Hello, it's me Rosie Night. Last night that Emmy's happened in a historic fashion with unbelievable wins for Shogun, including historical wins for Hirooki, Sonata, my all time Faith, and the incredible Anna So why from Monarch and of course who leads Shogun? So we are delaying the release of our Netflix animation episode so that we can bring you our Shogun Time Capsules special just in time to celebrate the eighteen wins that Shogun took home from the Emmys.
Hello.
My name is Jasonceps and I'm Rosie Knight, and welcome to x Ravision, the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture. Coming to you now Heart Radio, where we're bringing you two episodes a week every Thursday. Today, jumping into the time Capsule to catch up on the incredible, the majestic, the action
packed Showgun on FX. Here is the recap, folks. Now, before we dive into the lightning as lightning as you can possibly make a recap of an adaptation of a book that was eleven hundred pages long and features a lot of characters, just understand that we're we're gonna move as fast as we can, but it is complicated. We open in sixteen hundred. John Blackthorne, English pilot of a Dutch trading vessel, the Erasmus, along with his crew are
taken prisoner off the coast of Japan. And believe me, folks, Blackthorn is going to complain about this for the rest of the series. He will not.
Shot up a crew. And also, can I just say they were also saved.
Get me a back to my crew.
Like this man, they was death.
This is going well for the very poor.
This should be like at least slightly grateful.
So the issue the landscape in Japan right now, it's very fragmented. There is no overall leader, the tycho, the showgun. Not there. There is a boy heir to the throne, who is being steered by five high lords, five regents. This is called the Regency Council. Meanwhile, Portuguese Catholic traders are all over the country attempting to exploiting. They are everywhere trying to exploit the country's isolation and it's disunity
in order to enrich themselves. And Blackthorn is a problem for them because the Japanese don't really have all the information about what's going on in the wider world and the kind of goals that the Portuguese have. Blackthorne knows about it, so they would like him dead. Blackthorn is taken to Osaka Castle, where he meets Lord Taranaga, who is our primary protagonist and his vassal and translator, Lady Marico.
Toronaga is one of those five aforementioned regents chosen to rule in place of the Air and Future Tycho because he's just a kid stone.
And we got to say, as we'll find out, Toronaga actually turned down the chance to be the sole regent. He was like, I don't want it. I don't want a wall. We've got to protect your son, We've got to protect the future, you know, Ruler. So he's a very interesting figure played by legendary Japanese actor.
Harry one of the most handsome men of all time, all the time his life, yes, throughout his life. And by the way, one more thing about Tornanga. Very smart, very wily, very strategically brilliant man who turned down the big chair because he knew it would make him the big target. So he's a very very smart guy. Now, the other four regents led by Lord Ashido. They all want Tornaga out of the way because he's very very smart,
very very dangerous, and very very popular. Tornaga is a captive at Osaka Castle and all but name, and he sees Blackthorne as kind of like a useful lever to separate his enemies because they all have their own competing interest. Ishido wants to be the guy. He wants to be the emperor, the tycho, wants all the power in his hands. Sad Naga recently converted to Christianity for the purposes of
getting rich baby, getting them money baby. Sugiyama just kind of like doesn't like Tornaga and is basically supportive of any efforts that would bring him down. And then there's Haronobu, who is a leper and he seems he's also a Christian and it seems more sincerely dedicated to Christianity and certainly in increasing its influence throughout the country. Yeah, Ishido initiates a vote to throw Tornaga out of the regents,
after which they can do whatever they want to. But as Tornoga planned get used to hearing that phrase, the Christian regions are so focused on getting Blackthorn out of the way that they say, we're not voting until you kill the pilot. Tornaga saves Blackthorn from being assassinated by Ninja's incredible seed, yeah.
Which is ironic because Blackthorne sees it as a way to get in Toronaga's good books, so he saves Toronaga. But Toronaga is also saving Blackthorn because the assassins were really there for Blackthorn and not that's our Naga. And it's just worth mentioning here, like the action in this
show is so unbelievable when it happens. We're talking about the political machinations because this is a show about historical fiction about political machinations in Japan, but it's also appressed these TV show with incredible action, stunning costume design, and unbelievable production design, and it's so immersive and it is just, yeah, just what a show.
The cinematography is as good as anything you'll see. They do. They use different lenses for these different foregrounding effects where stuff in the background has kind of blurred out. They use they put in this like vignette effect, so it looks like you're looking at like an old photograph. It's just wonderful. So Tornaga sends Blackthorn to the village of a Duro, which he controls along with his wife Kiri, in order that he will be safe. But again, Lord
Tornaga very crafty. He switches places secretly with his wife and they all manage to escape by Osaka by ship, although it's a little dicey at times. Tornaga tries to leave Blackthorn behind for the Portuguese as kind of like his the price offering escaping the blockade, but Blackthorn is
very stubborn. He refuses to just go away. He takes the ship that he's been loaded on and erases it through the blockade and catches up to Tornaga, who's like, okay, you're my new you're my new military consultant, basically a hatamoto. You can you can have swords and stuff, and you can be a military man.
And he wants them to teach him the ways of the English and Portuguese and European military. But hilariously, Blackthorn doesn't know shit about that because he's just been He's just a sailor, like he has to blag it. And and the pair of them are kind of this wily little duo who are abusing each other for their own games,
but kind of become this unexpected power pairing. And at the same time we have Anna Sauai, who I just love from Monarch, as as Marico Lady Rico, who has this incredibly powerful role in the story because she is the translator. So there's been lots of really fantastic meanings about how you know, John Blackthorn, he'll be like doing some long.
I tost you down, I shit on your face, I piss on you, I piss on your leg, I piss on your entire root and branch.
Is like.
He says, yes, he'll do it, like she is just getting like he's always getting destroyed, like people have been doing really good ones where he's like, you know, you just don't understand, Like I had to walk.
All the way here, I came a long way.
I worked all my life to get to this place. And she's gonna be like, uh, the engine said that he made his way here easily, Like she's always.
Just playing him and like limiting well.
His true messages, which honestly she is saving his life by doing that.
That's what I was about to say. It's increasingly protective as kind of against both of their better judgments. A warmth grows between them, because, as we will see, Marico is as much an outsider in this political faction, almost as Blackthorn is in a gyro.
Guess what Blackthorn wants to get back to his ship? My crew, my ship, and my crew sent me back to them.
No luck there, but he does get a handsome wage. He gets a beautiful apartment and a consort. Usami the granddaughter of Hiramatsu, who is Tornaga's most dedicated and most hard line general. He's older than Tornaga, has known him since he was a little kid. Usami is a deeply, deeply, deeply tragic figure. Her her husband spoke up at an earlier Council of Regents meeting, spoke out of turn. That
was very shameful for him. The only way he could expunge that shame was by committing ritual suicide and also uh killing his own infant son. So Uhuzami has lost her husband, lost her son, and is now bears the burden of this shame. Meanwhile, Yabashiga Tornaga's death obsessed constantly scheming but unfortunately not very smart, general keeps wondering when, how or if at all he can turn all of this political tumult to his advantage.
Yeah, and that's Tadanobusano, who's like another icon Itchi ta Kila. He's Hogan from Thor's he was a punk rocker in Japan years ago. He's had such an unlook.
Yeah. True, he's had such.
An unbelievable career. He's now doing a lot of art and I love that Yabashige essentially becomes like the fan fave of char in this show because he's so self serving. He's like this warlord who has bigger dreams and he will turn on a dime, and he's always doing a heel turn and betraying people. But Tadanobu brings this warmth and this charm and this sort of irreverence to him because.
He's a lateness.
He wants he does want the power. He does want to know how things can turn in his kind of favor. But he's also seen so much that he sort of laughs at the inner workings and the war games of the shogun wannabes, like he just feels like it's all ridiculous. He's kind of a nihilist in that way, but he has this this warmth and comedy to him. That makes him so appealing.
I completely agree. Ishidoh. Lord Ashido, through a messenger, tells Yabashiga to return to Osaka for a big meeting in which he will swear his continuing allegiance to the Regency Council and to the Air. But Yeahbashiga knows, like Tommy and Goodfellas, he will be killed if he goes back to Kasaka. It'll be the end instead. Uh Nagakado Tornaga's boneheaded but dedicated sons. Yeah, like he's stupid, He's try
something really hard. Yeah, he loves his dad, he wants to impress him, but he's not as smart as his father. To be fair, no one is. Yeah, murders the Shidos messengers during display of Lord Tarnaga's cannons, and this makes Dad really really unhappy.
And it's really just this is the scene where I feel like they knew people were gonna be like, Okay, so this is the new Game of Thrones, vibe, this
is the new Prestige TV. Where's the gore? And they were like, well, we're gonna take We're gonna take the cannons off the Erasmus and we're gonna take them, and you know, Black Phone's gonna teach them how to use the cannons, and then we're gonna have this huge moment where Shido's men show up and these are like high lords, like he doesn't send nobody's you know, and uh and Toronaga's son decides, well, we're going to shoot them with these cannons to kind of show what happens.
And they blowing off arms, exploding bodies and courses and they were laying on the ground and he's saying, this isn't how a samurai fights, and he's like, you know, arms hanging off. That was such a gruesome ending to episode four, but I feel like it was really well utilized. Like when they use horrific violence in this show, it's
very impactful. And this is a great moment too, because it kind of shows that impact that Western weaponry had and this on this totally different landscape and uh yeah, Taranaga smart Tornaga decides he's going to pretend that this was always the past as always.
Meanwhile, Marico and Blackthorn have begun pillowing sleeping. This gets complicated when her fierce and everybody. A lot of people are very sad in the show, It's sad time. One of them is her husband, Bintaro, who is eaten from the inside out by sadness and anger. He gets super
drunk and we get some of Marico's backstory. We're learned that she is the lone survivor of a family that turned on the previous ruler and then to expunge that shame, the leader of that family, her father had to basically kill at his hand everyone in the family and then commit ritual suicide. And she is the only survivor and she's been married to Bintaro to atone for that.
And the only reason that she was not killed is because she was going to be married to Bintara and she or she was Bintara's wife. And he just like hates life. He's quite horrible to her. Hate he's mean to that kid, like he's just not a viby guy. But you do, you do learn as it goes on that he is on his own journey and he loves her so much, he just doesn't really know how to show it.
Meanwhile, Blackthorn is up to letting animals rot.
He's like, oh, I'm going to I'm going to show you the one that was of English stew He's got this squirrel here and I'm going to let it ratful nigh on three weeks and with the insides have turned to a liquid, wonderful and juicy to cook.
And his his servants and the people around him are disgusted at this, and also of course black live.
I need to get back to my ship, my crew, where are they? He needs to get back to his ship.
In Osaka, word a Hido's plan are getting even more tangled when Ochiba, the mother of the air and a power player in her own right, arrives and says, okay, Regency Council, guess what now, you're gonna listen to me because everything's going sideways. It's all getting fucked up. You're fucking it up, and I will now have a voice in these affairs.
Such a good that's such a good moment. That she's kind of the puppet masta behind Taranaga's full well that hoped full of Tara.
That hoped for fall. And in the flashback we learned that Marico in Achiba were childhood friends before all the bad shit happened. A Chiba and Ashido now take the other regents prisoner, though They go through great prains at times to pretend that people aren't prisoners when they actually are guests. But you can, but don't go anywhere. Yeah, Hiu Matsu, the hardline general escapes. Excuse me, hear Maatsi, one of the regions, escapes and tells Tornago what's going on.
Tornaga rudgingly begins putting his secret war planned Crimson Sky into motion. We get a flashback. We were learning that when Tarnaga was a kid, he was like Lebron James was like, he was like a child prodigy. He won like an incredible crushing victory when he was like thirteen years old, and Hiramatsu's been with him that whole time. In the present, he needs to get stronger. He tries to mend fences with his half brother Ssayiki so they
can unite against Hido. But Seika says, you know what, maybe I'd do that, but I've just been offered a job on the Regency Council and sorry about it, and I'm taking a prisoner, and you have to surrender to Lord Ashida. Tornaga says, okay I will surrender his vassals, his son, his generals. They are shocked They can't believe that that Lord Turnaga would even consider this. It must be a trick, right, It's gotta be a trick. No, Lord Turtuck is like, I'm doing it. I'm surrendering his son,
the beautifully thick headed Nagadaka. Nagadaco says well, I'm not gonna let that happen, and so he attacks Psyik. He tries to kill him, but it said he slips on a rock in a pond and he dies.
Yeah, this was such a brutal, unexpected ad too. It's one of those horrible like wow, did that just happen? It's like, okay, that's ripizza.
That son Psyche survives, joins the regency council. Tornaga says, okay, I'm still gonna surrender, but after the forty nine day morning period for my son, of course, and again his generals are like, don't do it. Don't what you can't do it. Hiramatsu now is like I'm begging you not to do it, and Tornaka is like, well, I'm doing it, and then he says, well, I'm gonna kill myself if you do it. Ritually cut my belly open. And I was like, well, I don't want you to do that,
but I'm still gonna go surrender, And Hiramatsu doesn't. He he kills himself. But shockingly, Lord Tornaga has kind of set these pieces in motion, the death of his son, the suicide of his most cherished and loyal general, so that Lord Ashida's defenses will be all the way down because he will believe that I get that Lord here. Of course he's gonna do.
So.
He sends Marico as Osaka to be his messenger and deliver the messages that he wants to deliver to the Regency Council, telling them, yeah, I'm gonna surrender, but listen, there's some things I have to do for us. First, Blackthorne goes with her, still complaining about his fucking dims ship. But also, I will.
Say in Blackthorn's defense in this case, which I would rarely say, but he rarely doesn't want Marico to go to Osaka. He knows this is a bad idea. He's like, just don't go. Like he's like, just like, don't do it, man, this is like a bad, bad idea. You do not need to go and be the messenger. But Marico is She is dedicated. To this plan, and as we kind of learned earlier, she is in a similar situation to Asami West. She really wants to join her family and death.
She doesn't have a lot to live for she you know, she does love. She has this burgeoning love for black Don. She loves her family, but really she wants to join those who were killed many years before.
That's right. Meanwhile, Yebshi tries to switch sides, but he is denied. Adding to what you said, Rosie, I think another really fun motivation for Yebishiga is he he just wants to know what's going on. Yeah, he just wants to be He just wants to be a part of it. He doesn't really want to make moves.
No, he wants to be in the room where it happened.
He yeah, that's it. He's just like, whoever's gonna let him do that? Lord Ashido, is it you? Or are you gonna tell me what's going on? And he keeps He's constantly begging Tornaga tell him what what is? What is your plan? Tells you what your plan? What is it? Rico eventually tries to leave after fulfilling some of her duties there in Osaka, saying my lord, you know, just sent me here to deliver some messages, and now he
requires me that I come back. But Ashido and Ochiba are like, no, you are a guest, but actually you can't leave. And there's a big fight at the gate where her retinue or slaughtered, and she tries to fight, but she's absolutely cance.
But it's such a cool scene. It's amazing, and she knows that by doing this she is gonna allah the prisoners. She's basically calling his bluff on politeness because she's saying, well, you said we can leave at any time, and we're not prisoners, so I'm gonna try and leave. And you see that they just keep fighting and killing her, because really, if she leaves, then everyone else can.
Leave, right the other notables, the other regions, especially who are secretly hostages there. Though again Ishidas, pretending they're not hostages, would they would flee, but they because of this now kind of realize these other people, these other notable people hostage at the castle, are like, wait a second, are we prisoners? Also, Marico announces that she will kill herself at the end of the day, which is Shido, for various political reasons, cannot allow. He can't let that happen, so.
So he goes and he stops her, and he says, he's starter, you don't have to do this. She's to kill herself because she couldn't fulfill Toro Naga's you know, wishes to leave and as she's his vassal, that's shameful. And then he's like, no, I don't leave. Everything's okay, you can just leave tomorrow.
Here's a podon like, yeah, we got you apart. You just needed the.
Papers, you just needed the leaving papers that.
We miss what I went down to the office. I got you the exit papers.
Boom.
You can leave in the more. But of course she's not gonna let that happen, so he sends in ninja's to kidnap her, and in the end, Marico and Blackthorn they fight off the ninjas. They end up pulled out in like a storage room.
With her with her ladies in waiting and her retinue.
The ninja's blow open the door with gunpowder. Marico takes the full blast. She stands in front of the door.
She knows, she knows it's gonna happen. She wants to protect the other people and she does. She saves black Thorn's life, she saves the other people, and I think it's a very interesting moment because obviously we're all rooting for Mariko. She becomes like she's one of the main core cast in the show. But even in that moment, she actually gets to die with agency, like she chooses it, She chooses to save these people. She cares about it.
I remember the end of that episode, like everyone was hitting me up, going do you have screeners?
Is she still alive? Like did she really die?
And it was like a huge that was just such a huge talking point. I think people were really shocked, which is funny because the book exists and the other TV show exists, so this has already been established. But people were so invested in the show that they were not getting spoiled even though it had existed for so long, except for a certain Jason and who did guess.
So let's talk about I let's briefly talk about that. My mom talking to about the show and texting about the show. She was a fan. She didn't like the nineteen eighty mini series as much, but she likes this one quite a bit. She texted me before I had watched this episode. I can't believe she dies. It was so fucking mad.
Legendary. That's like the ultimate mom interaction. I love it. But yeah, rip Marico.
A'm so sad she's free.
And you know what, Blackthorn and her was never gonna work out anyway, and they got to tell each other they loved each other. So he must have stunk, like he looks stinky as hell, and I I do love I love the joke where he goes, he goes, I had a bath this week already, and they're like, they're like, don't you have another one?
And he's like no again.
It's like, no, you're going to have a bath based.
Last month, I based last Easter again. Okay, So with Osaka Castle in chaos, the Council finally declares war on Tornagus. Let's just put an And.
The reason they think they're going to be able to do it is because Lady Achiaber is on their side, meaning they can fly the banners of the Child Air and that gives them a legitimacy. And Ishido's like he's on it. He's like, I'm going to war baby. They're playing the war drums like he's ready. Everyone's like super hyped up, but Burro, it's not going to happen for you.
So uh, Lord of Shido basically lets Blackthorn go, puts him in the hands of the church because this guy's been more trouble than he's been worth it fucked up all their plans, and the church and lets him go essentially, so he goes back to a gyro.
And that's actually again thanks to Marico, because she was she was very close with the one Catholic representative who seems to be actually like interested in and not corruption. And and and he says to Blackthorn, you know, she asked me to let you go, so I'm gonna I'm gonna let you go now, I will say by the end of the episode, do I believe it was her
who asked him? No, somebody else's scheme in But in that moment we get to see once again, like Marico's power in this society where she is undervalued and seen his property, she still gets to make these power plays that change people's lives and save people's lives, which I think is the same with Lady Atchiba. With the Sami. There's a very interesting undercurrent hair of the ways that women can find power in this space that doesn't give it to them willingly.
Uh in it added Jiro. Blackthorn finds uh sadly, sadly that his ship, the Erasmus, has been something. Face.
It's just my way in to get back to his ship this time, sad face, EMERGI, you.
Piss drinking rats, you vermin.
I'll rip your cuts out at ile, I'll barbecue them on a spin and I'll eat them.
Uh.
The engine says that he is displeased, forces his generally Abashi gat to commit suicide for betraying him, and we discover guess what The Erasmus was sunk by Toronaga because he wants to keep you know, like Blackthorn has been very useful to him.
One will stup him around, as he says to Abi. Because this is a great moment, we get Tadanobu, we get Hiroyuki, and in a change from the book where we kind of learn all of this in a like a voice over almost like a kind of just a first person like, WHOA, I was doing this all along? Instead, they have Toronaga confess to Yabashiga, and it's so great to see Yabashige finally get let in on what's going on, and.
He's so happy. He's happy, but he's also like horrified.
He's like, yeah, this is terrible. He's like what I actually interviewed Tadanobu for IGN and he said he feels like in that moment, like he's less interested, and I think this is kind of what you touched on. He's less interested in like the greater plans for Japan or
the world, or this change is of society. He just wants to understand the man in front of him, and and in that moment he's kind of disappointed because he feels like this was a man who, well, Yabashige is like the self serving, like foolish, like kind of rogue. He put Toronaga on like a pedestal, as like this great man. But as we find out as he does this confession, Toronaga has been playing all of them all along, and.
The final chess move of Lord Tornaga's occurs. In a kind of flash forward, we go to the big battle where all the regency armies have gathered to crush Toronaga and his armies, and on the battlefield, Lady Uchiba's forces change sides. They turn on Lord Ashido, who is cast down and we should assume is killed and his forces put out of power. An amazing an amazing run, A very complicated show, just with so much drama and emotion.
Yeah, and I think like that final reveal that it was Tornaga that really took a lot of people by surprise, because it's even implied like did he send the ninjas? Was he part of that plan? Did he need because he needed Riko to die for a Cheeba to turn on Ishido because she blamed a Shido from Rico's death and they were friends. And I just the whole thing is so complex, and I'd seen a lot of kind of people being like how cool that Hiroki Hirouki Sinada had.
You know, this has been a passion project for him for twelve years and he cast himself in this role where you think he's the main character but then actually he's a side character. But really the funny thing to see people talk about that and then you get to the final episode and you're like, oh no, this he
is going to be the shogun. There's this great line where he says to he says to Yabashiga, he says, remember what the anjin said when we first met, and he said, you know, it's impossible, and then he says, unless I win, and then anything is possible. And Yabashiga looks up at him and he says, even shogun, And he has that realization that Toronaga has always wanted to be shogun, and in fact, all his humility, all his plans were leading to this moment where he could become
the true leader of of Japan. And you mentioned something really interesting here about the flash forward. I think I read some I didn't agree with them, but I read some really interesting, well written thoughts about how a lot of people were kind of shocked by the finale because it promised this great battle, but it doesn't have one.
It proms two huge battles that happened off screen.
And I love that because I think that's like very much in line with the intellectual wars that kind of fuel the show. But I understand how if we're used to like a Battle of the Bastards esque episode to a lot of people that were expecting that final violent moment. But I mean, what a show, and it's so fantastic, and the thing that blows my mind that's so great about it is like this book is like a eleven
hundred and five pages long or something. Yeah, and that it's huge and in the world of the MCU and the kind of shared universes and all that kind of storytelling. There is a version of this where they just adapt it for like five seasons. But I love that they
streamlined it and they changed the perspective. They were like, what is this like if you actually live in Japan and it's focused on the Japanese cast and Black THRM is essentially a distraction, which they have a lot of fun at the end with Toronaga basically saying that he's like, he distracts the Portuguese and he makes me laugh, So that's why he's here, you know. And I think that it's incredibly brave in a way and savvy to just adapt it in ten episodes when you could have longed
it out and tried to do multiple seasons. But now we have a fully complete season of television that I think it probably stands up there with the best one season series.
For sure, for sure. Next up, we go to the end of US. Yeah, welcome to another continuing chapter in the Omnibus, where law, analysis and understanding come together. This week, talking about the life of the author of Shogun, James Clavel. James Colvell, born in nineteen twenty four and Ciney, Australia, lived a incredibly fascinating and interesting life. Clavel's father and grandfather were both in the Royal Navy, but like Blackthorn,
Clovel's fate would largely be decided on land. He joined Her Majesty's Royal Artillery in nineteen forty was sent to Malaysia the Second World War broke out. He was shot in the face, eventually taken prisoner by the Japanese and he spent three and a half years in two prison camps, the second of which Changi in Singapore, was noted for its brutality and starvation conditions. You see a lot of competing numbers for the amount of people died in this
prison camp. But whatever the case may be, it's clear that Clavell needed some luck to survive that. He did not talk about those experiences, and by nineteen fifty three he was in la trying to make a go as
a screenwriter. His first paid screenwriting gig was adapting a short story which appeared in the pages of Playboy magazine, which also started in nineteen fifty three, by the way, written by George Langlan, the story was called The Fly, about a scientist who accidentally merges his DNA with that of a fly. And guess what. The movie The Fly would go on to become an absolute bonafide horror classic.
That even the type of movie where, even if you haven't seen the original, you've seen references to it.
Yes, and you've seen the remake.
Yes, Clavel that went maiden stream. You know, The Fly was kind of a B movie, despite its current modern status as a landmark horror film. He then went mainstream with nineteen sixty threes Air Force action film six point thirty three Squadron, and then nineteen sixty six epic Second World War drama The Great Escape, which he co wrote, starred Steve McQueen and a bunch of other notable legendary film Clavel then transitioned to directing, both on screen and
for television. His most notable film is an adaptation of To Stir with Love, the biography autobiography of the Guyanese author Er Braithwait, starring Sidney Poitier. Braithwait was not really that much of a fan of the adaptation, but it was a landmark film and a big cultural hit. Clavel also wrote the script, and then Hollywood screenwriters and actors went on strike together at the same time for the
first time. The issues at that time were residuals coming from reruns and also with the studio's fund healthcare and pensions for actors and writers. So no work right, Clovell pivots to novels. He expungent your minds all this trauma that he had from his experiences at Chaney to write King Rat, which was published in nineteen sixty two, and the book immediately established Clavel as a brand unto himself,
and the covel brand was as follows. He would write long books featuring numerous characters, usually set in the East and richly researched, and the book was a best selling smash, and then he would continue writing novels, eventually pivoting away from directing, which all his kind of like Hollywood friends would be like, why do you you've got a good thing going here. You're a writer director, multi hyphen it when that doesn't mean we don't even have that phrase yet.
For fifty sixteen years, keep doing that, He's like, no, you know what, I'm gonna keep writing books. I think I like this better because I have full control. His next book, Taipan in nineteen sixty six, tells the story of Western traders working out of nineteenth century Hong Kong. And then in nineteen seventy five, now a full fledged just an author, came Shogun. The novel, as Rosie said, ran over eleven hundred pages, sold six million copies worldwide,
and established Cavell as a major, major literary star. It made me, Clavell once said, I became a brand name like Heinz Baked Beans. In nineteen eighty, NBC aired its adaptation of Shogun on five consecutive nights in September. This was part of a of a trend towards mini series which began in the seventies and we continue through the mid eighties, starring Richard Chamberlin as Blackthorn, the legendary Tishira
Mufuni as Tornaga, and Yoka shimades Marico. Shogun was a gigantic hit, huge television hit had a Nielsen rating of twenty six point three, which means twenty six point three million viewers per episode. That was the largest in NBC's history, and honestly, it's like up there with like stuff like super Bowls. Like it's basically like super Bowls happening every
single night of the week. The show is credited with kicking off a general interest in Japanese culture that continued through the throughout the nineteen eighties, and you see it a lot in pop culture, although the context was usually pretty negative. Some interesting notes about the nineteen eighty Showgun and Well, in particular, like the FX adaptation, most of the dialogue of the nineteen eighty Showgun was in Japanese. However,
Blackthorne was most decidedly the protagonist. It was all through his eyes and there was a lot more sex and romance with Marico and NBC therefore, since Richard Chamberlain as Blackthorn, is gonna be the star, they made the decision, a baffling decision in retrospect, to just not have any subtitles. You just know what seventy five percent of the actors
you're saying at any given time. The thinking was since Blackthorne was confused about what was being said around him, and he is the avatar for the audience, Therefore their confusion would help the story, okay whatever. Showgun, the nineteen eighty Showgun was the first show to have a character say the word piss and to show a character pissing, you know, when Blackthorn is pissed on after his capture
by the Japanese. The mini series, as I mentioned, was part of a wave of successful television events that began with ABC's adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots, which was the biggest television event to that time, and the European Smashed Jesus of Nazareth. Clavel himself was an ardent right wing psychopath.
His nineteen eighty one book eight nineteen eighty one book, The Children's Story, a novella, is eighty five pages of hysterical dystopian paranoia, set in a future where kids have lost their connection to the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance. That's literally what the story is about. And therefore he was like very close with the Reagan administry. Loved Reagan, He's very close with him. Was invited to a White
House event honoring Japan. He was, he said of The Children's Story Clevell in a nineteen eighty one New York Times magazine story quote the Wonderful thing about the book is that it's just a It's just at the right time with Reagan, the right wing approach America first, the awareness of an enemy called communism. We are in a sweep away from the left wing attitudes that have been creeping in against our constitution. He's Australian.
This is democracy, isn't it.
It's not a socialist state end quote. James Killel. Javits. Critics reacted to the nineteen eighty eighty Minui series with kind of like bemusement. They they it would be too strong to say they were disappointed. They have, of course their own historical dramas, so what do they need this one? For The New York Time. That same nineteen eighty one New York Times story quotes Asahi Television's New York bureau chief Yasushi Miyakawa as saying, quote, it had some funny points,
some curious points, some inadequate points. Showgun was of course a huge hit, both in novel and television forms. So there's like a lot of wild, possibly apocryphal like propaganda about like what a big hit it was. Like one of the stories you will read that's impossible to verify is that like restaurants noticed a dip in people going out to eat because they couldn't miss Showgun, of course,
this being the era before VCRs were really popular. Another one that is really fun and jibs with Clovell's right wing tendencies that I can't find proof for is a story reported in The New York Times that was supposedly relayed by Shogun's publisher that said that Henry Kissinger, Nixon's former Secretary of State, was such a Showgun fan that he referred to his wife as woman like various characters and Showgun do anyway, did Shogun spark a general interest
in amri in Japanese cuisine, most notably sushi. This another possibly apocryphal story about the popularity of Shogun we don't know, but clearly an incredibly influential work. James Clovell would pass away in nineteen ninety four, was working up until his death, only a year after the sixth and final book in his Asian saga Guy Jin was published. James Clavell super weirdo.
Every episode we like to end the show with a fast moving segment. This time we're doing like that. Watch this with our favorite samurai movies inspired by Shogun. I love samurai movies. I'm a Shakira kurrasur fat and I think like one of the coolest things about Shogun and this version of Shogun kind of that you touch on this in the omnibus about Clavel's right wing leanings and
the way that he positioned himself in the world. So as you can imagine, the book is very much of that, like a white savior who goes there, who understands things better, who can do things better, who kind of has to
navigate this landscape. Obviously, the FX version of Shogun, the creative team crafted something entirely different that totally repositions the story and the importance of Blackthorn, and I think like going back to classic Japanese samurai movies, you get to be in a situation cuation where you get to see the films that inspired this stuff. I would say if you loved this my basically, any Currosaur movie is like a dream place to begin your exploration. Curricur is like
a legend. My favorite Curaca movie is The Hidden Fortress, but that is that's if you watch Star Wars, so that's more of a comedic twist I'm going to say for this one because of how much I loved the women in this film, I'm gonna I'm actually gonna go away from Kurosawa and I'm gonna say Lady Snowblood. Yeah. T Shoya Fujita directed it, and it is if you are so good, Yeah, because it was recently they did
a Lady Snowbug collection for Criterion. A lot of the Criterion stuff is on Max and it stars Mako Kaje as like a woman seeking revenge on the people who murdered her family. Huge influence of on Kill Bill. It's this totally nonlinear narrative that makes it feel super modern and contemporary. It's just such a joyous film. It's so beautiful, like joyous if you love bloody Revenge, but like it makes me feel so happy every time I see it
because it's so beautiful. There's so many fantastic shots and spaces, and I think it very much is in that space of Shogun. So yeah, that's that's that's my pick. If you loved Shogun.
My pick is Akua Kosauer's nineteen five classic Throne of Bloody, his take on Macbeth starting to Shiro Mufude it's awesome betrayal, madness, the hunger for power, and how it's corrosive and of course just like beautiful, unbelievably beautiful in camera effects and visuals, ending with an iconic action scene involving so many arrows that even to this I mean, to this day, it holds up incredible throne of blood.
So good. And that's it for the episode. So I'll see you next time.
Jason, see you, next time, I see you next time. Check x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kisepsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi our discoord moderator.