“Shōgun” TV Review | 2024’s First Television Masterpiece
After 9 weeks, 10 episodes (the premiere began with two), and around 10 hours of programming, Shōgun has finally come to a close….and with it, the excitement of each Tuesday morning with the realization that a new chapter in this sprawling story set in Sengoku Japan in the early 1600s has dropped. This show, released on Hulu and created by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, legitimately blew my mind week-to-week, bringing to life a wholly immersive world that painstakingly recreates the time, look, and feel of Japan at the time while telling an epic, yet profoundly personal story of culture, life, death, guilt, redemption, and the undying will of the human spirit. What a show this was — let’s talk about it.
Japan is undergoing a turbulent change. Their Taikō has died, and since his son is too young to rule, the existing five regents control their respective parts of the land as one singular council. One of the regents, Lord Yoshii Toranaga, discovers that an anjin — a barbarian — has crashed onto his land: John Blackthorne, English ship pilot sent to form a trade agreement with Japan, finds himself alone and culturally isolated as Toranaga’s clan brings him in. With highborn Lady Toda Mariko acting as his interpretor, John proves to be quite useful in his knowledge of English weaponry and battle tactics, tactics Toranaga intends to use as political…
