I’m really enjoying Shōgun, the new tv series starring Hiroyuki Sanada! I’m enjoying all the actors and characters so far. The other, Western main character makes me laugh regularly – his defining character trait seems to be: “Fuck this bullshit! I am the master of my own fate!! Do or die!!!” So far, he has done and not died. The show’s been very entertaining and I’m very much looking forward to future episodes. The costuming and scenery and the way it is shot is very pretty. I’ve seen the first three episodes so far and can’t wait to see the rest!
I read the novel the show is based, Shōgun by James Clavell, back in the late 1980s when I was a teenager, but I don’t remember anything about it except that a Westener goes to feudal Japan and that I loved it. I also have a faint memory of reading other of Clavell’s works after it, but not loving them the same way.
I kinda, but not really, have faint memories of watching a Shōgun tv series, starring Richard Chamberlain. Richard Chamberlain seemed to be every tv series shown on tv for several years in the mid-80s and when I started watching this new Shōgun, I kept thinking “b-b-but Richard Chamberlain?!!!” out of the blue. According to IMDB, there indeed was a Shōgun tv series made in 1980, starring Richard Chamberlain and I recognized the posters for the series immediately!! I don’t really remember anything about the series itself, but I must have loved it because Shōgun is exactly the kind of thing I would’ve loved as a kid/teenager and I remember loving all the tv series Richard Chaberlain was in back then.