In 1980, when James Clavell’s movie historic novel Shōgun was turned into a TV series, some 33 % of American families with hdtv tuned in. It quickly rose to the top of the list of most watched series on the only behind” Origins,” which was the only other one that was watched as a result.
I’m a Japanese writer who is interested in the early modern Tokugawa time ( 1603- 1868 ), when the majority of the action in Shgun occurs. As a first-year student scholar, I spent five times glued to the television, impressed by someone’s commitment to producing a series about the era in Japan’s recent that had captured my imagination.
I was n’t alone. According to writer Henry D. Smith, one-fifth to one-half of students taking college courses about Japan at the time had read the book and had grown engaged in Japan as a result of it.
He continued,” Shgun probably gave more people about the daily life of Japan” than any other book series written by scholars, journalists, and novels since the Pacific War.
Some also give the line credit for making sushi popular in the US.
That 1980 miniseries has now been remade as FX’s” Shōgun”, a 10- show creation that is garnering scream reviews– including a around- 100 % standing from review- aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.
Both movie closely resemble Clavell’s 1975 book, a fictitious retelling of Will Adams ‘ life and John Blackthorne’s. Adams was the first Englishman to travel to Japan.
Despite this, each line has subtle differences that highlight the ethos of each period and America’s shifting behaviour toward Japan.
The “miracle of Japan”
The initial 1980 set reflects both the optimism of wartime America and its fascination with its once-resurrected past foe.
World War II had left Japan devastated financially and physiologically. But by the 1970s and 1980s, the region had come to dominate international markets for customer technology, electronics and the cars.
Its gross national product per capita rose spectacularly: from less than$ 200 in 1952 to$ 8, 900 in 1980 – the year” Shōgun” appeared on television – to almost$ 20, 000 in 1988, surpassing the United States, West Germany and France.
Many Americans were interested in learning the technique to Japan’s head-spinning economic magic, or” Japanese miracle.” Had Japan’s history and culture present clues?
During the 1970s and 1980s, researchers sought to understand the mystery by analyzing not just the Chinese economy but also the country’s diverse institutions: schools, social plan, business culture and surveillance.
Sociologist Ezra Vogel argued in his 1979 text Japan as Number One: Lessons for America that the US may know a bit from Japan by examining the country’s long-term financial planning, cooperation between state and business, investments in education and quality control of goods and services.
A window into Japan
Clavell’s expansive 1, 100- page novel was released in the middle of the Japanese miracle. It sold more than seven million copies in five years. Then the series aired, which prompted the sale of another 2.5 million copies.
In it, Clavell tells Blackthorne’s story, who was shipwrecked off Japan’s coast in 1600, and finds the nation in a tranquillity after a period of civil war. However, that harmony is about to be shattered by the five regents who have been chosen to ensure the succession of a young heir to their former lord’s position as top military leader.
Local leaders are unsure whether to treat Blackthorne and his crew as risky pirates or as harmless traders in the interim. His men end up being imprisoned, but Blackthorne’s knowledge of the world outside of Japan and his shipload of cannons, muskets and ammunition save him.
He ends up offering advice and munitions to one of the regents, Lord Yoshi Toranaga, the fictional version of the real- life Ieyasu Tokugawa. With this edge, Toranaga rises to become shogun, the country’s top military leader.
In the 1980 television series, viewers watch Blackthorne gradually pick up the Japanese language and begin to understand its significance. For example, at first he’s resistant to bathing. His Japanese hosts find his refusal irrational because cleanliness is deeply rooted in Japanese culture.
Blackthorne’s, and the viewers’, gradual acclimatization to Japanese culture is complete when, late in the series, he is reunited with the crew of his Dutch ship who have been held in captivity. Blackthorne demands a bath to purge himself of their contamination because they are so filthy.
In contrast to the West, Blackthorne views Japan as much more civilized. Just like his real- life counterpart, Will Adams, he decides to remain in Japan even after being granted his freedom. He marries a Japanese woman, with whom he has two children, and ends his days on foreign soil.
From enthralling to frightened
However, the positive views of Japan that its economic miracle generated, and that Shogun reinforced, eroded as the US trade deficit with Japan ballooned: from$ 10 billion in 1981 to$ 50 billion in 1985.
When American autoworkers smashed Toyota cars in March 1983 and congressmen smashed a Toshiba boombox with sledgehammers on the Capitol lawn in 1987,” Japan bashing” spread in the country and sparked visceral outrage in the country. The magazine Foreign Affairs issued a warning about” The Coming US-Japan Crisis” that year.
This backlash against Japan in the U. S. was also fueled by almost a decade of acquisitions of iconic American companies, such as Firestone, Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios, along with high- profile real estate, such as the iconic Rockefeller Center.
Japan’s economy stalled after the concept of it as a threat reached its height in 1989. The 1990s and early 2000s were dubbed Japan’s “lost decade“.
Yet a curiosity and love for Japanese culture persists, thanks, in part, to manga and anime. More Japanese feature films and television series are also making their way to popular streaming services, including the series” Tokyo Girl“,” Midnight Diner” and” Sanctuary“. The Hollywood Reporter reported that Japan was “on the precipice of a content boom” in December 2023.
Widening the lens
As FX’s remake of” Shōgun” demonstrates, American viewers today apparently do n’t need to be slowly introduced to Japanese culture by a European guide.
In the new series, Blackthorne is not even the sole protagonist.
Instead, he shares the spotlight with several Japanese characters, such as Lord Yoshi Toranaga, who no longer serves as a one- dimensional sidekick to Blackthorne as he did in the original miniseries.
The fact that Japanese characters now use English subtitles to communicate with the audience directly facilitates this change. In the 1980 miniseries, the Japanese dialogue went untranslated. There were English- speaking Japanese characters in the original, such as Blackthorne’s female translator, Mariko. But they spoke in a highly formalized, unrealistic English.
Instead of using the contemporary Japanese, which made the 1980 series so unpopular with Japanese viewers, the show’s Japanese characters speak in the native language of the early modern era, which is in addition to depicting authentic costumes, combat, and gestures. Imagine George Washington speaking like Jimmy Kimmel in a movie about the American Revolution.
Of course, authenticity has its limits. Both television series producers made a decision to closely resemble the first book. They are perhaps unintentionally reproducing some stereotypes about Japan by doing this.
Most strikingly, there’s the fetishization of death, as several characters have a penchant for violence and sadism while many others commit ritual suicide, or seppuku.
Part of this may have been simply a function of author Clavell being a self- professed” storyteller, not an historian“. However, this may have been reflected in his experiences during World War II, when he spent three years in a Japanese concentration camp. Still, as Clavell noted, he came to deeply admire the Japanese.
His novel, as a whole, beautifully conveys this admiration. The two miniseries have, in my view, successfully followed suit, enthralling audiences in each of their times.
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has a professor of history named Constantine Nomikos Vaporis.
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.