In episode two of shÅ gun, we learn much more about the dangerous game that Lord Toranaga has been forced to play, a game that actually began with specific instructions that the TaikÅ left with one of the supreme ruler’s few remaining breaths. In a flashback to a year earlier, pilot Major John Blackthorne and his Dutch warship Erasmus Toranaga, washed up and disheveled on a Japanese coast, speaks in confidence to his dying leader (Yukijiro Hotaru). The vultures circle, says the old man. His death will surely spark calls for civil war. Worse yet, it will leave his young heir Yaechiyo (Sen Mars) vulnerable to extinction. And although the TaikÅ only trust Toranaga, declaring him sole regent would immediately align all other power-seeking parties against him. Precisely for this reason a different decree is issued, in which Toranaga shares power with the other four regents. There is the scheming and powerful Ishido, whom we have met; Sugiyama (Toshi Toda), a descendant of samurai wealth; Ohno (Takeshi Kurokawa), the former warrior who converted to Catholicism when he contracted leprosy; and Kiyama (Hiromoto Ida), also a man of faith, as long as it satisfies his greed and ambition.
All these guys want Toranaga gone. The blood in his veins is Minowara, a name once associated with supreme earthly title and rank. You already know: ShÅgun. And although Toranaga claims that he does not want the shogunate, he still has to contend with the moves of his adversary rulers. It’s a volatile political climate exacerbated by the arrival of Blackthorne, aka “the barbarian,” aka “Anjin,” the Japanese word for ship’s pilot, aka “heretic” among converts.
The man at the highest altitude is the loneliest man in the kingdom. But now, as Blackthorne bows before him in a formal garden, Toranaga learns crucial information that will give him and this mysterious stranger common cause. The meeting is also another example of how exquisitely shÅ gun use the language. With Jesuit priest Martin Alvito (Tommy Bastow) called in to translate, Toranaga also employs Lady Mariko, who speaks fluent Japanese, Portuguese and Latin, as a reliable security tool against mischief. With Alvito translating and Mariko supervising, shÅ gun focuses on Toranaga and Blackthorne in the foreground. Translation disappears, a kind of direct communication is made possible and, through the sifting of two spoken languages, each man learns the brain size of the other. They can use each other, that’s what it comes down to. Blackthorne is aware of secret Portuguese bases, in places like Macau, that are coordinated by the Jesuits and equipped with weapons and mercenaries. ronin Samurai converted to Catholicism. And as an intelligent and astute political observer, Marko sees how Toranaga will use the visiting Protestant English pilot to sow pision between the Jesuit priests, the two Christian regents, and Ishido, thus strengthening his political position.
But first, Blackthorne must endure the dank, terrible prison where Toranaga throws him to appease Ishido. And who is there but a wild-haired Joaquim de Almedia as the disgraced priest Father Domingo? “You can’t play their games,” Domingo tells the pilot. “His rules are too opaque, his hearts too cautious.” To which Blackthorne draws on the courage that helped him travel across the world, to a land where he does not plan to die on a cross. What if he can play your games? Even better, what if he wins? Broke out of prison by the samurai Yabushige (he is Toranaga’s tough sworn vassal who nevertheless tries to align himself with Ishido after Toranaga is deposed), the pilot sees how knowledge of him can help Toranaga’s politics. How he plays.
“Your country falls into the Portuguese half. So it belongs to them.” At another gathering in the formal garden, Blackthorne described how the treaties between Portugal and Spain have pided the non-Christian world. He draws a globe in the sand, a visual aid that illustrates the location of England and Europe in relation to Japan, and describes the route of the Erasmus through the Strait of Magellan in South America. A route kept secret through Spain and Portugal. A route that has been supplied with bases. And a route through which they continue to hoard for themselves the riches of trade with Japan. Toranaga is startled. He asks Mariko: did the barbarian really say Japan?belongsTo Portugal? And as the regency’s president of foreign relations, he issues a detention against the Barco Negro, Portugal’s main commercial vessel. “Perhaps we should learn more about these bases before negotiating further,” Toranaga tells Alvito, and the young priest turns green as if he had just swallowed an insect.
The Portuguese priests need the Black Ship to navigate the trade routes in order to protect their income and negotiating position, and this heretic feeding Toranaga’s information is really hindering their style. Then Dell’Acqua (Paulino Nunes), the glowering head priest, conspires with the Catholic regent Kiyama. Late at night, in the neighborhoods of the West Palace of Toranaga, a murderer sneaks in while everyone sleeps. His sword sings and the samurai guards fall. As the alarm is raised through shoji paper panels, Toranaga hides where Blackthorne sleeps. A master of the games that were played, he sensed that this attack would come. More importantly, he felt that he would not be the target. And when the killer appears, he kills her with the help of Blackthorne himself. “This wasn’t Ishido,” he tells Mariko and her son Nagakado. “The murderer did not come for me. she came for him.” AND shÅ gun cuts to the dead attacker, his bloodied body disturbing the pristine contours of the formal garden.ÂÂÂÂ
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
