Game Score: 9.5/10

It’s easy four years onward since the disastrous debut of Cyberpunk 2077 to treat the news of its “redemption arc” with a healthy degree of skepticism, or to dismiss its massive commercial success (30 million copies sold) as just another bottom-of-the-barrel manifestation of how capitalism has inured us to buy anything.

Easy, and wrong. For while it’s true that in 2020 Cyberpunk was an unmitigated disaster, something magical and extremely expensive has materialized since then. While it unquestionably began with Studio Trigger and CD Projekt Red’s collaboration on the brilliant Edgerunners anime that breathed new life and interest into this world, the massive restructuring to the game’s mechanics coinciding with the release of  Phantom Liberty has completely remade 2077.

In short, the game is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 has the most engaging gameplay of any title since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and freed from the burden of its initial launch plus the added layers that are grafted onto its narrative with the Phantom Liberty DLC, the maturity and subtlety of it’s script acquire full force. Put bluntly, this is a damn good game, and you should buy it.

Let’s start with the gist. The premise is simple: In a dystopian future beset by hypercapitalism, corporatocracy, and near-civilizational collapse, you play as V (Gavin Drea or Cherami Leigh), a cybernetically-augmented mercenary whose gender, appearance, and backstory are dependent upon player choice.

After V’s attempt to rob the multinational Japanese conglomerate Arasaka goes awry, they are shot in the head and left for dead, only to be revived by an experimental biochip encoded with the engram of rockstar-turned-terrorist Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves).

As the biochip steadily overwrites V’s consciousness with Johnny’s, the two must work together to separate and save V’s life, ultimately culminating in a battle that sees V decide the fate of the Arasaka cooperation or die trying. Before getting into the story any further (SPOILERS BELOW), let’s talk mechanics and gameplay. What is it like living in Night City, and how does V survive in this City of Dreams and nightmares?

Progression in Cyberpunk 2077 has been streamlined and totally improved since release. The early progression system was chaotic, unbalanced, and simultaneously offered miniscule rewards for leveling up while enabling you to break the game through crafting. A hundred grenades, anyone?

Now everything has been remade. V gains experience through quest completion and combat, simultaneously progressing to a level cap of 60 (thus earning points to distribute to their attributes and perk trees) and increasing five general classes of skills (Netrunner, Headhunter, Shinobi, Engineer, and Solo) that offer passive benefits to gameplay.

Skills can also be permanently increased through progression shards (as can cyberware capacity and carrying capacity). Basic player stats and special actions (such as tearing down a fence or opening a secured door quietly) are affected by the player’s distribution of Attribute Points into five categories: Body, Reflex, Technical Ability, Intelligence, and Cool.

Each category governs one or more specific classes of weapons (such as assault rifles or shotguns) or other modes of gameplay, such as adrenaline mode or quickhacking. After a required number of attribute points are distributed in a given attribute, Perk Points can be distributed in perk trees governed by that attribute to dramatically impact gameplay.

To give an example: In most builds since 2022 I’ve prioritized Reflexes, Technical Ability, and Body, roughly in that order. With body you increase strength and health and can unlock Adrenaline Mode, which increases your max health and stamina for a limited time. By distributing points in Reflexes, V can improve their mastery with assault rifles, submachine guns, and edged weapons like katana. Wait, katana? Why the hell would we use blades in a game bristling with automatic and even heat-seaking guns? One word: cyberware.

Cyberware, along with minor boosts from certain tactical clothing, determines your armor rating, maxable at 1500, which reduces damage by about 60% at the highest levels.

More importantly, Cyberware vastly increases the range of bonuses and abilities V can employ to go from run-of-the-mill zero to borged-out hero. The most iconic cyberware in 2077 is the Sandevistan, an operating system (i.e. spinal) implant that can be activated to grant its user a burst of time-limited super-speed, as well as damage and critical bonuses with more advanced models.

With the Sandy, melee becomes an extremely powerful way to play, as you can blitz through ranks of enemies and cut them down sword-in-hand before warping back to normal speed and engaging with quickhacks or guns.

But that just scratches the surface. Cyberware exists that can reduce recoil, allow you to double jump and dash in mid-air, turn weapons non-lethal or, for the pitiless, imbue them with poison, thermal, or electrical damage.

A limited cyberpsychosis factor has been added for players since Update 2.0. With the “Fury” perk, V can exceed their cyberware by up to 50 points at the cost of a massive reduction in health, each point of excess adding a 0.1% to engage “Fury” mode, where damage is greatly increased, the screen blurs to orange sepia, and V cackles maniacally, wreaking destruction in their wake.

But in addition to that unsettling feature, for those primarily acquainted with Edgerunners, you’re in for a treat, as virtually every weapon and ability seen in the show was based directly off the game or subsequently added in.

Want to whip people like Lucy? It’s called a Monowire and is buyable and upgradeable throughout the game. Want to slice and dice chooms with Mantis Blades? Equally available (just watch out for those Mantis Blade-wielding MaxTac girls, they will fucking murder you). Speaking of MaxTac (“just fucking try!”), they along with the entire cop system have been redesigned. 

If V commits a crime, officers don’t just randomly appear behind you (well, mostly). The NCPD will send in patrols on bikes or unarmored squad cars, gradually escalating to armored squad cars, missile-launcher equipped halftracks, and finally MaxTac AVs as your spree of villainy proceeds.

Should V flee in a vehicle, the police will set up roadblocks to intercept them throughout the city. Likewise, all vehicles, whether equipped with built-in weapons or not, can be utilized for combat, from running down enemies with a katana on motorcycle to shooting desperately through you’re own windshield as the boys in blue roll up to gun you down.

Justice is swift and harsh in Night City, and at its best moments, as many other reviewers have noted, a police battle in Cyberpunk 2077 resembles a borged-out version of the famous/infamous bank shoot-ouut in Michael Mann’s Heat for its intensity. 

This is nowhere near an exhaustive list to every improvement in 2077 that has been made since launch, including such basic things as customizable vehicles and a working metro system, but the point is, the mean streets of Night City are now even meaner.

Combat in Cyberpunk 2077 is so dynamic, fast-paced, and punishing on the higher difficulties that it puts even CD Projekt Red’s earlier achievements in The Witcher 3 to shame. Like in that game, I heavily advise playing on the highest or second highest difficulty possible in 2077, because while the lower levels let you skate by, at its upper tiers, 2077 requires the same level of thoughtfulness and dedication in crafting your build that The Witcher 3 did, reinforcing from a roleplaying perspective V’s professionalism and the dire stakes to playing solo in Night City.

But where Cyberpunk 2077 really shines is its story, both that of the main game and Phantom Liberty, which compliment each other extremely well if the latter is played midway through the game when it first becomes available in Pacifica.

Johnny Silverhand, acted by Keanu with equal terms bravado, obnoxiousness, and genuine pathos, is a legend, and while choices matter in an RPG, not all choices are created equal. The more the player empathizes with Johnny (difficult as that may be at times) and explores the nuances and intricacies of his moral vision, the deeper the narrative emerges as a redemption arc wherein a charismatic but narcissistic asshole of a ghost matures into your best friend, willing to die for you and push you to vengeance and glory. 

Likewise, dependent on player choice, the game allows V to fully embrace divergent moral choices for which they are ultimately held responsible.

Sacrifice Johnny and condemn a rogue netrunner to slavery as a government superweapon? Don’t think things will end well for you. Ditto for selling out to Arasaka for a cure for your impending death. Mount the final battle with your friends and V will survive into an uncertain future, but many good people will die to save their life. And then there is the “secret ending”, which by now is not so secret: take matters into your own hands and fight for your life as a one person army, or die trying.

Through the base game and the DLC, Cyberpunk 2077 presents a world of corruption and nihilism, then subverts it by asserting basic philosophical truths again and again.

Choices matter. Personal responsibility is absolute. Only solidarity can save us from the despair of inequality. Empires rise and fall, but legends live forever. Death is terrifying but ultimately inevitable. Sometimes the greatest act of love for our friends is to not drag them down with us as we fall, gun in hand and on fire, into graves of our own making.

If there is no Heaven and Hell, nor Demons and Gods, only the life we are given and what we make of it matters. Is freedom survival at all costs? Or is it the courage to never stop fighting, even hopelessly and in vain, without blinking? Consider this. And buy Cyberpunk 2077. The game is fixed. It is a thing of beauty, and it will never fade away.

Photo credit CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger

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The Path/パス is an online bilingual journal of arts, culture, and entertainment bringing you in-depth reviews, news, and analysis on the hottest properties in sci-fi fantasy film, television, and gaming.

Through in-depth research on intellectual properties and major franchises, we develop content covering your favorite books, series, films, games, and shows, such as The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, Fallout, and Shogun.

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The post The Game Is Fixed: Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition 2024 Review appeared first on The Path.

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Recently, while rewatching Cyberpunk: Edgrerunners, I came across a post by Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the Cyberpunk universe, that really changed how I saw David Martinez and the world of Night City. When we first meet David Martinez in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, he seems like a special, one-of-a-kind guy. He’s the main character trying to make it big in the harsh, futuristic world of Night City#ad. With his never-give-up attitude, self-taught skills, and a tight group of loyal friends by his side, David comes across as the classic underdog hero destined to beat the odds. As his story goes on, David’s journey takes him from small-time hustles to the big leagues of Night City – eventually catching the attention of Arasaka. They see his unique ability to handle experimental cyberware upgrades without going insane as something that makes him truly one in a million. To Arasaka, David is the perfect fit for their most advanced project.

But Edgerunners doesn’t let David stay looking like some uniquely gifted person on the heroic path to greatness. By the end, the show makes it clear that in the nightmare world of Night City, David isn’t really all that special or extraordinary. He’s just another victim of harsh circumstances, no more remarkable than the average struggling person in the city just trying to survive. His perceived “specialness” really just exposes how messed up and inhumane the city is for regular people.

At first glance, some qualities about David make him seem like he’s built differently from your average person struggling in Night City’s hellhole. For starters, he grew up with a loving mother who did her best to shield him from some of the worst depravities and struggles in the crime-ridden streets of Night City. While far from a privileged upbringing, just having a nurturing parent’s guidance put David ahead of many around him.

After being struck by tragedy, David demonstrates an ability to quickly form genuine bonds with Maine’s crew of Edgerunners. With them, he finds a tight circle of friends looking out for each other’s backs amid the chaos. This makeshift family provides David with a sense of community and belonging lacking for many loners trying to claw their way up alone in Night City.

Perhaps most pivotal for David is Maine’s mentorship, who takes David under his wing and teaches him how to survive in the city’s underworld. Having an experienced father-like figure to learn from gives David an edge that most solo operators in Night City miss out on.

But David’s biggest perceived advantage is something more innate – his strong psychological fortitude and high level of “Humanity” that allows him to withstand undergoing cutting-edge cyberware upgrades and enhancements without his mind shattering into psychosis.

As David’s story moves towards its tragic conclusion, Edgerunners makes it abundantly clear that his perceived advantages and “specialness” were little more than a skewed perspective caused by Night City’s inhumane conditions. In the final confrontation, Adam Smasher literally mocks the notion that David is anything extraordinary.

“You think you’re special cuz you’re scrappy? Don’t make me laugh.”

Even the creator of the Cyberpunk universe, Mike Pondsmith, has weighed in on this – the qualities making David seem so capable were actually very meager advantages taken for granted by those born outside Night City. Things like having one loving parent doing their best, being able to make some friends, and finding a mentor to learn from may seem remarkable in Night City … but only because the bar is set so unconscionably low.

The sad truth is that David’s upbringing was still defined by poverty and the lack of basic resources considered normal for even a middle-class household today. And whatever slim advantages his mother provided were ripped away when she died, leaving him just as exposed to the unrelenting harshness of the streets as any other struggling citizen.

So, while Arasaka viewed David as a “one-in-a-million” candidate for their insane cyberware experiments, it was only because having any fragment of human decency is an anomaly in Night City’s hellscape. As Pondsmith admits, an average person with good mental health in the real world today could likely handle cyberware augmentation better than David ultimately could in that dystopian setting.

David’s perceived uniqueness says less about any truly extraordinary qualities he possessed and more about the abysmally low standards that pass for “special” when a city has been stripped of nearly all traces of human dignity and hope. In that world, just clinging to the basic ability to form bonds and not IMMEDIATELY descend into psychotic violence made David’s modest resilience seem exceptionally rare.

To understand why David wasn’t an exceptionally gifted outlier, you have to look at the cyberpunk concept of Cyberpsychosis. It happens when someone gets too much cyberware installed in their body – their mind starts degenerating, and they lose their grip on reality and human emotions.

How susceptible someone is to falling into cyberpsychosis depends a lot on their innate level of “Humanity” – representing psychological fortitude, empathy, and ability to resist the dehumanizing effects of replacing too much of your body with machine parts. Much like how some people are more susceptible to addiction than others based on inherent mental makeup, cyberpsychosis impacts individuals differently based on their Humanity levels.

In the classic tabletop RPG that the Cyberpunk universe was initially built on – which is still considered fully canon – the idea of being immune to cyberpsychosis is thrown out the window. Instead, your character has an “Empathy” stat representing their inherent humanity and psychological fortitude. Every piece of cyberware you get installed takes a dice roll “humanity cost” that depletes your Empathy score little by little.

Once your Humanity drops low enough, you’re supposed to role-play your character, starting to seriously lose their grip, becoming dehumanized and paranoid as your character’s empathy fades away. And if your Empathy craters into the gutter, the Gamemaster takes over controlling your character entirely – you’ve officially gone full cyberpsycho at that point, transforming into an NPC villain for the group. There is no immunity, just a gradual descent into psychosis. As my colleague Frankie said it best – 

“In DnD, your player becomes more likely to succeed when they get stronger and obtain more spells. In Cyberpunk Red, the opposite is true. The more cyberware you add, and the more powerful you become, the more likely you are to meet an untimely end.”

According to Pondsmith, David rated pretty high on the Humanity scale compared to most of Night City’s population. His background of having some supportive figures let him start with a stronger mental foundation to resist the strain of getting cybernetically enhanced. For a while, his relatively robust sense of self let him take on more and more upgrades without completely losing it.

But eventually, the cybernetic overdrive and grueling physical/psychological toll caused the breakdown everyone feared. David’s innate Humanity could only shield him for so long before he fell into full-blown Cyberpsychosis like so many others.

So, while David’s resistance bought him time, the fact that he still became a cyberpsycho drives home that his “specialness” was never anywhere near immunity – just a modest buffer against the reality that Night City ultimately crushes everyone beneath its heel.

At its core, the tragedy of David Martinez’s story serves as a harsh commentary on just how abysmally low the standards of human decency and normalcy have plummeted in Night City. In an environment so thoroughly stripped of hope, empathy, and anything resembling a moral foundation, even the most modest semblances of compassion and psychological fortitude start to seem extremely special.

That’s why David’s few advantages – having one loving parent, forming friendships, and not immediately descending into psychosis – are mistaken for signs that he’s some rare outlier born for greatness.

Edgerunners’ underlying thematic statement is that, in the end, no one is truly special – just varying shades of the same tragic victims. David’s perceived “one-in-a-million” status was always an illusion.

In the end, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners drives home the fact that David Martinez was never truly the individual he appeared to be at first.

The show reinforces that in such a systematically oppressive, dehumanizing environment, no one is unique – even heroic individuals get chewed up and discarded like everyone else. David’s hubris in buying into his own mythologized individualism becomes an allegory about the dangers of fetishizing empty ideals of “specialness” in a dystopia. In a world that fundamentally strips humanity, simply being human is special enough.

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The Path/パス is an online bilingual journal of arts, culture, and entertainment bringing you in-depth reviews, news, and analysis on the hottest properties in sci-fi fantasy film, television, and gaming.

Through in-depth research on intellectual properties and major franchises, we develop content covering your favorite books, series, films, games, and shows, such as The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, Fallout, and Shogun.

If you enjoy our takes, consider buying us a coffee! Your support will help us continue producing excellent pop culture writing in English and Japanese for a true East-meets-West entertainment experience! Arigatō gozaimasu!

The post David Martinez and the Myth of Specialness in Night City appeared first on The Path.

Shogun comes to an end with an elegiac final episode that subverts expectations and affirms its greatness. As Toranaga’s plan for victory is revealed, each character, for better or worse, meets their fate.

Editor’s note: while originally intended to be a miniseries, Shogun has been renewed for two more seasons. This review appeared the day after the season one finale, and was originally assumed to mark the conclusion of the series.

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We open on a scene of an aged and bedridden Blackthorne clutching Mariko’s crucifix. He is back in England, and lies old and half-senile while his grandsons marvel over the spoils of his return from the East, including his katana, chipped from “fighting a whole army of Japanese”.

Ok, you see where this is going. This is a dream. In reality, it’s still the storeroom of Osaka Castle in 1600, where Blackthorne and Lord Toranaga’s consorts kneel screaming in anguish over the body of Mariko as a traumatized Yabushige mutters a plea for forgiveness into the air. 

Soon after, political matters come to a head. Kiri no Kata and Shizu no Kata along with Toranaga’s other retainers and infant son are allowed to depart Osaka. Ishido rallies the council to declare open war upon the news that Toranaga has fled Edo in protest and now marches on them. Ochiba affirms that the Heir’s banner will accompany them, rendering Toranaga an outlaw.

Having fallen into the hands of the Christian Regents, Blackthorne is now marked for death. This is what he expects when, upon waking from his concussion a day after Mariko’s funeral, he is ordered to Osaka harbor by a retinue of Kiyama’s men.

But it is not to be. After promising Mariko during her last confession to save Blackthorne’s life, Fr. Martin has persuaded the Church to spare Blackthorne, albeit in return for a price he does not yet comprehend. Though initially scheduled to have been killed in the forest en route (so many bandits in this damn city!), he is allowed to rejoin Yabushige and the ladies upon the galley and sail for Ajiro.

Meanwhile, episode 10 permits Tadanobu Asano to bring one last lap of manic charisma to Shogun from Yabushige. I say “manic”, because from his first appearance after the cold-open, Yabushige has gone totally apeshit, obsessed with desperate last minute schemes to escape his inevitable fate.

Traumatized, he hallucinates (maybe?) and attempts to catch portentous catfish in the Osaka koi pond, collapsing in a hilarious last spasm of “the gods are laughing at me!” self-immolation. The days of “Kabuto Drip” are long gone. 

Though Ishido orders him to return to Ajiro and prepare for war, it’s clear the befeathered bushi’s days are numbered. This is only reinforced when the gang returns to Ajiro to find that the Erasmus has been burned, the price paid to the Portuguese in return for Blackthorne’s life.

As an increasingly desperate Yabu pleads with the Anjin to teach him to dive or even sail away with him to England, Blackthorne shakes his head, telling him to “pull yourself together, man”. John has his life, but the days when he had any prospect of bending “the Japans” to his will are over.

So are Yabushige’s. Immediately upon making landfall, Yabu is arrested by Toranaga’s samurai and brought before his liege lord, who has been informed by Omi. By begging forgiveness of Mariko’s spirit in the storeroom in the presence of witnesses, literally the only instance of remorse he has demonstrated all season, Yabushige inadvertently signed his own death warrant.

Time for a final will. Yabu’s deranged plea that Toranaga grant him a more interesting death than the standard seppuku is one of Asano’s finest moments all season (“let me be torn apart by cannon, or eaten alive by angry fish!”). 

It’s a testament to the man’s brilliance as a comedic actor that even as he stumbles toward his execution, Yabushige retains his remarkable charisma, so matter-of-factly ridiculous and unhinged that it’s impossible not to root for and against him at the same time.

In my episode 4 review I speculated that he would last this long only for Toranaga to kill him out of boredom in the finale, and that’s sort of what happened. But despite the innate tragi-comedy of Yabu’s demise, the show reworks his seppuku from the source material in a manner that actually enhances it.

In James Clavell’s Shogun#ad, Omi and Yabushige’s relationship is more antagonistic, with Yabu privately fearing Omi will outmaneuver him and seize lordship over the Kashigi clan. That is exactly what happens. After Omi reveals Yabushige’s treachery to Toranaga, Yabushige is likewise ordered to commit seppuku and is seconded by Omi.

That doesn’t happen in FX’s Shogun, and Omi’s motivations to rat on Yabushige are reduced to a clear-cut sense of moral duty rather than a desire for personal advancement. He even weeps silently at Yabushige’s death after his uncle says he was like a son to him. Rather, after requesting and being denied the right to have Blackthorne as a second, Yabushige asks Toranaga to second him personally, a shift that allows Yabu’s suicide to be merged with an even more pivotal scene from the book: Toranaga’s final monologue.

The novel Shogun famously ends with Toranaga’s interior monologue as his army plans to march on Osaka and meet Ishido in battle, when the reader is finally let in on his plans.

Far from shunning the title of Shogun, he has craved and maneuvered to attain the office his entire life, seeing it as his birthright as a Minowara [i.e. Minamoto]. It was he who burned the Anjin’s ship, both to appease the Portuguese and the Christian regents, and Mariko’s sacrifice which enabled him to turn the regents and Ochiba no Kata against Ishido. It was Mariko’ s fate to die gloriously for her lord, Anjin’s never to leave Japan, and his to be Shogun.

Added to this are darker plans the show omits—the coming persecution of Japanese Christians and the strict closure of the country under the Sakoku policy, which were historically imposed by his successors (cf. Silence#ad).

Clavell, as both a student of history and a survivor of Changi Prison as a POW during WWII, framed Toranaga’s project of national renewal in explicitly harsh and nationalistic terms, not out of a racist attempt to demonize the Japanese (for he described the book as “passionately pro-Japanese”), but presumably in an attempt to portray Japan, its people,  and its culture as inherently morally gray figures, embodying human contradictions and an ethos he admired but did not idealize, having encountered 20th century Japanese militarism first hand as a “teki” himself.

This monologue is merged with Yabushige’s seppuku in the show via a dialogue between the two, and though Toranaga still seeks to create a golden age for Japan based on peace, Yabushige pointedly raises the question of whether it has all been a sham based on hypocrisy.

Having spent the lives of so many to achieve his dream, a dream that merges the good of the state with his own personal attainment of total power and glory, is Toranaga the enlightened despot or merely despotic, the enslaver of Japan or its liberator? 

One month from today, Toranaga says, his army will meet Ishido’s at Sekigahara, and with Ochiba no Kata having written to him in secret to withhold the Heir’s banner, Ishido will be undone. With no legitimacy in law and the memory of Mariko’s death fresh in their minds, the Regents will rebel against the bureaucrat and Toranaga’s victory will be achieved before the first sword is drawn.

The show omits Ishido’s grisly fate in the novel—Toranaga will bury him to the neck and leave him exposed to the elements to die. But in Yabushige’s dissent, we are at last allowed to peek through a crack in the veneer. Toranaga will not simply back the Heir. Will he eventually kill him, as in real life and as he predicts he must eventually do in the novel? Unknown. But he does not deny Yabushige’s main allegation. Whether he has come around at last or lied all along, Toranaga will be Shogun. 

Did he always plan to seize power? Were we all fooled all along? Perhaps. And so it is fitting that to the last, after nodding to the Anjin as he salvages the wreck of the Erasmus off Ajiro beach, Toranaga remains inscrutable, our last shot of the series a view of the “great master of trickery” from behind as he looks off into the clouds, his secret third heart forever known to him alone.

What about Blackthorne, the man who has survived this long “not because he is important, but because he makes me laugh, and my enemies need a distraction?” Earlier in the episode, after Toranaga executes a few of the villagers of Ajiro for being “Christian spies” who burned the Erasmus (which Toranaga himself ordered. Who knows why he actually had them killed…), Blackthorne threatens seppuku in protest against Toranaga’s injustice, actually wounding himself in the gut briefly before Toranaga knocks the wakizashi from his hand. “If you’re finally done, then now go build me a fleet” he says, slapping Blackthorne on the back and ceasing his persecution of Ajiro. With this final test of responsibility (ironically, one of the most absurd moments in the whole series), Blackthorne has set aside his selfishness, his desire to “use” Japan, and his empty dream of returning home to a lifetime of regret. 

As the series ends, Blackthorne (after a moving farewell to Fujii),  works with Muraji, the men of Ajiro, and even a reconciled Buntaro to succeed in hauling the Erasmus from the depths. Anjin exchanges a nod with Toranaga, and the story of Shogun comes to an end.

We do not get to see the Battle of Sekigahara, as in the book, and in that this ending is sure to be divisive, but on the whole, I found it perfect. Crimson Sky already happened in episode 9. Shogun is over, but the golden age of the Tokugawa Shogunate (and hopefully, the Emmys) has just begun.

No work, not even a classic, is flawless, but despite a brief midseason dip, Shogun is a classic and will be remembered as a brief, glorious, and monumental triumph. And now, like a dream of a dream, it is gone. “Flowers are only flowers because they fall.”

All photos property of FX.

Benjamin Rose is a poet from Washington D.C. and the author of Elegy For My Youth (2023) and Dust Is Over All (2024).  He studied English at the Catholic University of America and is the winner of the 2023 O’Hagan Poetry Prize. From 2019 he has edited The Path. Buy his books here.

Dig deeper into Shogun’s source material and related media with our Top Picks!

The Path/パス is an online bilingual journal of arts, culture, and entertainment bringing you in-depth reviews, news, and analysis on the hottest properties in sci-fi fantasy film, television, and gaming.

Through in-depth research on intellectual properties and major franchises, we develop content covering your favorite books, series, films, games, and shows, such as The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, Fallout, and Shogun.

If you enjoy our takes, consider buying us a coffee! Your support will help us continue producing excellent pop culture writing in English and Japanese for a true East-meets-West entertainment experience! Arigatō gozaimasu!

The post Shogun Finale Review, Epsiode 10, “A Dream of a Dream” appeared first on The Path.

Shogun returns with a devastating penultimate episode as the gang returns to Osaka and Mariko finds martyrdom. This is the best episode of Shogun so far, and likely to be the best of the entire series. Whether or not the show gives us Sekigahara in its finale, or merely alludes to it as in the book, the show’s ninth episode achieves everything the premiere promised with drama, romance, action, and heartbreak.

As the episode begins, Yabushige and Blackthorne approach the Council of Regents in the hopes of allying with Ishido—Blackthorne to find a new patron for his war on the Portuguese, and Yabushige, as Blackthorne’s handler, to keep his head.

This goes nowhere. They are unnecessary to Ishido’s impending victory and Ishido has nothing but disdain for both of them. Soon, Mariko arrives, and the reason for her dispatch by Toranaga begins to become clear. She has come to demand that Kiri no Kata and Shizu no Kata, as Toranaga’s wife and consort, be allowed to depart for Edo.

To refuse her could destroy Ishido politically. If the hostages depart, he has lost all his bargaining chips and must then confront war against the entire Council, all of whom would now gladly ally with Toranaga, given his treachery. If instead he openly kills Mariko or the other Regents, he will admit in effect that he has launched a coup d’état and so destroy his legitimacy all the same, winning allies to Toranaga and fomenting open rebellion. Toranaga has called Ishido’s bluff. He can’t refuse Mariko’s desire to leave, not even in light of her  personally insulting his humble lineage, but he sure as hell won’t let her walk.

With Mariko’s role in Toranaga’s plan now obvious, Yabushige curses his luck and Blackthorne tries in vain to prevent Mariko from going to what he suspects will be her death. But Mariko can’t forsake her mission and so attempts to leave Osaka the next morning with Toranaga’s women and a Yoshii clan samurai escort.

When Ishido’s men impede her departure, Mariko orders her troops to attack and a massacre breaks out as Mariko’s entire escort and the vanguard of Ishido’s forces wipe each other out, one samurai bowing to Mariko in a final profession of loyalty before he is speared through the heart. Unwilling to relent, Mariko has a palace maid bring her a naginata and fights hopelessly to cut her way through Ishido’s spearmen, killing one or two of them before she is disarmed.

With Ishido still unwilling to kill her but her mission thwarted, Mariko declares she has been disgraced and vows to commit seppuku at sunset to protest his tyranny. Sensing that they’ve been outmaneuvered, over the following hours Ochiba attempts to persuade Mariko into surrendering to save her life while Blackthorne remonstrates in vain against her plans for suicide. In a last bit of desperation he begs her to “live for me”, a request she must refuse, however sadly. Resolute but stricken with grief, she goes to Fr. Alvito to make her last confession.

While bound by honor and political need to kill herself, Mariko’s Catholic faith leads her to believe that without a kaishakunin to deal the mortal blow, she will be condemned to eternal damnation for her suicide.

On a somewhat technical note, her plan to elide this fate by being seconded by Kiyama does not entirely work in real-world terms—from a Christian theological perspective this is very much a finesse and the use of a second in a self-chosen death would still likely be viewed in reality as suicide rather than martyrdom.

But if we can suspend that element of disbelief, the plan sets up two particularly beautiful scenes in the episode, the latter of which effectively reconciles Mariko to Blackthorne and belatedly justifies the show’s entire approach to their romance. 

First we are given her confession with Fr. Alvito, who is shown in the cold open to have converted her personally to Catholicism after an attempt at suicide fourteen years earlier. This is a brief, intimate scene, depicting Mariko at her most vulnerable since the Willow World affair in episode 6. As she breaks down in prayer with Martin, claiming she is unworthy of God’s forgiveness, we see the anguish she has held back for years, the personal suffering that led her to seek death from Toranaga in episode 7 and to talk down Fujii from her own near-suicide so powerfully in the premiere. 

Overall, this is a tremendous episode for Anna Sawai, but the three–dimensionality and empathy Tommy Bastow exhibits here, as in the previous episode, also elevates his character above the predictable stereotypes (usually of a colonizer and/or pedophile) one would expect a priest to be reduced to in a lesser production.

While he remains, as a Jesuit and an agent of Western imperialism, a foe of Toranaga and Blackthorne, his role in Mariko’s life has been unequivocally positive. Shogun has demonstrated a remarkable confidence throughout its entire run of rendering even “bad” or antagonistic characters as full human beings—everyone from the lovably sociopathic Surprised Pikachu named Yabushige to even the gutless Kiyama, who we’re reminded earlier in the episode, in a bit of verbal sparring with Blackthorne, can also speak Portuguese fluently. These characters are large. They contain multitudes.

But the highlight of the episode up until its shocking final five minutes of action is Mariko’s abortive attempt at seppuku.

With Ishido forbidding Kiyama to serve as her second, Mariko writes her jisei and then prepares to take her own life before the court, knowing that her refusal to cower will result in her eternal damnation if she is not euthanized but dies by her own hand. And it’s at precisely this moment, when Mariko has been left spiritually abandoned, that Blackthorne does what is bizarrely the most romantic thing in the entire series so far and offers to stand as her second. 

Whether or not he believes in God (doubtful) is immaterial—he knows that Mariko does, and his ability in this moment to subordinate his own personal desire for her to live to her own obligation to herself to die is breathtaking. It is, in all its macabre beauty, the show’s most overtly feminist and mature affirmation of their love, and retroactively affirms the significant changes the show has made to their romance in the original text.

In hindsight, his volunteering in this scene affirms the show’s more wistful and distant approach to their forbidden love affair than in the book, while recontextualizing Blackthorne’s entire character arc from episode 6 onward.

If, at the end of episode 5, he seemed ready to accept his role as hatamoto and the rules of the society to which he was assimilating, his reversion to adventurism and selfishness in the next two installments ruined his relationships with both Mariko and Toranaga. By episode 8, he was outcast. In “Crimson Sky”, Blackthorne’s sacrifice in the service of Mariko, his willingness to do the unthinkable and learn, like Buntaro in the case of Hiromatsu, “what it means to be denied”, represents the second time in two weeks that seppuku has been ironically framed as an affirmation as well as a negation of life.

As Buntaro’s refusal to follow his father into death may offer him his only real chance at redemption in Shogun, so Blackthorne’s willingness to kill the woman he loves may ironically offer him the beginning, in the finale, of a freedom from the selfishness which remains the last Lord he bows to after forsaking all others. 

This is the culmination of their relationship, and when Ishido, realizing the futility of his gambit, intervenes at the last minute, granting her request to leave Osaka with Toranaga’s kin, it creates the hope, however brief, of a happy ending.

Mariko does not stab herself, Blackthorne is not actually forced to decapitate her, and Toranaga’s consorts and the rest of the court are now free to leave. The hostages immediately prepare to depart and that night Blackthorne and Mariko make love, falling asleep in each other’s arms. These scenes remain utterly grounded and yet in itheir operatic force are transcendent in the extreme.

But this happiness won’t last. With nowhere else to turn, Ishido has one last play to run using none other than everyone’s favorite rat bastard.

As the castle celebrates Mariko’s life being spared, Yabushige goes into Splinter Cell mode, knifing several samurai before opening a secret passageway through the palace walls to a hit squad of ninja. Their mission: capture Mariko and kill her outside the palace grounds, allowing Ishido to eliminate her threat with plausible deniability.

As the shinobi slaughter their way through the Yoshii clan’s quarters, Yabu raises the alarm to disguise his treachery while Blackthorne and Mariko fight-off waves of Shinobi with knives and pistols. For the second time in one episode Shogun delivers a bloody, economical fight scene as the lovers retreat with Kiri, Shizu, and Yabu into a locked storeroom. As Blackthorne struggles to bolster the door and Yabu, as much from outright cowardice as treachery, freezes in place unwilling to help him, Mariko decides her time has come.

Indicting Ishido with her last breath, she braces herself against the door and is killed mid-sentence as the shinobi’s bombs obliterate it, the last shot of the episode an instantaneous, phantom-like image of Mariko being thrown forward that will forever be sealed in Blackthorne’s memory.

She has died, gloriously, and though her death forms the heartbreaking conclusion to Shogun’s penultimate episode, it just might prove to be the sacrifice laid on the altar of her Lord’s ultimate victory. Surely, this is one of the greatest hours of television ever made. And yes, I am giving it an eleven out of ten. May you rot in hell with Yabushige if you disagree.

All photos are property of FX

Benjamin Rose is a poet from Washington D.C. and the author of Elegy For My Youth (2023) and Dust Is Over All (2024).  He studied English at the Catholic University of America and is the winner of the 2023 O’Hagan Poetry Prize. From 2019 he has edited The Path. Buy his books here.

Dig deeper into Shogun’s source material and related media with our Top Picks!

The Path/パス is an online bilingual journal of arts, culture, and entertainment bringing you in-depth reviews, news, and analysis on the hottest properties in sci-fi fantasy film, television, and gaming.

Through in-depth research on intellectual properties and major franchises, we develop content covering your favorite books, series, films, games, and shows, such as The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, Fallout, and Shogun.

If you enjoy our takes, consider buying us a coffee! Your support will help us continue producing excellent pop culture writing in English and Japanese for a true East-meets-West entertainment experience! Arigatō gozaimasu!

NOTES

1. “And we, alas, must die, must die”. From Puccini’s Turandot ︎
2. “Commend my spirit into your hands”. Jesus’s last words as recorded in the Vulgate (i.e. Latin) edition of the Gospel of Luke ︎
3. “O Sun! Life! Eternity!” From the ending of Turandot ︎
4. “Glory to You”. Cf. note 3. ︎

The post Shogun Episode 9 Review, “Crimson Sky” appeared first on The Path.

In Shogun episode 4, “The Eightfold Fence”, Shogun delves deep into culture, tension, and romance, only for the violence to come roaring back as Yabushige’s bad plotting comes to a head. Read in Japanese.

“It is war.”

The previous episode of Shogun ended with Mariko smiling on from the ship as Toranaga and Blackthorne raced one another to the shore. In its fourth outing, “The Eightfold Fence”, which sees major character development for basically everybody and the beginning of the much-anticipated relationship between Mariko and Blackthorne, Mariko again has the last word. A not so happy one this time.

In its shocking finale, Yoshii Jr., aka Nagakado the Boy Wonder, Proves He Is A Man and repays Jozen for the slight he suffered earlier at Osaka Castle in episode 3 in the dumbest way possible, completely fucking up Toranaga’s entire grand strategy up to this point. Alea iacta est. Well, unsheathe your blade.

In many ways this is a fitting outcome–a catastrophic illustration of what happens when the values of duty, honor, respect, and self-control that Shogun espouses are thwarted by the pettiness of men. Like the Roman philosopher Seneca, who wrote tragedies depicting the atrocities and horror that ensued in a world where rulers trampled on the values of stoicism, Shogun spends its fourth episode meticulously illustrating the values that make its society great, and how quickly, in the hands of fools, they are lost.

To the list of “fools” we should add Yabushige, whose antics are starting to catch up with him, to the potential ruin of all, and of course Omi, Yabushige’s scheming nephew and lord of Ajiro, who’s graduated from pissing on Blackthorne in the premier to greater urinals, and who looks set to become a more dangerous version of his uncle. With Toda Hiromatsu back in Osaka and Toranaga barely in this episode at all as he rallies support in the Kanto, this was… sort of inevitable.

While the women still have their heads on straight, in “The Eightfold Fence” the most venal of the men on Team Toranaga have been left to themselves. They can only screw it up, and screw it up they do, demonstrating the chaos of the last 150 years of Sengoku Jidai in a nutshell and why Japan needs a Shogunate to clean up this mess.

The episode opens with Toranaga’s arrival in Ajiro. As hatamoto, Blackthorne (unbeknownst to him at the moment) requires a consort, and a furious, one-sided argument breaks out between Fujii, who has been assigned the role to her disgust, and Mariko, whose commitment to duty is ironclad as ever. Fujii begs to become a nun and is refused, swearing to commit seppuku after six months, which Toranaga accepts. If this has cringe vibes reminiscent of the Taka subplot in The Last Samurai, rest assured, it’s not going there.

But other matters are brewing. As the party pulls into Ajiro harbor, Nagakado lets slip that Toranaga has resigned from the Council. A stunned Yabushige panics and declares Toranaga and all his party are doomed, anticipating the Regents will lay waste to his entire province. He catches himself. “I apologize for my bad manners. I assume it’s proper for you to commit seppuku at once. ”

Toranaga says, “Thanks. But until a legal order arrives, my head will stay where it is.” They are greeted on the shore by Yabushige’s army of samurai, and Blackthorne has a not-so-polite reunion with Omi the Reliever, which is fortunately mostly lost in translation. Sensing he needs to outmaneuver Yabushige in order to preempt any further treachery, Toranaga addresses Yabushige’s assembled troops in a manner that leaves things unambiguous:

“Samurai of Izu, I am honored to witness the forces of my friend and ally Kashigi Yabushige. Dark clouds are gathering over Japan. We must protect it against treachery. To those who stain the Taiko’s legacy—may the gods blast you without pity! And to those who fight in the name of loyalty, it is I, Yoshii Toranaga, who humbly bows to you.

The army erupts in cheers and Yabushige looks glum, since his motto might be “Make Treachery Great Again” and the army is chanting “Toranaga-sama” now, who, by the way, immediately heads back to his carrack en route for the Kanto. Little Toranaga, aka Nagakado, is left in charge. “Should’ve brought the cheap sake” Omi’s mother gripes.

Meanwhile, Blackthorne, who literally seems to think he can just grab the boys and bolt, finds out that, nope, his crew is in Edo and Toranaga can do with them as he wishes. He will not be sailing away on the Erasmus anytime soon. He agreed to train Yabushige’s troops in gunpowder tactics and now he must honor that agreement. In light of his new status as hatamoto, he has been given a house, a salary, and Fujii.

Mind-bogglingly oblivious to the fact that he has effectively just been granted the Great White Guy in Japan Orientalist Dream, Blackthorne snarls “I don’t want any generous cuckoos”, mishearing a Japanese unit of money, and storms off to go write angry free verse poetry and listen to Nirvana. Seriously bro?

Now back to Yabu, who’s having a pity party with Omi, Kiku the courtesan, and some eye-patch dude to bewail the fact that his hit single “Kabuto Drip” has been dethroned on the charts by Toranaga’s much better “May the god$ blast U” track. Belatedly realizing his Littlefinger fanfiction isn’t selling, he whines to Omi about having not caught the spy who scuttled his plans for Blackthorne to begin with. “The gods are laughing at me!” he growls, moaning that Ishido probably thinks he’s betrayed him by not betraying Toranaga better.

“I look fully committed to this losing cause. To train a gun regiment with a barbarian pretending to be a hatamoto. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Up to this point the pleasure in watching Yabushige has been his mix of incompetence, evil, and understated likability, the mischievous smile and gremlin gleam in Tadanobu Asano’s eye as he plans to conquer the world, badly. But he’s also the Dude Who Boils People, so his histrionics in this moment and throughout the episode as he gets progressively more fucked are a delight, evoking a tension between schadenfreude and the lingering hope he lives long enough to keep acting the fool. I deeply desire a sort of anti-Bronn-like situation where he makes it to the finale in triumph just to be offed by Toranaga out of boredom.

We’ll see. But right now Omi starts proving himself to be better at this game, persuading Yabu that until Toranaga arrives, it’s his gun regiment and artillery, and he can do whatever the hell he wants with it over the next six months in which Toranaga might very well die. “If they’re about to hang you, ask for a glass of water first. Who knows what could happen in between?” To quote The Witcher‘s Vesemir.

As Blakcthorne sulks about his new real estate, job, and hot wife, he makes some basic faux pas (“Do not walk on moss. It is very disrespectful”), until Mariko gives him the background info on Fujii’s dead husband Tadayoshi and her recently executed baby. She explains the concept of the Eightfold Fence, an inner psychological sanctum the Japanese construct to weather the vicissitudes of social life in a land where death is omnipresent without being enslaved to passions and circumstance.

If this sounds rather “Zen-like”, that’s because it is—in characteristic fashion, the concept exhibits the marriage of the indigenous Shinto faith with Zen Buddhism in Japanese thought, and the phrase “Eightfold Fence” or “Manifold Fence” itself originates in the oldest extant poem in Japanese literature, the song of Susano-o from Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters) in the 8th century. This “Fence” is a means of survival. As Mariko says,

“Do not be fooled by our politeness, our bows, our maze of rituals. Beneath it all, we could be a great distance away.”

We’ll see if Blackthorne gets this one. So far being the archetypal Man of Action has served him well, especially because he looks like a younger Tom Hardy and sounds like a reincarnated Richard Burton; but as he learned in regards to his “deal” with Toranaga, he’s still out of his depth at local politics. If he wants to survive in this land, he’ll need some subtlety.

The day of hatamoto-ing is at hand. First we get an impromptu dick-measuring competition when Omi demands Blackthorne leave his pistols behind for training day. Blackthorne fucking hates this guy, and Omi sorta deserves it, but the situation is resolved when Fujii persuades the Anjin to give her his guns and defuse the situation. Naturally, Omi thinks that’s that and demands the guns from her—which gets him a matchlock barrel in his face and a polite request to leave. On to training day.

Now remember in episode 3 when Blackthorne said he was actually a sailor and didn’t, uh, know anything about Western infantry tactics? “No problem! “I shall teach this savage land to shoot! Huzzah!” he seems to think to himself…till Mariko points out that, much like in the “there’s a Starbucks right over that hill” moment in season 3 of Barry, actually, they’ve had guns for fifty years from the Portuguese and know exactly how to use them.

“No matter! Using my armchair general knowledge of the Ottoman siege of Malta in 1540 against the Islamic Turks…” Wait no, that’s not kosher either. He wasn’t born then, and samurai want to know his tactics work from first hand testimony. Game over? The language barrier and Mariko’s not so eager translation buys him a minute, then he stumbles into it (actual dialogue this time):

“Gun tactics are useless compared to the fine art of English naval warfare. That castle in Osaka, it’s impregnable, yes, with swords, even matchlocks. To lay siege would take months. But, anchor my ship and cannon within a few thousand yards and your army could breach the castle walls without so much as an arrow’s fletching to graze their cheeks.”

Bullshit, the Japanese think. “Cannons are never accurate.” “The Portuguese tried this years ago.” Wrong. Blackthorne’s cannons are better, making long range artillery warfare totally possible. Now a de facto artillery officer, Blackthorne trains the Toranaga men over what seems to be weeks or months, in the process growing closer with Mariko and learning more Japanese.

Unfortunately the bad times are approaching. One day in winter, Ishido’s henchman Nebara Jozen rolls up with his escort and has bad news. The Council demands Yabushige’s return to Osaka, where he will affirm his loyalty—by submitting to execution. To refuse will be considered an act of war. Yabu is on the edge, but he’s been here before (in the very last episode in fact…). He promises to use Blackthorne’s cannon, guns that will “shrivel Christian balls”, in the service of Ishido during the coming war, and sways Jozen into witnessing a demonstration the following morning for old times’ sake.

Jozen looks as enthusiastic to watch this cannon shoot-off as my sister does when she gets movie recommendations, but, fuck it, he’ll tolerate his old “friend” in much the way everyone seems to. Yabu of all daimyo, vassal of none. Nagakado, to his credit, knows that this “demonstration” to make his father’s enemies “quake” is pure self-preserving, disloyal horseshit. Indeed “I look forward to quaking” Jozen says in contempt, remembering their little face-off during the litter drama in Osaka. He warned Toranaga this would happen, and he seems resolved to fix it.

In “The Eightfold Fence”, Yabushige is out of options. But Omi isn’t. As the crew settles in for the night, he gives Nagakado a shoulder to plot on, a way for Naga to show Dad for sure that he’s not some “soft-handed” scion, but a true samurai who can get shit done. Yes, Nagakado, do that exactly, Omi all but says. He barely has to prod. Soon Nagakoda has a plan to stand up for the family name—a chance for Nagakado, Captain of the Yoshii, to show his quality.

Afterwards a very socially awkward exchange of weapons occurs over dinner between Blackthorne and Fujii. This is the gist:

Blackthorne, in Portuguese: “Here Fujii, I gift you these guns”

Fujii, in Japanese: “I’d rather pull a gourd from a horse”

Mariko, in Japanese: “Take the guns. He’s trying to be nice.”

Fujii, in Japanese: “Okay, but he needs to wear my father’s swords like a real man”

Blackthorne, in Port: “No thank you…”

Mariko, in Port: “Take the damn swords, Anjin…”

Cultural exchange, its a beautiful thing.

More to the point: post gift-giving of deadly weapons, Blackthorne decides to take a swim at a picturesque local pond and is promptly spotted by Mariko, who does not exactly object to the sight of the nude barbarian. They share some sweet nothings about Blackthorne taking Mariko to see the Queen in London, and this pick-up line works shockingly well, because a few hours later Mariko decides to claim his barbarian ass as her own.

Show time. Mariko asks Blackthorne over breakfast if his night with the “courtesan” went well. Very. Fujii knows somethings up, but she’ll likely pardon this affair since she hates her new husband anyway.

Now is the hour when we shoot long range artillery together, and so Blackthorne, Mariko, Yabushige, and the rest of Team Toranaga gather with Jozen at the training ground for the demonstration. “For this exercise, the cannons will fire across the plains and blast the targets with perfect accuracy” says Yabushige.” He tells Nagakado to begin.

And so he does. Nagakado rides up and orders the entire artillery crew away, then gets to work, shouting:

“Nebara Jozen! Your presence here is intolerable! You have offended my father’s name. I demand compensation!”

Jozen can’t even suppress a smile when the boy draws his sword. The day this whelp challenges him is his goddamn birthday. “What is this? Put away your sword. Jozen is an official messenger sent by the Regents!” Yabu shouts. This is treason. But it gets worse. Because Naga doesn’t ride up or dismount to duel Jozen sword to sword—he waves his katana, signaling a concealed cannon to fire and turn Jozen’s men to pulp. A second and third blast kills more men along with obliterating Jozen’s horse and sword arm. “Who ordered this?!” Yabu roars. “I did” Naga cries, waving his sword around like an idiot as if it’s his bar mitzvah. “I, son of Yoshii Toranaga! Yoshii Nagakado ordered this!”

“This is a shocking act of provocation!” Yabu yells. “Your father will know of this!”

“I don’t care. In fact, I would like for him to know.” Nagakado boasts.

“This is not how Samurai fight!” the mutilated Jozen barks in digust amidst a pool of blood. You’re savages. All of you.”

Nagakado takes his head.

It is war.

Ultimately, “The Eightfold Fence” demonstrates Shogun is at its best when conducting deep character work. While its violence remains blistering even in small doses, the show lives in the relationships it forges and its incisive view of politics, of how the best and worst laid plans succeed or fail, and their human toll.

All photos are property of FX, all illustrations property of The Path/Natalie Bielat.

Benjamin Rose is a poet from Washington D.C. and the author of Elegy For My Youth (2023) and Dust Is Over All (2024).  He studied English at the Catholic University of America and is the winner of the 2023 O’Hagan Poetry Prize. From 2019 he has edited The Path. Buy his books here

Dig deeper into Shogun’s source material and related media with our Top Picks!

The Path/パス is an online bilingual journal of arts, culture, and entertainment bringing you in-depth reviews, news, and analysis on the hottest properties in sci-fi fantasy film, television, and gaming.

Through in-depth research on intellectual properties and major franchises, we develop content covering your favorite books, series, films, games, and shows, such as The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, Fallout, and Shogun.

If you enjoy our takes, consider buying us a coffee! Your support will help us continue producing excellent pop culture writing in English and Japanese for a true East-meets-West entertainment experience! Arigatō gozaimasu!

The post Shogun Episode 4 Review, “The Eightfold Fence” appeared first on The Path.

Read in Japanese.

By now you’ve probably skimmed a headline or two proclaiming FX’s 2024 remake of Shogun the second coming of Game of Thrones, and they’re not wrong. Yet this doesn’t go far enough, because well before season 8, and really as soon as Benioff and Weiss ran out of George R.R. Martin’s prose, Game of Thrones was bad, the dense machinations and intricate plotting of seasons 1 through 4 giving way to increasingly expensive shots of Daenerys burning everyone.

Shogun is, based on its first two episodes alone, set to be the best epic drama to premier in a decade, reaching all the way back not to that time when Arya leapt six feet vertically into the air (or whatever) to kill the Night King, but to when Tyrion Lannister put a bolt in Tywin’s bowels and then hitched a cargo ship to Braavos. In all aspects this show is impeccable.

The year is 1600. In England, Elizabeth I is nearing the end of her 45-year reign and William Shakespeare is busy writing Hamlet; In Holland, the Habsburgs have been expelled from the Low Countries and the Dutch Republic is emerging as Northern Europe’s major power; in Latin America, Portugal and Spain are solidifying their conquest of the New World; and in Japan, the Sengoku Jidai, the almost 150-year “Warring States Period” of lawlessness and civil war immortalized on-screen in countless Kurosawa films, is drawing to a close. Change is in the air. The vultures gather. Enter Toranaga.

The strongest and most trusted warlord of the recently deceased Taiko, or military leader, Yoshii Toranaga sits on the Council of Regents entrusted with educating and protecting the Taiko’s heir, Nakamura Yaechiyo, until the boy has come of age and is fit to rule the country. There’s just one problem: his rival Ishido Kazunari has united the other three regents (two of whom are also converts to the recently introduced religion of Catholicism) against him, imprisoning Toranaga in the capitol at Osaka Castle in anticipation of an impeachment that will double as his death warrant.

In a masterful scene of tension all the more powerful for eschewing direct violence, Hiroyuki Sanada’s Toranaga engages in verbal sparring with his rivals before, stung by an insult to his lord, Usami Tadayoshi, one of his samurai, rushes to his defense, nearly plunging the entire meeting into an orgy of bloodshed. Knowing they’re outnumbered, Toranaga rebukes his vassal, who vows to commit seppuku and extinguish his own bloodline in shame.

From this moment Shogun begins to show the maturity of its script, which was composed over a now-famously dense 2 year process of translation, re-translation and rewrite to render it equally compelling in both English and Japanese (The dialogue splits about 30-70 by my estimate). Unlike the 1980 Shogun show, which cut vast sections of the novel where Richard Chamberlain’s John Blackthorne was absent, and left much of the Japanese content untranslated, 2024’s Shogun is fully subtitled, in one of the many ways the show broadens the eurocentric outlook of its original. For a show that leans heavily on dialogue, it is a testament to Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks’ skill that even at its most restrained moments, Shogun remains tense and compelling.

By broadening the show’s perspective compared to the original, Shogun gives a great role to lead actor and producer Hiroyuki Sanada, Hollywood’s go-to guy for all things “elder-statseman-samurai” and a key consultant on period accuracy.

First introduced to Western audiences as the steely-eyed samurai lieutenant Ujio in 2003’s The Last Samurai, Sanada has emulated and surpassed former co-star Ken Watanabe’s, or really any other Japanese actor’s, breakthrough from Japanese to Western film over the previous two decades, and he wears the mantle of elder statesman effortlessly, his gentle, principled demeanor with those he trusts at one with the calculating ruthlessness he holds in reserve as he plans to outmaneuver and destroy his enemies.

At base, he is the “warrior who seeks peace” in Sanada’s words, modeled after the historical Tokugawa Ieyasu, the last and greatest of the Three Great Unifiers of Japan during the early modern period, who founded a shogunate lasting 260 years until the modern era. Like Sanada’s own Shimazu Koji in John Wick 4, Toranaga is a man of dignity and  refinement, but latent, furious power.

And yet, like a more competent Ned Stark, he remains a reluctant hero, keenly aware of his disadvantaged position against his rival lords and reluctant to emulate the legacy of his Minowara bloodline, his ancestors (based on the historical Minamoto) who were the last to effectively wield the title of Shogun. Though Toranaga dismisses the title as a “brutal relic from a bygone era”, he is obviously on a collision course with destiny, and will have to decide whether to accept his path or die.

Soon an opportunity appears to even the odds. While Toranaga is receiving news of his now-imminent impeachment, a Dutch pirate vessel crewed by sick and emaciated European Protestants crashes on the shores of Anjiro, a fishing village under the control of Toranaga’s utterly treacherous and certifiably batshit vassal Kashigi Yabushige, played by the wonderfully maniacal Tadanobu Asano.

When Yabushige witnesses the bizarre spectacle of the town’s Catholic priest clamoring for his fellow Europeans’ heads (compounded by the Protestant John Blackthorne spitting on a Catholic cross), he realizes there’s more to this “Christian nonsense” than meets the eye, and plots to sell Blackthorne to Ishido and betray Toranaga.

This goes cock-up when Muraji, a Japanese Christian spy in the village, informs Toranaga of the ship’s arrival, leading him to dispatch his vassal Toda Hiromatsu to commandeer Blackthorne and take him to Osaka, paving the way for Toranaga to sow division between the Catholic lords on the Council while acquiring a large supply of guns in the process.

Meanwhile, Blackthorne receives a crash course in Japanese customs from his new frenemy Vasco Rodrigues, a Spanish sailor and expat who ridicules Blackthorne’s chauvinism while keeping their own countries’ religious, political, and economic conflicts front and center in an increasingly antagonistic relationship. Meanwhile, Yabushige boils one of Blckthorne’s men alive and then, for good measure, orders his samurai to produce a tanka on the spot commemorating the now-roasted barbarian’s death.

Shogun is a massive step for Western television in the centrality and accuracy it brings to an Asian epic, but even as it excels in its representation of a powerful and dynamic Japanese cast, it manages to avoid the more tedious elements that often hamper attempts to combat the lenses of orientalism and white supremacy.

Cosmos Jarvis’s John Blackthorne is reduced, in a sense, from the unitary focus given to Richard Chamberlain’s character in the 1980 adaptation of James Clavell’s Shogun, but rather than the bumbling stereotype of stupidity or rapacity he would be consigned to in a lesser production, Jarvis’ Blackthorne is neither blue-eyed devil nor white savior. Masculine, charismatic, cunning, and ruthless, his portrayal has been widely likened to Tom Hardy, though he remains in the eyes of his Japanese captors no dashing hero but an ill-mannered savage.

Some great work emerges in his conflict with Asano’s Yabushige when Blackthorne successfully manipulates samurai notions of honor to force the latter into a dangerous attempt to rescue Rodrigues, who is thrown overboard at one point during the journey by ship to Osaka. Blackthorne is amazed at Yabushige’s resolution to commit suicide when for a moment he seems doomed to drown, an attitude Rodrigues ascribes to the Japanese concept of shukumei, or acceptance of one’s fate.

As earlier, when Yabushige prevents Hiromatsu from an attempt to kill Blackthorne out of respect for piloting them through a storm, Shogun rejects simplistic morality tales, and takes a nuanced view of cultural conflict where mutual prejudice is capable of existing simultaneously beside well-earned respect. Just as Toranaga hopes to play Blackthorne as a pawn against the Catholics, so the Englishman hopes to enlist his efforts against his enemies, the Portuguese. Everyone is scheming for one thing or another.

Though she is given comparatively less space in the pilot than in the second episode, the pilot teases the importance and consummate self-control of Anna Sawai’s Toda Mariko, a Japanese Catholic and skilled linguist who is connected to Toranaga by marriage to one of his retainers and is the daughter-in-law of his lieutenant Toda Hiromatsu. In a particularly gripping scene, as Fujii, the wife of Toranaga’s previously disgraced samurai Tadayoshi, holds a tanto to her neck in defiance of her husband’s promise to surrender their child to death, Mariko talks her down into accepting her fate and refusing suicide out of loyalty to their lord.

As a bridge between worlds, Mariko will inevitably be caught up in the struggle between the duplicitous Portuguese, her lord Toranaga, and his rivals, her duel identities as Nihonjin and Christian tested in the process. Despite being held in relative reserve for the first hour, Sawai telegraphs the traits that look set to define Mariko in the coming episodes: steeliness, dexterity, and the ability to harness absolute discipline in the service of her calculating intellect, matched with the fearlessness needed to openly confront men in a brutally patriarchal pre-modern society. While she will eventually become, among other things, the love interest of Blackthorne, Sawai establishes Mariko as a capable political player in her own right, adept at subverting the limitations imposed on her by gender.

The board is set. Lavish costumes, meticulously created sets, political intrigue, and brutal violence: Shogun has it all, and it radiates confidence. A sumptuous period piece and dazzling epic, this series promises to equal or surpass peak Game of Thrones.

Benjamin Rose is a poet from Washington D.C. and the author of Elegy For My Youth (2023) and Dust Is Over All (2024).  He studied English at the Catholic University of America and is the winner of the 2023 O’Hagan Poetry Prize. From 2019 he has edited The Path. Buy his books here.

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