She’s just a huge asset.
And she picks up a sword and protects him at one point.
And she’s like a knight in shining armor.
Whoa, whoa, knight in shining kimono.
And she– I forgot to mention–
see, there’s a tornada as ruse or is–
like, his whole plan.
So she’s the only one, the only people that–
She’s the only one that’s close to her.
And she’s that.
Yeah, so it’s–
what a waste of a talent, you know, like I said,
a king and a queen combined.
The other thing, too, I just want to point out,
is every single woman in this book is the smartest person
in the book.
They’re all the smartest.
Tornada, I guess, is up there.
But if you think of Mariko, you think of Yabu’s wife,
you think of the brothel woman who’s super connected.
You think of the Ochi-ba?
They’re all super resourceful, super smart,
all able to see through everything and actually see strategies.
They’re not even in the room with these people,
whereas the right-hand man and left-hand man
are like, what’s going on here?
Oh, he’s acting?
Oh, my– are these people idiots?
What are we doing?
The women here, the key to the society,
so let them run shit.
Yeah, tornada.
Don’t kill Mariko.
Bullshit.
Sorry, I didn’t know it was a time.
Because even when Mariko dies at the end,
he’s like, I hope you’re Buddhist and not
this stupid Christian bullshit.
And I hope when you’re reborn, you’re
reborn in my company and you’re not reborn a man
because your talents would be wasted as one of these idiot
men who just go around swinging their sword around,
thinking they know everything when you’re actually
the real genius behind it all.
And I agree with you on all accounts.
She is not a pawn though.
She is a queen, as you said.
She’s a queen, King Kamba, whatever the point is.
But she’s the king, then she’s the queen.
And sometimes you have to sacrifice your queen
to win the game.
And it’s so late in the game here that you
can take that move without really setting yourself back
because without Mariko’s sacrifice, he then
can’t take the show in it.
Like it’s that simple.
So he needs–
When he uses on mom to do it, to what she did?
To do what she did?
Yeah, because she’s technically health hostage as well, right?
Yeah, but I think the idea is that she’s so venerated.
Like Mariko is so venerated throughout all of the community
and especially within Osaka Castle,
within the women themselves.
Like the women look to Mariko as like she’s
the most important woman besides Lady Oceba.
So if she’s going to do this, then the other women will then
be like, feel comfortable raising their hands.
I mean, like, I want to leave too.
Wait, I want to leave.
I want to leave.
And then if she’s also going to commit Sepuku,
it would only be then that Lady Oceba would turn around
and be like, whoa, you can’t let her do this.
Like this is going to screw everything up.
So–
Oh, so she breaches all these different families versus–
just as mom did it.
It wouldn’t be as big of a sacrifice, you’re saying?
She just has more pull.
And it’s like his mom, of course she would.
But even though Mariko is Lady Toda is one of his vassals,
she still has better ties to the other–
she’s Christian as well.
So Kiyama would be like, whoa, what?
You’re just going to like kill this Christian girl,
as well as the other Christian Dimeos.
And then it’s less of an obvious ruse than your mom doing it,
who’s an old lady too.
It’s like she’s going to die enemies.
So it’s sacrificing a queen.
But I do understand what you’re saying.
My first talk down is Pillow Talk.
Go on, say something.
Usually, like, pre-or post-coidal Pillow Talk is fairly benign.
Talk about what happened during your day.
You know, you maybe talk about a good meal,
what’s on the agenda for tomorrow.
That kind of stuff.
It’s nothing sinister.
You do like a rating system at the end, yeah.
Yeah, it’s like, you got to see plus today.
Good for you, wow.
Yeah, it’s usually my best record stuff.
It’s just going off my best.
But not in futile Japan, I guess.
All these samurai, after they release their silken ropes,
they just want to spill the beans on everything they know.
So it doesn’t–
They spill, they spill, you know?
Exactly.
So it doesn’t matter who they’re talking to.
It’s a woman from the Willow world who–
she’s got other suitors.
There’s people ease dropping all over the place.
And these samurai are just telling them everything
they know about people’s plans, whatever the deal is.
I thought it was just so ridiculous.
You’re just agreeing with what I said last time.
I was like, they’re all emo.
And that checks out now.
I was like, oh my god, you won’t believe what Torinaga had told me today.
Well, yeah, and I think it’s also probably interesting
because you’re living as a samurai in this very strict and rigid society,
where you can’t say anything directly to anybody.
But the second you get through that Jade Gate,
and you unleash your juice, everything else just spills out too.
And that makes sense, honestly.
Yeah, they’re like a therapist.
Yeah, exactly.
It’s like the only time you can actually tell exactly what’s on your mind
is like during these times, which is fascinating
because it also gives Gioku who you’re talking about before,
a ton of power and consequently, Torinaga, the entire empire,
because Gioku puts those whispers into his ear
about pretty much everything that’s going on.
That’s also a game of ground thing, right?
Isn’t that the whole–
Yeah, that’s–
That’s a little finger, whatever.
Not like the brothel?
Yeah, a little finger has the brothel,
but even the bald guy, Varys, or whatever his name is,
these are Varys.
He’s the king of whispers or whatever the case is.
Right, right.
And most of it’s in the brothels, right?
They’re listening to the–
Yeah, he’s got spies everywhere.
So the idea of spies is really well used in this as well.
But it seems like the brothels is the best place to do it.
And once Torinaga sets up this whole willow world area of the city,
it’s just going to be spy haven.
He’s going to know everything.
So Pilotuck, “Stuck Down,” unfortunately.
Be careful what you say there.
And then lastly, “Stuck Down.”
We probably won’t see ourselves in this position,
but it’s worth mentioning.
Being the guest of a Japanese lord,
it seems fun at first.
You’re the guest of someone very important,
and you’re going to these beautiful dinners
and all this fun stuff.
But the next thing you know, it’s like a bar in the movie
of Brawk’s Tale.
They close the door and lock in.
Like, now you can’t leave.
It’s an unfortunate thing.
The funny thing to me in this was how everyone
knows their hostages, but it takes someone like Lady Tota
to have her Jesus moment and be willing to sacrifice
herself for everyone to be like, whoa, actually,
being a hostage is not cool.
I want to go home.
How do we feel about Lady Ochova’s birthday party
when she pretty much continues her so sorry
to shoot out?
And it’s like, no, no, no, like, I’m going to go home.
Like my legular told me that I have to leave.
Mariecoe became my favorite character by far
by the end of the book because of that scene.
That, and she’s like, well, I’m leaving, actually.
And this is like the first samurai that comes up to them.
And he says, well, by order of, you know, you should know,
I can’t let you leave.
And she’s like, cool.
Buddy, kill him.
And just fucking slush his throat.
I was like, holy shit.
That was awesome.
I love that.
And then for all the reason he gets all of her samurai killed.
And then she’s like, I guess I’m not going to do this.
And I was like, wait, what?
What was the point of that?
I wish she killed that first guard
and then they started doing it again.
And so you should have kept all of her boys with her.
And then been like, listen, I’m not going to kill everyone here.
I’m going to commit suicide in 30 minutes.
Get your shit together.
Or I’m right now, not like a day from now, you know?
I’m leaving right now.
– Well, you need the day because I think if you said 30 minutes,
you wouldn’t have enough time for–
– That’s not my problem, Kim.
You wouldn’t have enough time for Ishito and to actually think
about this whole thing.
– You didn’t hear me on the phone with Stubbub, Kim.
I said, if I don’t get this ticket in 30 minutes,
I will cut, because I’m stuck with her.
Yeah.
– I’m stuck with her right now.
Oh.
Yeah, she didn’t.
That’s why she didn’t keep continuing is because then she
didn’t want to get captured.
Because if you got captured, then she wouldn’t be able
to kill herself and then she just–
Right, right.
Be captured.
So she had to make sure she could get back to–
– But she knew she wasn’t going to get out.
They had like a whole army behind the door.
– Yeah, but that’s the point is the point was that
so she could make this giant scene in front of everyone
of the castle, Ishito is lost face now
because of this ridiculous situation.
He’s stopping her from doing what her legelord’s bidding.
And so then she’s going to have to commit Sepuku.
And then Ishito has to think about this whole thing,
but like, he almost now there and he’s like, did what?
And then Ochi was like, you can’t kill her.
You can’t let her kill herself.
She’s super important.
It was a very good plan in my mind.
What did you have for a favorite scene?
I mean, I just very spoiled it.
Yeah, sure.
When she killed That first samurai, I was fucking locked in.
And she was like, the unmitigated temerity.
Her being like, no, no, no, I’m going.
And he’s like, you’ll listen to me and she’s like,
yeah, cool, cool, no, no, I’m going.
I just–
Oh, I see your son is later, she was birthday party.
– Both of those scenes were, well, he’s like, no, you’re not.
She’s like, that’s funny because I am.
I don’t give a fuck, but you say, I was like, God damn it.
Let’s go.
Yeah, Marie goes the best.
Yeah, even Blackthorn during the birthday party was awesome
because everyone’s expecting this, like,
the barbarians they’ve seen are priests.
So they’re expecting someone like that.
But then he walks in, looking like a samurai,
and he’s giving gifts to Lady Ochiabah, this, you know,
flower or whatever.
He’s just so swabbed in that situation.
The other Japanese woman are like, whoa, like,
this guy is pretty cool.
And then it’s him and Marie go.
– He’s got that katana hanging low,
yeah, I think, good.
– Yeah, and even if Shido tries to like,
talk trash to him and he’s like, yeah, whatever, like,
fuck off.
It’s like, whoa.
And the Kiyama is like, hey, you’re never allowed where I am.
And he’s like, all right, chill out, bro.
And then Marie go comes and it’s like,
the most dynamic do I’ve ever seen.
It’s like, that was the best birthday party
anyone’s ever been to in Japan.
– Yeah, that’s pretty sick.
Yeah, I agree.
I think my favorite scene was the ninja scene
just because it’d be cool like in cinema too.
And I agree with you that Marie go trying to leave
was awesome because that was our most pitched battle type
situation where a samurai comes up,
spouts his name and his lineage,
and then they go like one on one,
and then, you know, whoever wins, wins,
and whoever dies, dies,
but then whoever wins then has to go
and take the next person.
So for the Browns, it was badass
because there’s like, you know, 20 of them.
And even if they killed 30 of the next guys,
like, well, they still have to just keep fighting
until they die.
That was a great city.
Yeah, maybe realize why you like the rate of drag
and so much because it was giving me those one on one vibes
of best man wins type to the death.
Yeah.
I thought That was pretty cool.
Fuck, I miss rate of drag and so I was a great book.
I like the ninja scene just because I said,
like all the cool stuff that the ninjas are doing
and then like Black Thorn blasting people
through the doors and whatnot.
And I’ve said I’d read this book before,
but I forgot.
It was a long time ago.
I had like an inkling that Mario go died,
but I wasn’t 100% so it did hit me kind of hard
when she died.
When it’s like really unfortunate
because it seemed like they were so close
to stopping the ninja in general.
Yeah.
– All of a sudden she’s gone.
And I think, ’cause you know, our next category here
which is pick your character
and I think we’re on the same page because mine’s Marco.
I mean, she was the most interesting character
throughout this entire book.
She’s the most badass.
That goes without question.
Like yes, Toranaga might be a better strategist
but she’s 1A behind his one and in terms of badassery.
She’s number one, Black Thorns 1A.
This is a Mario story.
So as much as it’s posed as like a Black Thorn
or a Tarnaga situation, like it’s really about her
and especially with the duality between her
Buddhist self and her Christian self.
– Well this is in a book if you don’t have her in it.
She literally connects all the pieces together
otherwise she’s religious.
She can speak another language.
So she can talk to Black Thorn.
She can speak with Toranaga.
She can speak with the other women.
You don’t have her.
There’s no story.
and even the simplest stuff
that I’ve found the most entertaining with her
was like her and Giyoku negotiating.
It was like so much fun.
‘Cause it’s just like these two very smart
and cunning women going back and forth
about like financial negotiations.
It’s like why is this so interesting but it is.
So and honestly like you said before, the women in this
they once again showing we men are nothing without them
because we talked about Mariko.
We talked about Giyoku.
What is That called?
Simpin?
Are you Simpin right now?
– You had even mentioned Yabu’s wife
and it’s funny because Yabu’s wife had this whole plan
for him and he would probably still be alive
if he had his wife within Osaka
instead of blundering her the plan.
She was like yeah okay just be a toronogue
and he’s like all right then he leaves his wife
for like five minutes so I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know what to do.
– He’s watching Muhammad Ali
and you know like the fight where he pretends
like he’s injured and just sits in the corner the whole time.
This guy’s undefeated is the best boxer ever
and he’s like no I’m gonna get some.
He must be like sucking this time.
It’s like you don’t think this guy is an absolute stud.
What are you doing?
That’s why I didn’t get why.
They’re like yeah he’s never lost a battle
but all of a sudden he’s just an idiot.
Huh?
Like what?
What are you doing?
So and he was he really was doing the right aeropodo.
– He was that’s why everyone fell for it
is because yes although toronogue had done so much
in his career it was like he can’t get out of this one.
This one’s impossible to get out of
but it’s also that toronogue is older and people are younger
and you know memory changes things.
So you know when they were younger they’re like
yeah maybe it wasn’t that good
but he probably had already done the same thing before.
Keith Shogun, parts four through six
books four through six.
How have you wanna say it?
What’d you love about it?
Love I think this is one of those books
that any time anyone talks about Japan
or even mentions Asia I’m gonna bring up.
So I never really had read any books that I think
that were in Asia or really we don’t really get
a lot of history of Asia you know in school
and there’s not a person on that.
We did like We read like the crane book
Thousand Cranes which is like the nuclear attacks
on Hiroshima.
All We read was the good earth.
No I never heard That one.
This is gonna be my becoming you know anytime anyone mentions
I was actually in the Uber in Australia
and the guy was like yeah Japan is my favorite
I was like funny enough.
Oh, nah.
have you read Shogun?
Yeah.
– And he’s like no I’m like idiot.
– It’s cool is it.
– It’s kind of like a war in peace book
but like for Japan it’s like such a long book
and it’s an impressive thing to have in your resumes.
I really did like it and I thought
I’d never even consider visiting Japan
and now I’m like I think I like it.
I mean for me It was All I could think about for weeks.
So the wife’s first.
– You’re speaking for weeks.
– Yeah and that’s where the wife’s frustration is
she’d be saying stuff and I’d be like oh haunto
and she’d be like what?
I’d be like is that the truth?
What are you talking about?
– She’s eating food the dinner table you slap
out of your hand you’re like your focus should be on me.
You should not be the eating.
why are you eating?
You didn’t eat before then you’ll eat afterwards.
What do you think?
Yeah you deal with the finances
and I will sit here and enjoy my meal.
Yeah exactly.
You balance the checkbook and then I’m gonna eat
and you’re gonna serve me warm sake.
But yeah I mean really just all the Japanese stuff
just the sayings and whatnot you know it’d be like
oh this and this happening.
The washing machine broke and I’d be like
yeah I should’ve got the gunna.
What are you fucking talking about?
I’d be like it just did this what it is.
What are you talking about?
Carbonic.
– Yeah it’s carbonic.
Yeah it was awesome.
So it was really because this book is so long
and it’s so immersive I was just I was living in it
and I love that very much.
I didn’t even realize also that I was immersion
myself in things like related to Japan.
You know I started watching Blue-eyed Samurai
which is like an anime show on Netflix
that was quite good which actually takes place.
I think I said this a lot.
But it takes place right after this.
It’s like 1630s excuse me.
And then I started watching like Tokyo Vice
which I didn’t even realize like Michael Mann
directed show which is really interesting
and also mostly in Japanese.
So I was like diving into Japanese stuff
plus I was doing all this World War II stuff
which tied back into it.
So yeah it was great.
It was just I just really dove into the Japanese cultures
or at least pseudo cultures based on these other
pop culture things but it was fun.
What else do you love anything else?
– Yeah ultimately the things I think we’ll remember
is bonsai and a couple of the major scenes
mariko I think was sick.
I just think the culture itself is like rubbed off
in terms of like what the history was like there.
So that’s the biggest like overarching thing
that I would take away.
– Yeah and to that point you know a lot of this I don’t know
you know we’re not gonna go back
and study Japanese history so we might be absolute idiots
in the sense of that we’re making this seem like it’s
you know written in stone but it might be apocryphal.
But if it was somewhat realistic
which I think it was it made learning fun.
Like imagine if this was like a felt like history.
Yeah But with like a really fun story behind It
and some guy that wrote a book about show gun or something
like that he said you know and I quote he said it’s a virtual
encyclopedia of Japanese history and culture
somewhere among those half million words one can find
a brief description of virtually everything one wanted
to know about Japan.
And I think that just sums it up so well
because we heard this awesome story but I also feel like
I do kind of know what it was like for a peasant
to if you to lord to live in 1600 Japan.
I mean historical fictions I mean that’s why I think
we like them it’s just you get a taste of history
and then you get a good story it’s not one of the other
it’s a little bit of both.
Yeah We might have to read some some Shira books
like the Gettysburg one or the one before
’cause those are great historical fiction too.
Would you hate?
– It’s 50 hours you know not the best payoff
a little bit of love to have some sort of
some a little bit more closure there.
I also think there should be a little bit more closure
for some of the side characters.
We get introduced to a lot of these people
and I don’t feel like we really got the true ending
for a lot of the characters that I would like to see.
So I think just overall closure would be
the kind of thing I would underline there
or if you’re gonna make it 50 hours
I kind of need some sort of finale if you will.
– Yeah I’m with you and that’s with me as well.
More battles, any more samurai fighting.
You know I’d love to have like one actual pitched battle
just to see how that fight went out
because I watched Napoleon recently,
the Ridley Scott walking Phoenix movie.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
you heard about It, Yeah.
It wasn’t an awesome movie honestly
but the pitched battle scenes were super fun.
It’s like oh, this is you know,
in a lot of times brave heart.
I like that movie I’ve been seeing it in a really long time
but I do remember the battle scenes.
It’s something I wish there was more of.
I’m trying to think about the one
of actual fights that were in here.
We have like an Osaka Street fight
when Torinaga attempts to leave.
We got Yabu, Ambushing, Joseph
which is really just like a bunch of couple of guys
just like killing another guy who were running away.
We have then obviously the Browse VS. Grey’s
and Marie goes the time to leave and the Ninja fight.
And I think that’s pretty much it besides some arrows
killing people and like some other.
– Yeah, I don’t need like a huge battles either
but it’s just so I feel like it was,
they built it up, the big war is coming
and then you can’t keep on saying that
and then be like, and then the war happened
and we’re not there for that.
Well I want the pitch battle
just because I want to know how it works
because now you got all these samurai.
exactly.
– Big numbers of samurai here,
like bigger than any battle that would happen
in Europe at the time.
We’re talking, you know, 50,000s on top of each other.
So I want to see how that fight turns out.
– And then the last thing I would say,
and I think if they were ridden today,
this would have to be ridden.
I would have just done five characters
from their perspective.
So I would have just done Torinaga
so like the perspective of a leader, Black Thorn,
fish out of water, Mariko,
the like woman and like her able ability
to like kind of almost translate everything
that’s going on.
Omi, the rising of like a star through the ranks,
what he’s seeing, what he’s,
some of that’s lower on the tone,
pull, but like, you know, seeing that.
And then Rodriguez are a priest
so you get like the religious aspect.
But it’s like the five main themes.
And I really think they just kept it within those
and then you understand their voice.
So you like getting this head of each of these people
and if we see Torinaga earlier and Mariko earlier
’cause there’s such good characters,
I think that would have been a much better way to do it
’cause then you think you’d get much easier
or a full picture of everything versus like,
we can do like a random head of certain people
and I’m like, I don’t care about this person that much.
But like these five people, I think were the best characters
and they would have told you everyone’s story.
did you like Murah finding out at the end
that Murah who’s like the village leader under Omi?
He was the one who was Torinaga’s spy in Angero
was like Murah who’s a peasant,
but he’s a Christian peasant or whatever the case is.
But it turns out like, you know,
Torinaga says at the end that,
oh like what would they think if they had realized
that Murah was actually a samurai that I planted
in the village like 35 years ago?
And I think he was like, I think he would fart,
which I always love how they like say,
you know, someone would fart is like, be surprised.
But it was just, I thought that was super cool
because he’s just like this village guy,
you know, peasant village man,
who the whole time we’re thinking is with the Christian Dimeos
and he’s gonna like secretly be smuggling guns
’cause that’s what like Yabu wanted
or the Christians wanted like, oh,
they’re gonna be smuggling guns
and they’re gonna rise up against their leaged lords
but actually more of the whole time it’s like,
no, I was a samurai who was sent on this discreet mission
35 years ago to infiltrate this village
and have been pretending since then.
So it’s like, oh fuck, this is cool.
Torinaga really had it all figured out.
So I really like that.
My last hate, it’s so sorry.
And honestly, I thought there was a perfect amount
of so sorry’s and please excuse me’s.
But maybe I just got used to it because for me,
audio books are like green eggs and ham.
I would eat them in a boat, I’d eat them with a goat,
I’d eat them in the rain, I’d be in a train,
you know, I’d eat them at the Foxon House and a mouse
and I’d eat them here and anywhere,
I’d eat them everywhere.
That’s how I deal with audio books is like,
I always find myself listening to them,
whether I’m outside working in the yard
or just making dinner or whatever the case is.
And one of my favorite places to enjoy an audio book
is while I’m taking a shower because, you know,
the acoustics are right, you really get into the story.
– I’ve never done that.
– Yeah, I got a little JBL clip, you know,
maybe a sponsor in the future.
But and you just, you hang that on the shower door
or whatever and you listen to it for 15 minutes.
But the wife will over hear books from time to time.
She’ll comment because I’m playing them in the shower,
you know, she’s around.
And her only comment for this book was,
well, these characters sure do apologize a lot.
Like, she’s very like, did he just say so sorry?
Like 26 times?
All Right, That was my stock down.
I was like, they apologize way too much
and then apologies don’t mean anything.
Yeah, exactly.
It’s like, do they just start to not mean anything?
And I would honestly like to see the stats,
like I’m sure someone probably on Reddit
or something might have done this.
But it’s gotta be an extra like 20 pages of so sorry.
Like if you just took out all the so sorry’s,
it’s gotta be like 20 pages of actual writing.
I’m gonna give it a hate, but I thought it was all right.
But it was just funny from like a third person perspective.
And it was funny as I was watching the first episode.
I was like, waiting for it.
I was like, when the thing had to say so sorry
and they only said it once, I think.
– Yeah, I’ll do you could actually do that in a real way.
Well, obviously.
Yeah.
They like hand the pilot to FX and they’re like,
it just says so sorry, like 30 times.
And please excuse me.
One little question, I think we kind of addressed it,
but does Blackthorn leave Japan?
Do you think he leaves?
– I don’t think he does.
– Torinaga makes it clear that he doesn’t,
he’s not leaving.
He’s like, he’s not gonna.
– He’s not gonna, but I think eventually he just decides,
I’m gonna stay here.
I don’t wanna, it’s too long of a trip back.
It’s too hard.
I’m gonna just build a military here
and then eventually the Europeans will come over
and I’ll get a message out.
That’s what I think he’s doing.
‘Cause I think eventually he’s just gonna become Japanese fully.
– So you think his wife’s like morning
him being lost at sea, letting a candle every night
as he’s living like a king in Japan,
taking the people to the detainee every night.
– Yeah, that’s right.
Yeah, okay.
I mean, I know Torinaga doesn’t want him to leave,
but the prestige and honor of him going back to England
with like, I’m the first person of the vision of Japan’s,
like here’s these adversaries, here’s all this stuff I’ve learned.
He could actually become like a huge lord in England
for doing it.
And I feel like he misses culture eventually.
He’d kind of forget about all the shittiness.
And so I think he would go back.
And I think he would get his family
and bring them to Japan.
That’s what I’m talking about.
He’d be like, “Torinaga, this is gonna help you.”
He’d be like, “Torinaga is gonna help him.”
And he’d go back to England, get them a bunch of warships made,
like spend like two years, he’d be teaching his family
Japanese over that two years, like learning,
teaching them to like enjoy fish and just like,
clean up after themselves.
And then he took his family.
– You think he’s a good family man?
I think he actually hates his family, so I’m good.
– That’s the difference.
I think he’s gonna convince Torinaga
that let’s cut the middle man out and let’s get,
let’s ride.
Let’s about to get the military going here.
Let’s get a couple ships built.
Let’s got a fleet going.
Let’s got to create a blockade.
– He’s a little got in 60 seconds, little let’s ride.
Yes, exactly.
Nick Cage, I’m real quick.
– All right, Keith, we’ve talked about Shogun
for approximately like three hours and 30 minutes,
which is 0.1% of the total.
That looks…
would you recommend this book to someone
who has maybe only seen the show or hasn’t seen it at all?
Yeah, you gotta strap in for this one.
It’s kind of like a long flight.
If you were going to go into a flight
not knowing it is 10 hours, it might be tough,
but if you know it’s 10 hours, it’s doable
and I think it’s worth your while
to get to that place you wanna go.
You know, and that’s, that’s, that’s a lot of great analogy.
Nice to be done.
– Question, after going on a 16 hour flight, yeah.
I really liked it.
Could it have been 30 hours?
Yeah, definitely could have been, could have been 25 probably,
but I did, that’s a big…
did you feel like It lagged in any places though
and you’re like, oh my God, get through this?
No, not necessarily.
I do think it became a history book in some instances
where it became a little bit repetitive too,
where you’re like, I’m locked in on the culture now,
you don’t either like drill at home anymore,
but I definitely felt like eventually
it just became kind of part of my day.
I was like, oh yeah, I gotta turn this on.
It’s just like, you know, in the background of my head almost.
And for some of the explanations is like,
you know, a lot of the time is like explaining
what like black dorm is eating.
It’s like, oh, it’s eating the fish the way he likes it now.
Like charcoal or fire with some vinegar and rice
and this, that, the other thing.
But it almost brings you back into the story.
You know, it’s like, okay, now you’re like the details,
you don’t get like lost in the necessarily.
You just like now visualizing part of the story.
Like it has…
like some of my favorite parts of Harry Potter
are when they’re not moving the story forward,
they’re just like in class.
– It’s just living in the wizarding world.
– Yeah, that’s what’s really cool to me.
So I get that.
– I’d obviously recommend it.
I mean, where’s this going at the top?
– It’s one of my favorite books of all time.
I think actually I like it less than I did in my memory
but I also like put that on a pedestal in my memory.
It’d be tough to put it at top 10.
I also hadn’t read, read rising at that point,
which is just such a fucking great book.
So, and I think that’s both of our number ones.
It’ll probably slide into two for me.
I don’t think it’ll top red rising.
And I’m not necessarily, so this is what it’s tough to do
with top 10 because I’m not necessarily saying that
red rising is a better book because I’m a huge history buff.
I love that stuff.
I also just like really fun stories
and this covered both of those things.
It’s just that red rising for it being like just a super fun
kids story kind of, but then also not like for kids
’cause there’s some fucked up shit that happens in those books.
– I don’t think it’s a YA book.
– Yeah, no, it’s an adult book that’s like marketed for YA,
which is fucked up.
Yeah, so this is just, it’s almost like a different beast,
but with that, I think in terms of the amount of time
it takes to read this one, yeah, exact.
The pound for minute, you know,
the amount of pound of flesh I’m taking per minute
out of that, I’m just, I’m gonna stick with the red as I,
but it goes for number two.
Are we planning on doing the show for an episode?
I think We should.
Yeah, I think so too.
So I don’t wanna talk too much about it,
but I will say I am a little upset.
I read the book so close to watching the show.
Oh really?
– Yeah, because I’m more nitpicky and also because I just
invested 50 hours of my life to this book.
I like want it to hit perfectly.
It’s a really good show.
There’s no question about it.
It’s just I’m having a tough time fully investing in it without–
– There’s a people that didn’t read the book,
probably it’s like we gotta do this stuff.
– I don’t even know if it is because it’s also all in Japanese.
– It’s all subtitles.
– Yeah, there’s very little English, which is awesome.
I’m such a dick too.
I’m watching with Caroline and she’s having a tension
and I’m like, oh actually he’d probably be speaking Dutch here.
Why am I saying that?
Jesus.
– I’m such a fucking idiot.
I hate myself sometimes.
I’m like, oh, a lead is piece of shit here,
but I will say it is beautiful.
Everything about it is beautiful.
Seeing the samurai in armor and stuff like that,
things that I have trouble imagining was so cool to see.
And just like Angerot itself,
which is like this little wooded village,
and I’m thinking about it so much differently.
It was just, it was fun.
So I think we’re gonna have a good time chatting about it.
I think I need to just kind of like forget about the book
and just watch the show and enjoy it.
All right.
All Right, Well Keith, We did show God.
I’m really proud of us.
I’m really proud of you.
Thanks for sticking with me on this journey.
You know, it’s a long one.
– I’m always proud of you.
But we got coming up next.
Next We got Slotterhouse5 by Kurt Vonnegut.
That’s a quick one.
So we needed a little decompress,
a little, something quick.
And then after that, we got The Blade itself
by Joe Abercambi.
Got a couple of good ones slated up here.
And so, hope you’ll be all join us.
– Yeah, so it’ll be fun.
We’ll do a little English class high school book,
five hours, something like that,
and then back into some Joe Abercambi.
All right, Keith, well, it has been fun.
If people don’t like this, Shikantika and I,
no, just kidding, I love the anyways.
I’ll catch you for Slotterhouse5.
All righty.
Sayonara.
Nope, Sayonara.
Bye.

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,
a Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, buddybooko.com podcast.
You can list just iTunes, Spotify, or even your podcast,
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!

290
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.

316
00:13:52,160 –> 00:13:53,600
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

524
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.

The Buddies start in on the epic historical fiction novel, Shōgun by James Clavell. They start with part 1 (prologue – chapter 9) on their 1,000+ page voyage. With a new tv show coming out on FX in February, the Buddies couldn’t put off D-mans favorite book any longer. The Buddies got to chatting about full sends, baths, and the importance of peeing on things to show dominance. We are even treated to a historical scene setting portion by D-man aka Dan Carlin 2.0. So bring your katana and wakizashi swords, some bubble soap (for the bath), as we soak in everything Shōgun has to offer.

Intro (0:00-2:10)
Stock Up/Down (2:11-22:19)
Favorite Scene (22:20-27:03)
Lingering Questions (27:04-32:13)
History/Scene Setting w/D-man aka Dan Carlin 2.0 (32:14-41:21)
Conclusion (45:04-43:16)

NEXT BOOK: Shōgun (Part 2 & 3) by James Clavell

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome buddy book club. My Namo is Dylan and I’m here with my feudal lord and I’m yo
Kanitjuwaki Sama. Hello Dylan son. Wow, I give you Sama and you give me Sama?
You didn’t see me, I’m literally bowing right now. I’m almost hitting the ground.
I was about to say you better be palms down on the ground.
There’s deep respect right now for you. You just didn’t see it.
All right, well we’ll see. You might be going to commit some set book.
We’re breaking down some bestsellers and this week we’ll be discussing show gun by James
Clavel. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us any past episodes,
you can visit our website but it book up.com or site. We’re at DMs or Twitter or Instagram.
Body book up podcast. You can listen to us on iTunes, bot of our every year podcast so please
download and subscribe. Keep this one’s a long time coming. Honestly, I think when you first
suggested that we take our immense talents to the internet and shame ourselves in front of all these
people that my first thought was let’s do show gun, which is one of my favorite books of all time.
But it’s an epic. It’s a thousand page like airplane book in the sense of when you go to the
airplane bookstore and they only have the paperbacks that have the tiniest type, it’s a thousand pages
there. So I’m really hoping that I’m not sending you to do something that you don’t want to do
and wasting your time because I would feel immense shame and would be forced to commit set book group.
I liked it so far. It’s obviously a lot to go for the readers out there. This is only going to cover
part one, which is the first nine chapters. So I think it’s about like probably 10 hours, I would say.
It’s broken up into like six books with a prologue. So we’re going to cover the prologue and book one,
which isn’t a ton of content, but we also wanted to really set the stage of like where we are in
history because this is a historical fiction book that does loosely tie back to things that happened
in the real world. So we just kind of wanted to do like a set and setting kind of pod with a little
bit of content before we really dive into because after this, it’s just nonstop political and
killing people and all sorts of fun stuff. Keith, let’s jump into it with some stock up, stock down
for book one, stock up. What do you got? Stock up old school full sense.
Are you familiar with the term full send, demon? I think so. Like if you’re skiing and you decide to go
off a cliff, like really, really sending it. I’m just going to send it. And these are really my
three favorite scenes. I’m going to get out, I kind of spoiled them right right here, but I mean,
I had to call them now because they’re all great variations of full send and different capacity.
Number three, Blackthorn, telling the story of his boat getting attacked and there are people
about to rate it and he’s like, oh, fuck this goes down, lights the magazine, which I had to look up,
which is the magazine is where they stored the ammunition lights it. Those people start to jump
onto his boat, get on there, he dives off and explodes, kills all the people on his boat. He goes
down to ship essentially, but he finds another boat, so I’m over and takes Captain to that one.
Great example. Fuck this boat, fuck these people. Lights everything out fire.
I’m pretty sure that’s how the USS Arizona went down at Pearl Harbor because that’s what that was
like the big explosion one. Oh, really? Dig went in there and lit it on fire? No, no, no, they just
hit it with Torpedo or a bomb. So like they hit that magazine and that’s where all the ammunition is.
Yeah, munitions are. So the whole thing exploded immediately. Yeah, I’d never heard of that.
I’ve only heard of a gun magazine, which is obviously probably where it comes from.
Number two, Blackthorn tells Yaboo, I think it was Yaboo, but he’s like, I’m gonna piss all over
your dead corpse or I forgot what he says exactly. And the other was like, okay, cool, cool.
Just pulls his dick out and pisses on it. No, that was, oh, me sorry. See, there’s a, I’ve had a
trouble with the Omean Yaboo difference. That’s part about that though. Really was Oby and Blackthorn
both say, oh, Lisa didn’t piss on my face because that would be too disrespectful. Piss on his back,
that’s okay. You know, that’s really not that bad, but pissing on his face would have been the last
straw. He gave him a break. That’s the distinction. Yaboo is like, oh, why didn’t you piss on the
barbarians face? Like, if you’re gonna piss on him, why not piss on his face? Like, oh, no, that’d be
too much of a disfaceless face. There’s no way he would come back up. Yeah, that sounds backspire.
And then Yaboo is like, very smart, very smart. The number one, by far, I laughed out loud in this
happen. Yeah. Yaboo is meditating. They’re trying to get his attention because he’s like, I’m gonna
die whatever, like, I’m just gonna, you know, chill here. One guy goes, fuck it, bonsai and
it lands next to him just to get his attention and dies instantly. That’s what I’m here for. I’m
all about that. I love that. That that literally was a turning point. That was the end of chapter nine.
So that’s when I said, I’m ready for part two. Let’s fucking go. So full sending. Old school. Love it.
Full sending for sure. Also pissing on people. If you really want to dominate over someone,
to show them your power, you just pee on them. When my dog was a puppy and when she peed on the floor,
people like they make their dog sniff it. No, I pee on the dog just to then show her. Yeah. Like,
okay, you pee on the floor. I pee on you. Think about it. Well, it wasn’t the face though. So it
would have been very disrespectful. Yeah, I would not. Yeah, I would not be. Yeah. But I also love the
the scream before it. The bonsai. I mean, that’s like, great. I mean, that’s the same thing.
Anytime you scream before you get about to kill yourself, that’s great. You love to see it.
It’s nice that cultures have different screams that they have to do before they go and for us,
it would be freedom mostly after a male Gibson in the Patriot, but that’s for me. Oh, that’s great.
And oh, excuse me, male Gibson in Braveheart, but Black Thorn when he sees that Samurai jump off the
cliff, like kill himself just to potentially get Yabu’s attention, not like, oh, this is guaranteed
to work out. Yeah. It’s just for potential. That’s like one of my favorite parts of the book in
general, especially at the beginning is just this total fish out of water vibe that’s going on,
where we can’t imagine now because you can see every culture and TV or in social media or within
their own kind of art, whatever the case is. But back then, you have know what he had no idea who
these people were. It’s just a mythical people, really. And they think it’s so many times in this that
they’re not the same people. You know, like, oh, these Japanese people are different. They don’t
feel cold. Like they say that all like, oh, they don’t feel cold. Like they don’t feel all these things.
But they do. They just have a different way of going about it in their culture doesn’t allow it,
especially with the samurai, you know, Bushido code is so important. And like the idea of duty,
like their duty and allegiance to their leech lord is the most important thing within Bushido code.
If you can die for your leech lord, that’s the greatest thing ever. This guy’s sacrifice, Black Thorn
was just blown away by being like, these people are actually psychotic. Who would possibly do
that because the European cultures value life so much and not necessarily, but not necessarily
what you do in life, but they value life itself, which has its positives and negatives. Whereas
the Japanese, the samurai, and this value duty and honor more than anything else. When they say
it so many times, especially because they’re Buddhist or the vast majority of them are Buddhist,
we’ll talk probably later about the Catholicism involved. But they talk about reincarnation and
just that life is a fleeting. It’s a do-drop within a do-drop kind of thing. So to them, it’s not a big deal.
It’s like, well, if you were good and you die, it’s like, well, then you’re gonna get reincarnated
is something better. So who cares? Anytime they have shame, they’re just like, well, gotta end it.
I’m like, I’d have end my life like a hundred times at this point of shame was the other time.
That’s all I took. A shame in myself and millions of times. Yeah, just standard shame,
I can’t possibly handle this. Yeah, yeah. I can’t live with this. I must kill myself. Which we
haven’t seen anyone actually commit Sepuku, except for the guy in the pit. Sepuku is a ritualistic
suicide for those unaware. And it’s an honor to commit Sepuku for your legelord. If they give you
that, I guess it’s an honor. Obviously, it doesn’t happen unless bad things go down. But no one’s like,
Oh, happy birthday, commits Sepuku. Well, he only gave him a small knife, so he couldn’t
technically do it. He could only slither with that or something, is that how it goes or is it? I
thought you had to have a certain type of knife to do it. No, the small knife is the knife. So a Samurai
cares two swords. They carry their katana, which is, you know, their killing sword. And then they
also have a smaller dagger, size sword. And that is the sword that you would use to commit Sepuku.
And actually you would wrap a cloth or something around most of the blade because you don’t need
much of the blade. You just need enough to cut open your belly and let your intestines fall out.
Which if you’re really disgraced, they just let you die that way, which could take days. But usually
there’s a second involved. And that second will cut off your head immediately after you’ve cut
cut open your stomach. So, you know, dying in a good way would definitely be having the second.
Sitting there with your guts hanging out for a couple days, not so cool. My first stock up is
baths. I mean, it seems to be too obvious. Okay, cool. I was like, it kind of is right. You know,
but it’s just going to seem so obvious. And actually my second one was ritualistic suicide. So I
guess we’ll just finish that one because Sepuku is really the only way to expedite a shame, a sin or
a fault. I actually like the bonds I die better than Sepuku, but that’s just me.
Ritualistic suicide does both, but at least if you have a shame, a sin or a fault,
and you want to maintain your honor, you commit Sepuku. It’s good. You get reincarnated
positively. So, you know, we’re supporting that, but baths back to that. It’s so interesting to
me the cultural clash where the Europeans think that baths make you sick, like bathing too often
makes you sick. And the Japanese are like, yeah, bathing all the time as often as you possibly can.
Like, why wouldn’t you? And it just seems blatantly obvious to me. Like, someone smells bad.
You’re like, that just seems sickly, right? You can see when they’re in the pit or whatnot.
It’s like, oh, they smell terrible. Like, it’s horrible. So like, wouldn’t you want to get that
off of you? I didn’t really understand it, but Japanese baths, I mean, we’re talking, you get the
full treatment, you’re getting massages, there’s perfumed oils and all sorts of stuff going on in
there. It sounds honestly wonderful. And I was just also interested in what’s your take on baths
in general, because I don’t take baths, but I do miss them because obviously there’s a child that
was a big thing. I thought it’s funny too, because when you look think about like the Europeans back
in the day, you think of them in the powdered wigs and they’re like very firm and proper, but they’re
just gross. They’re barbarians. They call them barbarians. And like, if we sell them today, you’d be like,
oh, this person’s just absolutely disgusting, you know, you would be ashamed. Yeah, 1000%.
You need to see it through the eyes of the Japanese. You’d be like, oh, I didn’t even realize that.
Yeah, and I also think it’s funny, you said the powdered wigs, because I think that kind of came from
venereal diseases. I might be making this up, but I’m pretty sure the idea of like powdered wigs came
about because of like syphilis or something and like the scent of it all. When the Japanese call
the Europeans barbarians in this, I’m like, hell, yes, they are barbarians. These people are disgusting.
Well, you kind of just become so sympathetic to this Japanese culture, which seems, and they say
Japan is the land of the gods or whatever, but it sure seems like it. It’s beautiful. It’s clean.
Even the small fishing village, everything is just like it neat and tidy, and there’s just this
artful order to things and the interest, obviously, most of this is coming from the samurai class,
which has the ability to think about poetry and meditation and not the work and folk who I’m sure
bust in their ass and not getting a lot of thanks for it. Then you think of the Europeans who are just
filthy and disgusting and don’t want a shower and my other stock down, which I’m going to burn
here is they went and said they want to bleed them, which why does that seem to make sense to you?
Stock up Japanese culture over European culture. I agree with that. The thing about massages too,
or not massages, I had massages of the stock up as well. They can go hand in hand. I’ve never gotten
one, but I now I’m like, I kind of want a bath and massage after this book. For me, the biggest issue with
bass is I don’t like just sitting somewhere and not having something to do, and I used to always bring
a book in the bath, right? It was a little bit older, and I biggest pet peeve is I’d get it wet,
you know, like my hands would be like turning the page and now the book’s all moldy and wet.
I think audiobook solves it, so maybe I just now post up an audiobook. I’m feeling like I need to
give it another shot. It’s funny. The first thing I did when I got my Amazon Kindle was I drew a bath.
Because it was the great, it was exactly what you were saying. I used to bring books in or whatever
the case was. Did you paint it or use pencils or how’d you draw it? Oh draw it back. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, we’re back. The Kindle you can get wet or whatever the case is, and it was so much better
than I just sat there and I read and had a couple of brusquies in the bath. Great experience. Yeah,
it was a really good time. There you go. No bubbles though. I didn’t do the bubble bath. That’s my fault.
I mean, if I was reading this book, I would definitely be having some sake. I’m going, what about stockdown?
Stockdown flirting. You know, you and I in a previous life would go to a bar. We were young whippersnappers,
you know, a little moxie and hope still filled in us at that point. You know, now we’re a little bit
old from Mungin, so a little different. But the time I remember us out and about and me approaching
a girl to flirt with at the bar and instantly getting rejected within 30 seconds and stumbling
over my words and then coming back and drinking myself into a stupor. Pretty standard, really.
Pretty typical night, but I don’t know how I didn’t figure out that all you need to do is walk up to
this woman or girl and just pointing at you. Woman at them. That’s all you have to do, do you?
Oh, no. Oh, no. Woman. Woman. And she tells you your name and you just say, no, no, you’re woman.
Woman. Woman. You keep on saying it as many times you possibly can and pointing.
Eventually they just get into your bed and get naked. That’s why I’m in this book, which I’m just like,
wait, what? How does this work? It was on there for one of my favorite scenes when his first encounter
when he’s hungry, but the women thinks he wants sex with the oldest woman,
disrobed, and the others just like, oh, they get all excited and they just sit there expectantly,
like, okay, like, let’s see what happens next. Like, this is going to be fun.
Kind of a little bit crazy, right? The first of all, the arrogance to be like, no, no, your name’s
a woman. Trust me. I know your name. I don’t know your language and anything about it.
You’re a woman. And then also just throw them to be like, yeah, it sounds good. We did it wrong
back in the day and, you know, missed our opportunity. Miss our opportunities indeed. And I was
thinking about that. I was trying to tie that back to your, uh, the shame and the sepico you’d be
committing over the years. Yes, yes.
And we’ll probably be talking about this more in future episodes, but just the way that Japanese
seem, at least this culture, this samurai culture at the time, seem to view sex is so fascinating
to our ideas, which are formed from the European ideas. And Blackstone gives us a little bit of
insight into that, but, you know, the idea of nakedness is something that people are not comfortable
with in Europe or, you know, being around other people where everyone seems to be mostly naked,
at least the men, you know, they were their loincloths and then they also freely are naked. It’s
just nakedness isn’t, there’s no shame behind it, which I think definitely comes from some form of
Catholicism, probably. And then just with Kiku and Omi, so you’re loud a wife and then consort,
but Kiku is having sex with Omi slash like he’s over in her place and then Omi’s wife comes back to
town and Kiku is like, Oh, I should go over there and just like let her know that he’s here and see if
she wants me to wake him up and bring him home. And his wife is so excited to see her. She’s like, Oh,
hey, Kiku, how’s it going? Kiku is like, Oh, your husband’s over my place. We just banged, but uh,
she’d actually bring him back. She’s like, No, but sit and have a child. I was so confused by that. I’m like,
wait, is this the same person? I was, thanks for clearing that up because I was very confused.
It is the same person. And I think I made this clear to the listeners out there, but
this is my second full-time reading the book. Granted, I haven’t finished it. I’m gonna keep track
with the pod, but it will be my second full-time. I did start listening to it a couple of years ago
again. The first time I read it was in my early 20s. So I do remember some big stuff going on or
some some of this stuff. So I do have an idea of like where things are going or whatnot, but I will say
that the ideas of sex are very different and the comfort level of giving your husband a night with
a corduassand at a tie. It’s people are very comfortable with that. No problems whatsoever. So having a
household that is your wife and lots of other women is is okay. It’d be like your wife’s just giving
you for your birthday like a gift being like, Oh, I got you this escort who will sing to you,
serve you tea and sake in extremely graceful ways. She’ll play the guitar and then she’ll lay you
and maybe get a massage, whatever the case is. Yeah, sounds terrible, honestly. Sounds terrible.
A lot of you’re listening terrible, not interested. My first stock down and kind of the only one I
really have left, but is traveling anywhere by boat? We kind of talked about this in the last episode
with the airship stuff, but boats just seem terrible. It all seems horrible like every bit of it. None of it
would be interesting to me. The fact that this is how people had to travel to see the world or to like
get out of a situation to you know, move to a new place. I just don’t know what’s happened with the
world, or maybe I’m just looking for my own eyes, but I am extremely mentally weak. I would not be
able to handle any of this. I would not be interested. They’re like, All right, we’re going to go travel.
We don’t know exactly where our end spots going to be. Your teeth may fall out from scurvy and the
skin may fall off your face and we have nothing to eat besides the maggots that are in our apples,
but let’s do it. I’m like, Yeah, okay, whatever I might make some money. I’ll probably die, but I might
make some money. No, no, thank you. The fact that anyone did this really blows me away and once again,
the Japanese are right being like, I don’t like to get on boats. We’re not a sea-faring people. We’re land
people. Yeah, so I support them. I complain about like flying and wearing about flying and it’s like
one in three hundred million chance of dying on a plane. And so, and then this they’re like, so yeah,
you get in the boat. We’re going to take out five of them. Four of them are a hundred percent not
coming back. All those people in those are dead. They’re going to die. And then the boat that’s going
to come back, it’s going to have like 10 to 20 of the the hundred fifty people we put on the boat. So,
you know, the ratio of surviving when you take a boat trip is like five percent chance. So let’s take
a bunch of those. It’s like, okay, I’m out. Yeah, I’m out on that. Even when Black Thorne’s having his
flashbacks to his teacher and learning about sea-faring and wanting to go on this expedition with Drake,
he’s like, you know, Drake is like, he’s like, he’s like, oh, he just did this amazing thing. He’s like,
yeah, but they only came back with like 10 percent of the crew. That could be me. I could be in that 10
percent. It’s me. I’d be like, I’m always in the 90 percent. So, well, it’s definitely like the,
hey, you can get a hundred million dollars only 10 percent chance of living. I would do take that deal.
That’s like what they’re, they’re actually signing up for. My last stock down is clocks in the gold
standard. Give me the Japanese way. I mean, I’ve written a couple blogs about time and just not
understanding it in general. Same thing with currency. I have no idea really how currency worked, but I
know back in a day, or at least until like the 60s or 70s, I want to say, we were backed by gold.
So like every US dollar is printed, we had enough gold to cover that. Basically, it was gold currency,
or gold standard. It never made sense to, if you’re starving or the things like to get destroyed and,
you know, the country goes to shit, gold doesn’t do anything. I can’t eat gold. I can’t, I can’t drink gold.
It doesn’t do anything. I always made sense of like, oh, we should almost tie it to a resource that
actually has supreme value that no matter when, you know, a thousand years from now, it will have value.
Like rice, which is what the Japanese do. Makes perfect sense to me. Perfect sense. The currency is
rice for that, right? Yeah. So in feudal Japan, a cocoa of rice is equal to the amount of rice a family
will need to survive in a year. We should be on the wheat system or the corn system in the United
States. It’s just be like, I’m going to give you 10 key codes or cocoa. It’s like, okay, cool. That’s
10 corn of rice. It’s like gold. What am I going to do with gold? It’s just you basically converted to
whatever is most popular dish. It’s like pizza for me, ice cream for you, you know? Like it’s just,
okay, yeah, it’s like, I don’t know that that seems like a pretty expensive cost for that car. I’ll give you
3000 pizzas for it and it just makes perfect sense to me, you know, what that amount is, right? But like,
yeah, well, actually, I don’t even want to think about that with the cow chopping I did today.
How many gallons of ice cream that thing’s going to cost me? It makes way more sense.
It’s good for the life. Because right now it’s just a credit card. It’s just money. It doesn’t mean
anything to me. There’s no value to me. Yeah. You could buy this one gold ring. I’m like, I don’t care
about gold. Who gives a shit? It’s it’s also important to teach people the value of your currency too.
Because if I was going to Crateron Barrel where I’m buying this dang couch and they’re like,
oh, all right, so you’re going to have to bring in a tractor trailer full of ice cream. You have to
bring a thought 10 years of ice cream that you’re going to eat. I’d say like, no, I don’t think I can do
that. But now I just have this dollar with George Washington’s face on it. I don’t care, you know,
whatever. It doesn’t matter to me. And time, you said time to how to time tie into that. So the time
they use is the burning of a candle, which is like, they’re like, all right, three candles or is that
it is incense? Okay. Stick a stick of incense. Yeah, which I don’t know if they burn perfectly even,
but I liked it. You know what? I don’t think the an hour makes any sense. Time doesn’t make any
sense to me. It’s arbitrary. Give me something that I can see, you know? It’s actually like, once this
is done, it’s over. Makes more sense to me. And the sailors use our glasses, which also makes more
sense. And I wish working for the man. It was like, hey, there’s, you know, you’re working nine hours
today. It’s like, you know, flip over an hourglass, work that time, flip it over again, go do something,
flip it over again, work. It makes it would make it easier, I think, for me to crush work as opposed
to just like sitting there all day. I mean, like, good God. This is, there’s still so much to time to pass.
Plus the incense burning like tracks time, but it’s also smells wonderful. Yeah. They know they’re doing
the smiles here. I appreciated that. Do you have a favorite scene? I feel like the first book or the
prologue of the first book is kind of broken up into we got the Erasmus, which is the ship that Black
Thorn they crash into Japan. We have the guys in the pit. That’s a whole thing. Black Thorn meeting
Yabu, the torture night. Yabu’s favorite when Yabu gets his rocks off to people getting tortured.
And then aboard the Japanese galley where lo and behold, another storm comes and then saving Rod Rigo.
Those are kind of like the big things that happen in there. I think the boat with the Portuguese
captain was the best. I think the prior part was kind of setting up, hey, this is a fish out of water.
This is what I’m trying to say. This is what they’re interpreting and things like that back and forth.
Once you got someone that was in there, I think once the action started happening and there was
a little bit more stream like mitigation, it made it much more enjoyable for me. What about you? Yeah.
I agree in that sense and I do love how this book because it’s so long. You know, this is a huge novel
and so many times when you get these big novels, it just jumps kind of like perspective to perspective,
which this does. You know, you it’s not just coming from Black Thorn. You’re getting other
people’s perspectives, but it kind of zooms out to like different places and different things
that are happening. We’re shogun is it’s just focused in this fishing village in Yizu and we’re
getting some understanding really of the geopolitical situation, but not a ton and then obviously we’re
going to learn a lot more like we’re approximately like 200 pages into a thousand page book. So many
of the main characters haven’t even been introduced to us yet, which is really enjoyable. I like to
think about books like this almost as like a mini series where you know, this would be the first
episode maybe three of the most important characters or two or three of the most important characters
like haven’t even been introduced to us yet. You know, there’s there’s so much left to go on that
front. There’s so much back and forth of the language stuff that not like a ton happens,
but I did love everything surrounding the pit between them going into the pit, all the fish
guts getting dropped on them then being like what the hell are we doing here? The samurai coming
down and him murdering himself and everything like what the hell’s going on them drawing straws but
that not even working out. So that going into the torture night because then you’re like what the
hell are they going to do to torture him? Which I must say boiling someone alive pretty fucked up.
I also didn’t really understand other than like the love for torturing is like they’re like we want
to make these people are our vassals and that was kind of one of my lingering questions I can bring
on now, but like is there revenge? Is that not a thing in Japan? The best way to get someone to
subservient is not necessarily to start boiling their friends alive. It doesn’t seem like that would be
the best way. I would I know. Yeah, but what’s funny is both groups look at the other as a dumb
animal. I think it says a lot about like people in general. Like you’re beating the dog type thing
they’ll make it a completely exactly exactly. This is they’re trying to get obedience to these people and
they became aware of how much a person’s life matters to them like they say even say when it comes to
Anjinsan who is John Blackthorn, how he would let someone piss on him so that one of his people
wouldn’t die. Right. The lesser person than him. That’s ridiculous. We would never allow that to happen.
But they realize okay, it’s cool to him. So the torture is okay. Well now we can hang this over you. We
can torture anyone at any time if we want. But it’s also just the habit of being a sick fuck and
just loving torture and wanting to be part of that. I was out of that. I really liked also the
like saving Brad Riego stuff where it was a you know Blackthorn kind of challenges Yabu and Yabu is
like okay. That made a little bit more sense to me is like okay I want Blackthorn to be my
vassal. I’m going to show him that I’m not just this one thing that he thinks I am. I’m much more
than that and I’m also much stronger like because Yabu is kind of like a short fat guy. So I think to
see him nimbly scaling down a mountain and also just like knowing that he’s a good swordsman as well.
I was like okay well maybe this Yabu guy ain’t too bad and then you also owe him and that that does
matter. But in a small small favorite scene maybe it was the old Japanese lady who was so happy
to see his big European penis that she said she can now die happy. That I enjoyed very much.
Someone that you’re paying dissent of I was pretty proud of our ancestors there. Oh he’s like oh my
mother says she can now die happy because she saw your penis erect. He’s like all right.
For me they’d be like we’re expecting a lot more honestly we heard the stories that’s a shame.
It’s too bad. The Russian judge gives it a three.
Let’s do some lingering questions. No they want to make them vassals. It wants someone to revolt
and kill one of my boys. I feel like you just put them all down. What do you mean when did someone
do that? So they revolt and they kill the one samurai or basically fuck them up so that they
throw them in the pit with them. What was the advantage to keeping them alive? I understand the
skills and the necessaryness to keep black thumb but why wouldn’t you just be like I fuck all these
dudes? We don’t need them. What are they providing? Well I think the idea is that black thorns
interest in keeping them alive will keep him under control. So he wants black thorns wants his
men to survive. So if you keep them alive then black thorn can then still be taking control of.
Whereas if they just kill all of them then black thorn will really just be out for vengeance.
The whole thing. And also Yabu doesn’t care about that one samurai. He doesn’t care about 10,000
samurai if it helps him get to where he wants to be. And Yabu is also smart enough to know that
this is these barbarians are not like the Portuguese barbarians. They could be useful to him. He
doesn’t yet know why he has ideas like his idea to have them teach samurai how to use this
European, this barbarian boat maybe against the Portuguese or against other Japanese because
the Japanese are able to sail that. It could change a lot of things as well as having a musket
armed regiment of samurai which obviously these Europeans know how to use those weapons.
They might be better because the only Portuguese that are currently in Japan are Jesuits and
priests. So they’re not going to be the ones that they would go to to learn armaments. So I think
that’s part of it. The other thing that I thought was interesting and I was going to bring up with
the flirting stock but I was kind of strange to me that I don’t know if they just do value women
a lot more or this idea of sex is just not really not a big deal to them. But like if you’re
going to take these people and you’re like we’re going to imprison them or enough I can get them
under a thumb. Why are you also giving them the benefits of here’s some nice like vegetables and food
and also here are all these prostuits you can just sleep with them whatever you want. If you think
these are barbarians and shitty people that you should be in jail why were you also treating them
to things like that you know what I mean? Yeah I think a lot of that stuff at the beginning is also more
of taking a lamb to slaughter in the sense of if they know they’re going to die if you tell them
oh we’re going to torture all of you to death. Then who knows what they could do you know they’re
going to get because they’ve been there yet so they’re like we need to keep them nice and
hot. Exactly. That makes sense. Exactly so they’re like we’re just going to keep these guys fed
nice and calm we have no idea what job who’s going to want to do with them. Yeah it probably won’t be
good but in order to make sure that they don’t go crazy and start tearing our town apart like let’s
just make sure they have no seeming their testicles. That’s smart actually I didn’t all right that
really does a good answer there I didn’t think about that. You’re welcome you’re welcome go minus
I mean I’m sorry I think so I don’t know why I said that. And I had prediction but I think obviously
that black thorn will learn Japanese and then start to appreciate their customs his rage will still be
there which was like they’re not used to that which is going to be a good thing you know obviously
like they’re used to like being internal everything internalized and like very relaxed and like no
emotions but he’s going to use that and like they’re going to be like oh this dude’s sucking bad
ass because he has this rage. Yeah he’s got this berserker energy because we all know at this point
black thorns going to have some sort of transformation and he’s such a perfect main character
for this because of his curiosity and he’s super intelligent. Yeah it’s ability to pick up languages I
think is the most important thing. Yeah 100% well he’s also you know bilingual which probably should have
been a stock up in general or he’s like trilingual and he speaks latin Dutch english Portuguese yeah
he’s like quadling and you see it later which you know it’s going to be a little bit of a spoiler
alert but in the next section he they go into Osaka because that’s where we leave them at the end
of this part they go into Osaka and he immediately starts to figure like trying to figure out like
how could I take this castle if I wanted to you know it’s just like his brains always working
and you need to be quick in this society to survive. When it comes to this book one of the things I
just love in general about it is just the intricacies of the conversation between samarize and like
even the nonverbal aspects because everything is so strategic the slightest slight could mean
that you’re saying something so terrible but you can’t say that so you just kind of put a little
something in there and it’s like oh my god that was so but then the other person can’t respond to it
someone says oh this soup was kind of cold that you cooked you can’t be like well how dare you
well there you’re going to zero to 100 because they’re either like you’re right you can have all
my property or they’re pulling their dick out pissing on someone or they’re like throwing the food
on the ground saying this is fucking pathetic you shouldn’t be my son’s wife like your piece of
garbage like Jesus Christ so there’s a little there’s a little ton of subtlety or not no no
in between yeah exactly okay so I want to just like set a little bit of the stage here because we
didn’t get to a ton of it so I want to make sure that’s clear and how we’re going to break this
up is instead of doing like you know book report we’re going to do a little history lesson here
and it’ll should be mostly painless because I’m not going to involve any real names or dates
but I think the key aspects are what’s going on in Europe at the time what’s going on in Japan at the
time and how those two fit together does that make sense I mean obviously America so you got to
keep include that what year is it it’s 1600 the year we’re about to overthrow the British in
176 years so we’re we’re fine none of the Americas are actually charting it no one’s actually
being in America no you were 1490s right yeah but I mean like they’ve seen the coastal lands but no
one has really like permeated into and that’s with most countries like at this point in history we know
the shapes of the major continents but no one has really like dove into those a ton except for
some of the South American stuff in terms of the new world that’s kind of crazy because it’s so
much harder to get to Japan than it is to the America right from from England right like and from
Netherlands so they’ve been there I mean obviously people live there but you know Europeans and what
not it could have been there the idea of looking into the country you know like more than 20 miles
in or whatever the case is like just not happened so Shogun itself the book although it is historical
fiction it gives an account of the rise of some of these Dimeos right and where they we’ve heard about
Torinaga he’s gonna be involved in there a battle happened in like right after 1600 that this kind
of draws from so like this this happened in there and there was a English sailor William Adam
who was around at the time so he’s kind of plays the John Black Thorne character it somewhat loosely
based on the events that did happen in real life around this time and in Europe at the time the
Netherlands had recently won a civil war that what they talked about here the 80 years war to gain
independence against the Spanish Catholics and the Netherlands their ruling families Protestant
Netherlands are loosely allied with England thanks to Queen Elizabeth who is also Protestant
the Spanish and Portuguese Catholic English Netherlands Protestant simple is that but the Spanish
and Portuguese divide the world between themselves via a couple treaties we don’t care what those
treaties are but they basically say all right out of all the new world here’s what you get here’s
what we get and the Catholic Church is the real imperial power with the Pope at its head who gives
the Spanish and Portuguese the right to go forth and convert all of these people or kill rape and
pillage whichever one you say in the name of God that’s what’s happening in Europe pretty simple in Japan
there’s been like six centuries of constant civil war 35 years ago a minor dimo grota he was able to conquer
almost all of Japan but then was assassinated by one of his generals that’s going to become important
later that this general that assassinated him but grota is best strategic general in vassal the man
that would go on to become the taiko who they talked about he consolidated power with the help of
Torinaga and Ishiro who are these two big bad dummies and this led to a time of peace that lasted
for a decade the taiko couldn’t become shogun because he was peasant born so he just took on the
title of taiko and a year ago the taiko died and with his heir yemen only seven years of age there’s
now a power vacuum so the taiko set up five regents to rule until his son yemen comes of age those
regents include Torinaga and Ishiro and then those are the big power players those are really the
ones we have to super care about their sworn enemies and then there’s three other guys and the only
kind of important thing is that two of those other guys are Christian so how this Japan and
Europe think fits together is Japan needs silks from China China won’t trade with Japan but wouldn’t
mind getting some of that Japanese silver so the Portuguese who arrived in Asia a couple decades ago
can trade with China and they have a base in Macau the Chinese gave them Macau so since the Portuguese
can trade with China and also can trade with Japan the the Japanese have a working arrangement
with the Portuguese to trade silver for Japanese silks and in exchange the Japanese allow the Portuguese
to operate in Japan and convert some of the populace that’s a really good run now first off
appreciate that that’s helpful why don’t the Japanese learn Chinese seems like they’re giving too
much power to the Portuguese just as translators well I’m sure there some people speak Chinese that live
in Japan but the Chinese don’t won’t trade with Japan oh oh you’re saying they’re a middleman so they’re
like they’re yeah exactly okay exactly so the Portuguese are just acting as a middleman but the
Portuguese get a lot out of it because they get they’re take so they get rich off of their take
which they send home yearly in the black ship which we’ve heard about briefly so there’s a black
ship that every year goes from Asia back to Spain or Portugal whatever with loaded with money
and on top of that these Jesuit priests get somewhat free reign to go around Japan and convert people
like the Japanese Dimeos like the head Dimeos most of them don’t like Christians there’s two Christian
Dimeos but Ishito and Torinaga neither of them have any interest in having Christians on Japan’s oil
but because they are needed for this exchange with China they pretty much put up with them and allow them
some leniency and is the the swoos canal is that a thing right now or is that not until is that manmade
the suez? sorry isn’t the suez in the middle east? yeah so to get back to Portugal do they need to
go below Africa? oh no yeah they go they go through Magellan’s path so like they go below like south
America oh really? yes there’s no Panama canals is that shorter Japan all the way to Portugal rather than
the other way around? yeah I don’t think there is a current path through Africa but yeah so in this
world where obviously there’s tons of stuff going on in Japan has had 10 years of peace after hundreds
of years of civil war pretty much now there’s this power vacuum with the taiko out so it’s kind of like
we’re like black thorn who we meet at the beginning is just thrown into this powder keg and he’s at the
middle of everything that’s going to be happening for kind of the world like it’s a huge event for
the world and although this is not a true story there are some truths to it the author obviously did
like a ton of research who could even imagine the epic scale of this is what I love so much because
it also is the opposite where you just get these minute intimate details between two people and
later we’re going to see inside some of these like super powerful people’s heads and like how they
think and how they strategize and it’s like like mind blowing stuff I’m just not I’m not that smart so
it’s nice to read about someone else that’s that smart at the time in Japan do they think they’re all
Japanese it’s not like a united country right or is there like some samurai code that everyone
believes they’re under yeah well there is the emperor you know there is the emperor yeah so there’s
an emperor comes from an unbroken line of this family they’re legit deity like they are the son of
God okay but they don’t actually hold any real power per se but the emperor can grant power
to other people so emperor is kind of a shitty situation because they don’t make any money they
can’t make any money only like the the dimeos are like who’s ever running it give them like an
allowance so there’s been like Japanese emperors in feudal Japan who are poor like had to like sell
things to actually like eat and that’s kind of this whole idea of a show gun which is the ultimate
rank a mortal can achieve in Japan and and I say immortal because the emperor is immortal yeah in
their mind so but in a show gun means supreme military dictator only one man can hold that title
at a time and only the emperor the divine son of heaven can grant you that title so you do need
the emperor like the emperor is very important but at the same time he’s not important at all it’s
like the royal family in the UK yeah kind of honestly at least at this point the current point
Japanese itself is an island nation that is one unified group of people but it is divided in that
there are different dimeos who run different areas of that country we’re not going to say would
you recommend it because you know we’re just kind of scratching the surface but what are you most
excited for for this next section which will probably be book two well I’m just picturing the montage
of him training and learning the language and like building up his strength becoming the chosen one
so to speak you’re waiting for him to beat Tom Cruise in the last hour I’m thinking of that
Tom Cruise yeah the whole time I’m excited to meet tornaga he’s the best honestly spoilers it’s not
it’s not a spoiler they’ve been talking about tornaga the whole time how important he is and what not a
lot of the people we’ve met so far are all very very smart and but most of the time you get to
leadership it’s a person that’s in power but it shouldn’t have the power typically I would say most
of the time when you’re expected to meet someone that’s powerful you’re not really expecting much
in the way of like all disguised the greatest unless they’re practicing with yeah he took power at
the age of like 12 by fucking killing his parents and yeah well you think about someone like
Yabu who’s obviously smart cunning deceitful but also is still alive so you’re like okay what
but then Yabu bows to tornaga so it’s like how smart cunning and deceitful this person be to be
able to have not only Yabu but tens of Yabu and then he’s also fighting against all these other
regions so there’s gonna be a lot of fun stuff in a saga castle but Keith this was fun
shogun god it’s just such a big world it’s such a big world out there and I’m glad we’re exploring
feudal Japan it just feels Japan just seems so much cooler than kings and queens of europe and
that stuff it this is this just seems way more entertaining we’re talking about buchido code there’s
samurai it’s like this is really happening there’s gonna be ninjas in this story there’s gonna be
ninjas this devil give me appreciation for Japan other than the fish in the vegetables and I can
do it without that but everything else is pretty sick Keith that’s shogun part one we’ll catch you for part
two already them bye now bye now