Found in Translation

This past weekend, Shōgun won a large pile of Emmy Awards (joining the large pile it won weeks earlier at the Creative Art Emmy Awards). I'm taking that as the nudge I need to get around to posting my thoughts on the series. (While Shōgun went on my "to watch" list as soon as it arrived, but it was only around a month ago that I finally finished the final episode of the mini-series-turned-first-of-three-planned-seasons.)

Many will know that Shōgun is based on the doorstop of a novel by James Clavell in 1975. In this day and age, probably fewer will recall that it was made into an epic TV mini-series back in 1980. But this is 2024, and we've come a long way since 1975 and 1980. The ground was fertile to revisit Shōgun, bringing modern awareness of cultural sensitivity, gender issues, the toxic pervasiveness of the "white savior" narrative, and so very much more.

The new Shōgun deals with all of that, while never forgetting its first and foremost job: to tell an engaging story. It also helps that it arrives in a TV landscape that's no stranger to tales of political machinations, from The Wire to Game of Thrones to Succession. (Maybe a few that weren't on HBO too.) While the setting of Shōgun is quite different, the calculations and manipulations feel universal. At the same time, it doesn't feel like any concessions were made to make the show more broadly "accessible" -- and I do mean that in the best way. The vast majority of the dialogue is subtitled, the societal roles of most of the characters are very slow to be revealed, and you generally have to work hard as a viewer to keep up. And I find that all part of the appeal.

Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai both won Emmys for their performances in the show, and both are well-deserved. As Lord Toranaga, Sanada's entire performance hides in the subtext; his character is planning many moves ahead, and the actor has to walk a tricky line to walk between "keeping his cards close" and not appearing to be "doing nothing." As Mariko, Sawai takes a character who I can't imagine was so compelling in the original novel, and makes her the undeniable star of the show. While the character's main function in the plot is as a translator, the writing is excellent in how the character approaches this duty, and Sawai is always able to convey everything in her considered pauses before she speaks.

All that said, I did find viewing Shōgun to be something of a "bell curve" experience. Getting into it during the first few episodes is demanding -- and while I wouldn't have that otherwise, the fact remains that in this crowded TV environment, it can be rough to not know that you like a show right out of the gate. Then there's the final episode, which feels oddly truncated -- as though everything we've been building toward is dispensed with in an off-screen coda. (I guess the book did this too; being a prequel release amid a longer series?)

In the middle, though? The show just works, so effortlessly that it almost undermines the great care that went into making it. It's smart without feeling too clever, suspenseful without feeling drawn out, violent without feeling gratuitous, insightful without feeling didactic, and so much more. Definitely worth watching, worth the awards love, and worth looking forward to in the future to see how they'll handle additional seasons. (I guess there are other Clavell books to work from?) I give Shōgun a B+.