Top 10 Shogun Gets Factually Right or Wrong So Far or Part 1
#10: An English Navigator Lands in Japan
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Right While “Shōgun” is largely fictionalized, its core story is based in reality. And it all begins with English navigator John Blackthorne landing in the small fishing village of Ajiro. It’s established that Blackthorne is the first Englishman to reach Japan, and both of these facts are basically true. Blackthorne is based on a real English navigator named William Adams, who sailed on a Dutch trading ship called De Liefde. On April 19, 1600, the ship made landfall at the Japanese island of Kyūshū. In the process, Adams became the first Englishman to step foot on Japanese soil.
#9: The Council of Regents
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Right “Shōgun” contains a lot of political drama, and most of it centers around the Council of Five Regents. Before dying, the previous leader elected five feudal lords to protect his young heir and run the land until he comes of age. This Council of Regents includes our hero Yoshii Toranaga and bad guy Ishido Kazunari. Once again, this aspect of the show is based in reality. The Council of Five Elders was created in 1598 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to protect his heir, Toyotomi Hideyori. But however true this fact is, the story does deviate in one major way…
#8: Ishido Is on the Council
Wrong Unlike in the show, Ishido Kazunari, or rather the person he’s based on, Ishida Mitsunari, was not actually on the Council of Five Elders. In real life, Mitsunari was a military commander who worked as a samurai under Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Once Hideyoshi took power, Mitsunari worked as one of his main financial administrators and served as the Daimyō of Sawayama Castle between 1590 and 1600. So, while it’s true that Mitsunari worked under Hideyoshi, he was not actually on the Council. He later allied with a number of the Council’s Regents to fight against Tokugawa Ieyasu, on whom Toranaga is based.
#7: Ending the Bloodline
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Wrong The concept of seppuku is famous beyond Japan. Being practiced as recently as World War II, seppuku is a Japanese ritual in which someone, typically a disgraced samurai, takes their own life. In “Shōgun,” Fuji’s husband Tadayoshi dishonors himself by speaking out of turn and threatening Ishido. To make amends, he offers not only to commit seppuku, but to completely end his bloodline by offering his infant son. This certainly makes for good drama, but it isn’t historically accurate. Samurai were not expected to offer their children as punishment for their own misdeeds, and there are numerous historical accounts of children living beyond their fathers’ seppuku.
#6: The Portuguese in Japan
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Right Blackthorne may have been the first Englishman to set foot in Japan, but he wasn’t the first European. He’s immediately met with resistance in the form of the Portuguese, who have established both an economic and religious foothold in Japan. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach Japan, having done so back in 1543, more than half a century before William Adams made landfall in 1600. The Portuguese brought Christianity to Japan and established a prosperous trade agreement with the country. And just as in the show, the Portuguese missionaries in Japan branded Adams a pirate and attempted to have him executed.
#5: Blackthorne Is Imprisoned
Right Toranaga takes an immediate interest in Blackthorne, realizing that he can use both him and his European goods in his fight to gain power. As such, he has Blackthorne thrown in prison, wishing to protect him from Ishido. All of this actually happened to William Adams shortly after arriving in Japan. In one piece of writing, Adams recounts “coming before the king,” which was his incorrect title for the daimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu also ordered that Adams be imprisoned inside Osaka Castle, which had just recently been completed. The castle’s construction was ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the same man who established the Council of Five Elders.
#4: Blackthorne Is Rescued By Yabushige
Wrong Things don’t look good for Blackthorne when he’s seized by Kiyama’s men and taken to be executed. However, he’s saved in the nick of time by Toranaga’s retainer Kashigi Yabushige, who takes Blackthorne back to Toranaga. This is an exciting scene, but it is pure fantasy. While the Jesuits attempted to have Adams executed, he certainly wasn’t saved in a dramatic last minute rescue. On the contrary, in a letter to his wife, Adams wrote that Tokugawa Ieyasu openly denied their request for execution, having “not done to him nor to none of his land any harm or damage.”
#3: Showing Toranaga a World Map
Right “Shōgun” sure knows how to info-dump. In one surprisingly entertaining sequence, Blackthorne draws Toranaga a map of the world and explains the geopolitical station of Japan. It’s a dense sequence filled with important information, and we’ll get to that in a second. But in the meantime, it may surprise you to hear that this wasn’t a dramatic invention for the sake of exposition. In one of Adams’s letters to his wife, he wrote that he explained the route his ship had taken “through the Strait of Magellan” using “a chart of the whole world”. This is what he does in the show, the only difference being that he calls it Magellan’s Pass.
#2: The Treaty of Tordesillas
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Right During this map sequence, Blackthorne references the Treaty of Tordesillas, and Toronaga is shocked to learn that Japan is thought to “belong” to Portugal. Indeed, Portugal and Spain did get together and craft the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, dividing land outside Europe amongst themselves. Through this demarcation, Japan landed in the territory belonging to Portugal. This essentially gave Portugal the ‘right’ to propagate Christianity throughout the country and establish a trade network within its confines. And this is exactly what we see at the beginning of the show, with Portugal already having a firm foothold in the east.
#1: Mariko & Blackthorne
Wrong Sorry shippers, but the relationship between Mariko and Blackthorne is entirely fictional. Mariko is based on a Japanese woman named Hosokawa Gracia, who was indeed a convert to Catholicism. She was married to Hosokawa Tadaoki (whose fictional counterpart is Buntaro), and her father betrayed and killed the daimyō Oda Nobunaga (fictionalized as ‘Kuroda Nobuhisa’) - as referenced in episode five. But while the show contains many historical truths surrounding her character, Mariko and Blackthorne’s relationship is completely made up. In real life, Hosokawa Gracia and William Adams never even met each other, let alone become secret lovers. We suppose James Clavell, whose 1975 novel the show is based on, just wanted to sprinkle in a little romance. Have you been enjoying Shogun so far? Let us know in the comments below!
