The TV series ‘Shogun’, produced as a Hulu Original series, is about to premiere. This series is based on the novel of the same name by James Clavell, and is a story created based on historical facts. However, the actions and names of the characters have been slightly changed.

John Blackthorne, played by Cosmo Jarvis, is a British navigator. He is shipwrecked on the coast of Japan in 1600, and becomes a samurai under the command of Yoshii Toranaga, a Japanese daimyo played by Hiroyuki Sanada. John helps Toranaga win the civil war to prove his worth in Japan.

Those familiar with East Asian history will recognize that this novel and TV series are based on the story of Tokugawa Ieyasu and William Adams in real history.

After the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1598, the Toyotomi clan and the Tokugawa clan were in a state of civil war. 1600, when William Adams arrived in Japan, was the year Tokugawa Ieyasu, the head of the Tokuga clan, won the Battle of Sekigahara. This marked the beginning of the Edo period in Japan.

William Adams, who arrived in Japan during this period, was threatened by the Catholic forces operating in Japan, but explained the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism to Tokugawa Ieyasu. As a result, Japan later cut off relations with Catholic countries and only interacted with the Netherlands, a Protestant country.

William Adams, in particular, has attracted attention from modern Westerners because he was a British samurai. He helped the Tokugawa clan build Western-style sailing ships. He also taught Ieyasu about various Western disciplines. Ieyasu gave Adams a fiefdom and serfs, making him a samurai. **He also received a Japanese name, Miura Anjin (三浦按針, Miura Anjin).**

However, East Asia depicted from a Western perspective has rarely escaped Orientalism. In Western TV series and films, Asia is a mysterious place of adventure. The protagonist must have mysterious experiences here, or fall in love with an exotic woman. Therefore, there are many settings and scenes that are detached from actual Asian culture.

A prime example is the 2014 Netflix original ‘Marco Polo’, which depicts 13th-century East Asia as a fantasy world. Jia Sidao, a prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty, is depicted as a martial arts master, and the Chinese empress is portrayed as a femme fatale. This was a difficult setting for Asian viewers who know what the aristocrats of Confucian culture were actually like.

The 2003 film ‘The Last Samurai’, starring Tom Cruise, was also a shocking work for Asian viewers in a bad way. The samurai, depicted through a distorted lens called Cool Japan, appear as romantic warriors in this film. However, in reality, samurai were just mercenaries who exploited peasants and were employed by daimyo.

In particular, the ‘bushido’ of samurai is a concept that emerged after the era of samurai had ended and firearms had developed. It was more of a ruling ideology of the Tokugawa clan, which had seized control of Japan, than a belief of the samurai. The image of samurai held by Westerners was created in the 19th century by combining it with Western chivalry.

This bushido later led to Japanese militarism, and the Empire of Japan, who massacred 300,000 people in Nanjing, China, was called ‘the Nazis of Asia’. The romantic portrayal of samurai and bushido was appalling to Asian viewers outside of Japan. **In particular, it is very funny from an Asian perspective that Tom Cruise and the producers were obsessed with the ‘spirit of Japan’.**

Of course, the first episode of this series has not been released yet. There may be a work that depicts the actual appearance of medieval European knights as starkly as ‘Game of Thrones’. (Although they are knights of Westeros, not Europe.) However, the femme fatale relationship between the protagonist John and the Japanese woman Toda Mariko has already been hinted at in several trailers.

Toda Mariko is a character based on the real person Hosokawa Tarasha, and she is not particularly related to William Adams. This kind of adaptation is a cliché that has been used in numerous Hollywood films and TV series, such as The Last Samurai (2003) and Marco Polo (2014).

The problem is that this TV series is being made in 2024. Asian viewers who want a more fresh ‘Hollywood Samurai Show’ should lower their expectations for now.

'Shogun' will be released on Hulu and Disney Plus on February 27, 2024.