I liked the final Toranaga's speech "I was playing 5d chess all along and I won without lifting a finger", but the rest of the show was a fucking mess.>The Kiku and teahouse subplot takes a lot of time to go absolutely nowhere.If we remove Kiku from the story, nothing changes. Why was she even introducted? Only to cuckquean Mariko?>Buntaro comes back from the dead only to do nothing.When I saw him come back after being surrounded by enemies and clearly doomed I thought "Ah, he's the spy, that's why they let him live". And then he gets drunk once, shoots a couple of arrows just to clarify that he's a dick, and... nothing else. The role of the traitor gets taken by a NEW character (Toranaga's brother).Was Buntaro introduced just to be cucked by Anjin?>Yabushige starts off as a cool, utterly deranged character obsessed with death, the sort who's completely unpredictable because he has an obsession that makes him uninterested in the usual goals (money, women, power)... and then becomes the most boring, predictable, prudent, even cowardly character, only worried about his own survival like a rat.If you confront him with the Yabushige of the first episode, they look like completely different people.>The "maybe they'll discover he's a pirate" subplot goes nowhere.>The catholics VS protestants subplot goes nowhere.I don't know. Some cool moments, but overall a mess of untied plot threads and wasted characters. 5/10
Haven't even watched the final episode. Probably won't, either. I got bored about half-way through the series and still watched anyways, but I just have no desire anymore.
>>198612798>When I saw him come back after being surrounded by enemies and clearly doomedHe fought through them and ran away with them chasing him. It was obvious he would survive to complicate the miscegenation relationship
>>198612868>he survived after being left alone on a pier against dozens of armed enemies and miraculously managed to escape from them and return to his party basically unharmedYeah, no. This is bullshit.
>>198612798Kiku sets up how prostitute tea houses would come to dominate Japanese cities.
Basically they took a story set in a Japan that is mostly fictuous and full of details imagined by the author and decided that was the perfect blueprint for making a show concerned with accuracy and detail. It's like wanting to make a story about the middle ages so you adapt the Lord of the Rings and delete all the fantasy elements.
>>198612913Really? That was the point of her character arc? No mata hari betrayal, nothing besides a bit of social commentary?
i like the idea toranaga spent months clenching his asshole as hard as he could stifling a laugh from all the retarded antics anjin was causing.
>>198612964I think that was the reason, yeah. I mean the original intent of the book was to show western people a snapshot and taste for aspects of Japanese culture.
>>198612964thats him flexing his 5d chess and trolling church guy
>>198613013>show western people a snapshot and taste for aspects of Japanese cultureDoesn't Anjin have a foursome with Kiku, Mariko and the other chick that wants to be a nun at some point?Kek. It's basically boomer porn fanfiction.
>>198612964>>198613013Actually anon - I'm not saying you are - but if you're interested in this thread I recommend watching Memoirs of a Geisha.
>>198613036It is yeah, but also it was written by a guy who had a hard on for the japanese and wanted to sort of rectify their image post-WW2.
>>198612798Yup. It's a ten episode show about a bunch of people trying to leave Osaka, a couple of them then trying to get back inside Osaka, only for it to be revealed later on that this was a ploy to get the remaining few people who didn't get to leave Osaka to get out of Osaka. And then the show ends.
>>198613562Yeah BORING, why was there barely any action lol.
>>198614314It's not the lack of action that's the problem. More like the lack of a cohesive narrative that properly develops the characters and that is acted by the characters because of their flaws/traumas, etc. Only a few characters do anything of note. Mariko might be the protagonist, all things considered. Shogun is the story of how Mariko finally managed to commit suicide.
>>198614374>More like the lack of a cohesive narrative that properly develops the charactersafter a promising start sadly this. Meandering episodes that almost form into something coherent or much in the way of urgency but never does. Really quite amateurish in terms of its plotting. Disappointing.
>>198614511Yeah, which is really odd, considering it's taken from a novel. Is the book also this... pointless in its subplots?
>>198614511>almost form into something coherent or much in the way of urgency but never doesYeah, they try to give the viewer a sense of urgency and importance, "pay attention to this character, keep track of this point, it will be really important later, I promise", and then nothing bears fruits.This could've been a 90 minute movie, if you shed the fat: Toranaga is about to be executed by his rivals, he escapes from Osaka, pretends to plan an attack using some western weapons he found on a beached ship, but instead the real attack is sending Mariko to Ishido because at that point Ishido is fucked. 90-100 minutes tops.You can even throw in a romantic subplot between Mariko and Anjin: it almost seems like she wants to live for his BWC now, but then honor prevails and she chooses to allah-akhbar herself.
>>198614646>>198614738>>198614511it's more frustrating because I think the cast were mostly strong, the setting can almost bear the weight by itself, and there were good moments strewn throughout. But whole thing is way way less than the sum of its parts.
irl i might be anjin but when it's shitposting time i'm a toranaga
>>198612898He used the forbidden technique
>>198614839>whole thing is way way less than the sum of its partsPerfect description. What a fucking waste of actors and setting.
>>198612798The gardener dying because he took down the pheasant felt like the ending of The Mist
keikaku doori
