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The Belgian Frederik Cryns, professor of History at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, remembers an old saying from his adopted country: “a samurai who does not know about poetry, traditional theater or the tea ceremony, is not a samurai.” . These and other disciplines, and not only katana fighting, appear in Shōgun (Disney+), whose plot is set in the time of these warriors. Its title refers to the leaders of the military government who at that time held maximum power in Japan, above that of the emperors. [En este artículo puedes consultar el quién es quién de sus principales personajes]
An expert in Japanese culture, Cryns was born in Antwerp 54 years ago and has lived two thirds of his life in Asia. He has spent the last three years advising the creators of this American miniseries, which revolves around several military leaders fighting for a throne that is at stake. Historical fiction is, as one of its directors, Jonathan van Tulleken, has explained on several occasions, the Succession of feudal Japan.
A curious squeak sounds as the historian walks barefoot through Nijo Castle in Kyoto, the 8,000-square-meter building complex that has inspired many of the interior sets of the ambitious 10-episode miniseries. Every time the Belgian steps on the so-called nightingale floor of the 17th century building, the creaking of its wooden planks is reminiscent of the song of these birds. “There is no official record about it, so there are those who interpret that it was a purely aesthetic occurrence and there are those who believe that it was a defensive system, to warn of the entry of intruders,” Cryns comments minutes later to this newspaper, during a meeting with the international press organized by Disney+. The duality of this architectural curiosity, halfway between sensory hedonism and wartime, is a perfect example of the relevant turning point in the history of Japan that sets the scene. Shōgun. The story begins in the year 1600, in the final stages of the warlike Sengoku period and the moments before the luminous Edo period.
The fiction adapts the best-selling novel of the same name by James Clavell published in 1975, which in turn inspired a first miniseries in the eighties with Richard Chamberlain as the protagonist. The main characters of the television version are transcripts of the great Japanese figures of that relevant moment in the country’s history: the meeting between a British sailor, William Adams (called John Blackthorne in fiction), and Tokugawa Ieyasu (who on screen passes to be the feudal lord Yoshii Toranaga), one of the promoters of Japanese reunification. The leader had as his main advisor Hosokawa Gracia, an aristocrat converted to Christianity renamed in the script as Toda Mariko and who personifies the particular role that women played at that moment in Japanese history.
With this three-way meeting began the mutual influence between the Asian country and the West that continues to the present. It is, in short, the moment in which capitalism sowed its seeds in Japan, “when the Portuguese and Spanish were roaming around,” recalls Cryns, in reference to the colonizers who also appear as antagonists in this story. “It was important to us that, unlike the first series, this time the Japanese point of view had the same weight as the Western one. At that time, both saw themselves as barbarians,” points out the consultant from Shōgun.
Every Tuesday, Disney+ releases a new episode of this political drama, historical romance, Asian action series or several other subgenres that come together in its plots. According to the entertainment company’s own data, the first of the three episodes already available has exceeded nine million views globally in its first six days in the Disney+, Hulu or Star+ catalog (depending on the country). The standard that the platforms apply to count a viewing is the result of dividing the number of minutes played (in this case 690 million) by the total duration of the content (70 minutes of duration of the pilot chapter).
Almost everything in Nijo Castle is created with the same intention: to demonstrate the enormous power of those who inhabited it. “Its architecture, the motifs of the paintings on its walls, the disposition of its guests… everything had a meaning that established hierarchies,” comments the historian. In the first chapter of the miniseries, its creators already show that they were living in merciless times, in the style of Game of Thronesthe other recent HBO classic with which Shōgun. The slightest misstep in feudal Japan meant a cruel death sentence. Or activated the strict code of honor that promoted the seppuku (what the West calls doing harakiri). It was a form of voluntary death that consisted of slitting one’s stomach and removing one’s own entrails as an offering to compensate for an offense. The punishment involved eliminating the offender’s offspring, to completely eliminate his line of succession.
As for settings, this blockbuster has reconstructed several of the rooms of several Japanese castles on a giant set in Vancouver, eliminating all elements created after 1600. They have also manufactured a part of the city of Osaka on a full scale, to record exterior scenes. “It would have been impossible to do something like that in Japan, because the producers would not have found a space large enough,” explains the miniseries consultant while he tours another of those centuries-old buildings, the interior of the Osaka castle tower. The screen appears in black, that of the dark Sengoku era, instead of showing the current white. “In the comments of the trailers of the series that appear on YouTube, there are those who protest these types of changes, thinking that they are mistakes, because they were there last month and saw that it was white. On the contrary, they are changes made to be faithful to the reality of that moment,” says Cryns with a resigned smile.
Obsession with Japanese culture
Already in kindergarten, Cryns was obsessed with Japan, he remembers. His best friend was from there. When his classmate returned to Asia, they maintained contact by letter into their twenties, but their relationship with Japan has lasted much longer. It has been his home for the past 35 years. Watching the first television adaptation of him in his youth Shōgun ended up encouraging him to take the step of moving to his dream destination. In this time, he has become one of the reference experts on the Sengoku era for the Japanese media. Before beginning to collaborate with the American production, he had already investigated the historical traces of the three main characters that inspire his protagonists and had published several books focused on them. The next release will be an essay on the sailor William Adams that he is preparing for the month of June.
Cryns’ historical commitment reaches such a limit that he has taken care to establish the place in which the characters are placed in each scene, to define the way in which they move, sit or use their katana. To recreate in the pilot chapter the first meeting between the sailor and the Japanese leader, he rescued the letters that Adams sent to his wife narrating what happened. He has also drafted legal texts in the Japanese of the time for the writings that pass through the hands of the actors. And he has composed poems imitating the style of the compositions of the time that he has consulted in databases. “He wanted them to sound more real than those in James Clavell’s book, although overall he did a brilliant job of research,” he says. He doesn’t care that no viewer will be able to appreciate all those details “unless they press the pause button and freeze the image.”
The Belgian flooded with ideas showrunner Justin Marks, who has led the production with its creator, Rachel Kondo. Apparently, they let him do so as long as they were as faithful as possible to the historical facts. If Cryns commented that there was always a pond in the feudal lords’ gardens, the person responsible for the series took note and included it in at least one scene.
Marks and Kondo also contacted the National Noh Theater in Tokyo for a relevant sequence that can be seen in the sixth episode of the miniseries. Noh is a traditional form of Japanese musical dramatic art—one of the oldest active in the world—that uses masks and gestural symbolism to construct its stories. Like this American fiction, karma is one of the recurring themes of his productions. Some of the members of the current company belong to a saga of actors who have been performing this discipline for 20 generations. They traveled to Vancouver with masks from 600 years ago, right from the historical era that the series recreates. And with a 10-minute piece specially created and choreographed to connect with one of its plots. The stage of the noh theater consists of a bridge and a landscape of pine trees. It represents the union between life and death; the meeting between spirits and mortals. In the final cut, barely a fragment of a practically unpublished piece has remained, which has only been performed for the filming team of the series.
As happened to Frederik Cryns himself, the first Shōgun Four decades ago, television triggered general interest in Japanese studies in universities, says the Belgian. “Now they are at their lowest point, after China conquered everything in terms of Asian influence in the West,” laments the historian, who hopes that next year the series effect of Disney+ and its subject gains renewed interest.