Shogun 1x2 REACTION!! “Servants of Two Masters” 

There were good Portuguese too, that's not to be ignored. Japan has improved its military and foreign knowledge because of their relations with the Portuguese. Of course there were it's crimes throughout, which were even then, also partly organized by corrupted Japanese power as well.

The Dutch were the only ones allowed to trade with japan from 1639 to 1859.

@@Rolgi exactly the dutchs "good intentions" sure bought them a nice monopoly , unfortunately with how morally grey life is there were few good intention when fighting over so much power and riches no matter what time period or where you came from

The Treaty of Tordesillas of 7 June 1494 involves agreements between King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile and King John II of Portugal establishing a new demarcation line between the two crowns, running from pole to pole, 370 leagues to the west of Cape Verde islands.

The easten part of south america ended up on Portugals side and that is why Brazil is the only country in south america that dont speak spanish.

Absolutely. Shows that shoot on location like Shogun, Andor, and pretty much any HBO production give the audience a real sense of scale and tangibility that does so much to immerse viewers in the setting of which the story takes place. It's something that's really difficult to replicate in a studio.

You simply can't beat the real thing. All the CGI and special effects in the world are nothing to shooting on location. The volume is pretty amazing though, it's pretty good most of the time.

Pretty sure this was all shot in Vancouver. But nonetheless still agree that it’s much more immersive than all this heavy CGI productions

And talking about the volume specifically, the difference between Andor and Mando even at a first glance is so fucking clear.

The reason for the crew shooting in Canada is simply because Japan has modernized so much and so vast, and they couldn't properly convey the beauty of pre-modern Japan. That being said, I think they did a good job at transforming the beauty of the Canadian wilderness into 1600 Japan.

I wish they'd kept the original context, but I understand they didn't want to get into european politics at the time, it's more important to focus on Japan.

@@Sinewmirewhat do you mean?

@@KingKing-cz6xh I think they meant that it would be nice to have more historical background on the conflict in Europe at the time, but that shouldn't be the central focus of the show. That conflict only serves as a backdrop for what's happening in Japan

@@KingKing-cz6xh on the line "unless i win" in the book it was played differently. blakcthorne was telling england's war vs spain/portugal and they were allies with holland who are technically in rebellion. toranaga quipped that there are no mitigating circumstances when it comes to rebelling against a sovereign lord blackthorne replies, "unless you win" in the book context it is more significant since toranaga will essentially rebel against the will of the taiko and as a loyal vasal he shouldnt be rebelling in the first place and blackthorne gave him the answer to this. everything will be settled if the rebel wins

⁠​⁠@@greggreyes6869 with this context, toranaga saying “you shouldn’t wage this war, you’re outnumbered and it’s hopeless” is something that applies to his own situation as much as blackthorne’s, and “unless i win” functions in a similar way. not as pronounced as what you explained happened in the book, but i think it can be read similarly!

Especially the idea that Blackthorn is literally shattering their worldview with every sentence. "By the way, the Earth is round. Our nations are tiny islands in it. Oh and the Pope signed this treaty to carve it up as property of the Spanish and Portuguese."

@@TomtheWonderDog Im not sure if the world being round is such an unknown in this world.

​@@Arctic_Stark it was pretty much known in eastern world about solar system. but not about other countries. like European countries

@@Arctic_StarkIt's possible, but the Confucian model held by most East Asian nations said the world was flat or box shaped. The most shocking part of hearing him describe it as a fruit would have been the idea that you can circumnavigate it.

Me too. I had to rewind the scene twice because it's so fucking good.

Tratato das tortilhas 😂half the world kinda hate us😕

@@JetTheReaperremember it was Portuguese who were losing their life in the discoveries and voyages, should others who risked nothing enjoy the profits of our sacrifice? What a naive notion.

​@@Cobalt1520I get what you are saying,it took alot of blood, sweat, tears and countless lives,it's our past and history,i've seen people/countries asking for "reparations",that's what i meant.

I learned that in school because that mofo Magellan landed in my country

Indeed. Treaty of Tordesillas was agreeing on the western line that split the Americas, Treaty of Zaragoza was for the eastern line splitting East Asia.

In the book, Toranaga laughs .. it was important scene

@@lisaburris9045I do have to admit I preferred the book version, where the discussion was about the Dutch rebelling against the Spanish crown. "It's not rebellion if you win". Ties more in with the themes of the overall story.

@@kallemort I love that they didn't have to spell it out in the show.

I keep hearing some retroflex “r’s”. I don’t detect that in modern Japanese. Was that part of the phonology at the time?

And for what its worth, in the book Ishido was [very?] in love with Lady Ochiba. So in that regard she was as good a hostage as Toranaga could have had for his own safety.

I'm still confused about this. Have we seen the Heir's Mother yet? We have seen the Heir (the boy) right.

@@hazri8758 Only fleetingly. Her only lines was at Taiko's deathwatch/funeral where she asked the Portuguese priest what if the Kingdom of God is up his barbarian backside. For an interesting piece of backstory, Ishido is very in love with her (in the book) and the Lady Ochiba is probably Toranaga's biggest enemy. She has identified Toranaga as being a direct threat to her and her son (the Heir) and its her that I believe is behind most of animosity and distrust of Toranaga by the other reagents. Obviously, I don't know how much if any role she will come to play in the show. -- And yes, we've seen the Heir. He is the only 10 or 12 year old boy we've seen on the show and we've seen quite a bit of him. The older teenager (16 or so) is Mariko and Buntaro's son.

@@hazri8758 We have seen the mother. She is younger than most people expected. She is the one who looks at Toranaga enviously as they shut the door when the Taiko asks to speak with him on his death bed. She tells the priests that maybe gods kingdom is up their a***s

@@TheGhost-7002 oh yeah that one

Anna Sawai (the actress who plays Mariko, the translator) practiced that walk very often and one time a woman at a store asked her if she was feeling alright, if she wanted to go to the bathroom

The kimono undergarments restrict the knees, so they have to walk that way to get around.

It's how ALL Japanese women walk. Their feet are different to other races, they have wheels in their heels that they can activate when they need to be silent.

I have just started watching Black Sails and it is really good. Just like Shogun, all shots and character interaction seem very focussed and intentional and it's just fun to witness competent storytelling.

arrogant yet benevolent by those times standars, spanish and portuguese at least gave them the options to convert into catholisim and rule or die as pagans, while the british chose mass murdering and rule directly, This is the reason why the natives in the territories occupied by the Spanish and Portuguese today continues to be the majority, unlike the territories occupied by the British... People have taken the black legend too seriously and it was nothing more than British propaganda.

It wasn't that arrogant considering Europeans would go on to control the entire world... 😂 Even Japan was eventually forced to drop its traditional culture, modernise, and open up by the US in the late 1800s.

@@mattwatson not only is it arrogant to claim two continents when there were societies that had thriving cultures there, it was arrogant for Spain and Portugal to claim it's theirs without the other European powers being consulted. This treaty was a joke and none of the other European powers honored it.

@@chaost4544 It 100% was arragant, although for a good few centruries you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise, considering how effective spain was in their conquests. That did not end up working out for them, in no small part due to their arragoance.

Mariko is based on Hosokawa Gracia, who refused to commit seppuku due to her Christian faith. I think "dark thoughts" and what she told the wife of the samurai who committed seppuku in the first episode means that she wants to die, and has survivor's guilt over not dying with her family, but is a true believer so won't kill herself.

Her father is famous,. Akechi Jinsai - the one who killed Goroda

and a reminder, the first pirates where indeed secret agents of certain nations, to atack others and avoid a open war. so the guy in the first episode was right to call Blackthorne one

To divide the world TRADE, of course. You can’t expect a Nation with only one million people be capable of conquering half the world, thats ridiculous. Of course certain regions could be conquered but not most, and certainly Portugal could never conquer Japan. Yes, a treaty to regulate the trade with those new regions, remember it was Portugal and Spain who were risking the life of their countrymen, why should others benefit from that?

@@Cobalt1520 Why can't you expect that? Thats what spain managed for a good couple centruies. Thats the advantage of having the tech edge and your enemies being devistatied by disease. It just so happens the half portugule got was a bit more advanced, and less hurt by disases.

If I remember correctly there were not many subtitles before Blackthorn starts to learn Japanese in the 80`s series. You just got morsels from the narrator every so often. This is one of the things I loved about the old show, that you were locked to Blackthorns experience of what was going on. This is also why it is very much a good thing to have this modern show with more of the background from the Japanese perspective.

Narrated by Orson Wells, so it sounded great.

didnt the friar in the prison in the books thought he was spanish (failing eyes) and was why he was disclosing a lot of secrets to him

Yes. There was a bitter rivalry between the Jesuits and Friars in the book. With Friar Domingo failing eyes and being isolated from his own people, he was ready to tell Blackthorn everything. Toronaga knew of the priest, but could do very little about it because he was a prisoner of the Taiko and therefor he had no claim over him, even after the Taiko death.

I wished they spoke actual portuguese on the show, me speaking portuguese may or may not be the reason 😂

Interesting

🫠😵‍💫

I thought that pregnant lady is one of Torunaga's concubine.

@@hazri8758 That's Shizu, she's still pregnant.

To top that, a good show coming from Disney property. Very rare these days.

​@@nont18411 Truth. Also The Bear as well, it's fantastic.

after this episode, I literally yelled "fuck this is so good"

We are in the gold age of television. There are dozens of INCREDIBLE shows. Succession just ended.

Why would that be dark thoughts? Their whole cult is obsessed with death being the ultimate reward.

That's actually (a replica of) the real life Hideyoshi's armor

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the only person in Japan to rise from peasant status to chieftain of a samurai clan. Hence, he was given the title of "Taikoh. Since he called himself the son of the sun, his armor was made in the image of the sun.

same in the books but different context. but same point in the story where toranaga sees a connection between them on the line "unless i win" in the book it was played differently. blackthorne was telling england's war vs spain/portugal and they were allies with holland who are technically in rebellion. toranaga quipped that there are no mitigating circumstances when it comes to rebelling against a sovereign lord blackthorne replies, "unless you win" in the book context it is more significant since toranaga will essentially rebel against the will of the taiko and as a loyal vasal he shouldnt be rebelling in the first place and blackthorne gave him the answer to this. everything will be settled if the rebel wins

Netflix actually has a good doc series on this part of Japanese history!

​​@@RandomNPC001what's the doc series called? Im interested to learn more

@@ImRyuuuuu Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan

For less confusion better imagine them as hired mercenaries who should be treated as lawful combatants rather than pirates who are outlaw thieves. The Letters would also set what the hired mercenaries were allowed to do and what was out of bounds. Modern language thanks to films have blurred what were valuable distinctions at the time. Holland was in the middle of a long war to free themselves from Spanish rule in 1600 so the Spanish and Portuguese have the incentive of not recognizing what they see as a rebel government, so to speak, when it comes to the letters of marque. The show is set 12 years after the Spanish sent that other Armada against England and Queen Elizabeth so Blackthorne is coming from a lot of historical beef with the Spanish and Portuguese.

First time I saw this done was for Hiro in the Heroes show. At I was instantly in love with this

That's not what's happening here. They chanced all the other European languages to English. It's sad.

@@kassiogomes8498 Most people, never mind most actors, can not speak 5 languages. You would be lucky to find actors that speak 2.

@@Oxley016 No, should be easy to hire Portuguese speakers.

@@kassiogomes8498 Yeah I hate that. Love that they do it for Japanese but then just goes with English for an Englishman speaking Portuguese.

When you learn to appreciate a show without much action you have reached a new, better, plain of enjoyment

We don't need action.

So many people now have no attention span so this doesn’t surprise me

@@danielfrank2985 very true. It’s just gotten worse and worse with the rising popularity of short form entertainment.

The main reason for the shapes is just natural elevation. The Andes basically split and squeeze countries like Chile and Peru into the ocean. On the other side countries are mostly flat, but Brazil is a bit higher than the others, so Argentina, Bolivia, etc are further squeezed between the Andes and Brazil. A good analogy is a pizza crust, looking at a topographical map will clarify this more. As to why Brazil is so big, there are a lot of factors to it, the biggest probably being when the crowns of Spain and Portugal were joined together. By the time they split off again Brazil was already so big that there was no way Portugal was going back to the split. (I'm Brazilian and while everyone knows how the split happened this side of the globe, it's actually very rarely taught that the line would obviously circle back to the other side and split Japan and the rest of Asia as well).

@@Dan_G.R.S. The story I'm referring to is that when Portugal and Spain were carving up the map of South America, they were about to carve it along a straight line going from North to South, but someone's hand slipped when drawing the line and so it accidentaly made Porguguese territory bigger than it was intended to be. As I said, I don't claim it's true, but it would be funny if it was.

@@gghelis That's a funny anecdote that we hear here sometimes, but the real split was actually like, comically terrible for Portugal, they only had a tiny bit of the coast whereas Spain had the entire continent to themselves. When the two joined together into the Iberian Union and then later split again Spain got absolutely wrecked and lost the entirety of Brazilian territory (a LOT)

@@Dan_G.R.S. Well damn, reality is simultaneously more boring and more f-ed up, as usual.

Yabushige's jinbaori made of crow feathers with the cut out to show his surname embroidered on his back looks so damn cool. Cooler than any authentic period outfit, but I'll let it slide. Too bad it's worn by a bad dude.

@@SuzakuX hearing about the research going into each detail makes it that much more 🤌🏼 lol I’m so excited for these next episodes

yeah and it pans back to her to show her reacting as a local who converted to christianity showing her conflict

What else is there this year? Invincible s2 p2, hotd p2, the boys S4?

You guys are so over the top.

5 and 8 are great.

​@@marvelfan7720😂😂😂

@@techmaster9123 wat

@@marvelfan7720 how do you know 5 and 8 are great?

@@techmaster9123 bec for me they were? i enjoyed them. what kind of question is that

Very Accurate. The Portuguese born first emperor of Brazil only took one shower a year (documented fact) and even so it would mostly be his feet/legs.

Medieval Europeans did actually bathe relatively frequently. Subsistence living is hard and dirty, so the people were naturally hardened and dirty, but they did understand bathing. They understood the generally correct connection between sickness and bad smells, as can be seen by the Black Death plague doctors and such wearing good smelling herbs and flowers in their masks as a ward against sickness, and as far back as Ancient Rome it was known that bathing helped one maintain health. It’s a very persistent myth though, probably due to its ability to inflate one’s own ego by denigrating those who lived before as less enlightened and more savage or base

The Early Modernity took a step backwards in hygiene. During most of the Middle Ages, people bathed frequently. But then the Black Death happened and people who met other people in close quarters (e.g. communal bath houses) got sick more easily, so they got a stigma of spreading disease. Obviously it's the contact, not the hygiene that killed people, but they didn't know that. Additionally, people became a lot more fanatic die to the religious schism between Protestants and Catholics. Previously, it didn't matter too much because everyone was just a christian, but now there were sides so you had to prove to which side you belonged and how serious you were about it. So people got a lot more prudish about certain things. Communal baths already had a bad reputation, but this was essentially the final blow and personal hygiene took a nose dive in the West for centuries.

Agreed.

Yeah and then they had English be English at the start...

Thanks for that. He was familiar but I can't put a name to the face. Initially I thought it was Geoffrey Rush but the voice is different and he was never revealed as a cast member. I've seen him in a couple of movies throughout the years - Desperado, one of the Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan films, and yeah, Fast Five. Can't remember if he was in Mambo Kings or not.

All non-Christian lands belonged to Portugal and Spain and they were to be converted. That is the terms of the treaty ratified by the pope. You have to understand no one knew the maritime routes through Africa to Asia. It was discovered by the portuguese, heavily financed by the order of Christ (former Knights Templar) and jesuits. It was not just mere trade agreements. Search up Fifth Empire - the portuguese empire was the start of the conspiracy of the New World Order, some say.

They kinda did, it was an existential "claim" more along the lines of "we were given the right by god to own and shepherd the world" . In many ways how the Japanese treat foreigners as seeing their habits as barbarian and them not talking Japanese as them speaking like savages depicting them as animals was very much how portuguese would think of or treat them over here, it was very much in the intention of the portuguese and spanish to convert the world which could be seen how their colonizing efforts would always prioritize conversion and religious goals over economical development to their own detriment. Ofc in the end it was that and the thousands of issues that came with that type of priority aka Spain making war with the whole of the protestant christian world and losing it war vs the english that lead to the monopoly of spain and portugal of sea trade to be mostly handed to the english and the dutch who were much more lenient on religion even if their colonizing methods were just as ruthless

@@duman173 Yeah I mean I see what you mean and I know that’s how they treated the peoples of the ‘new world’ in the Americas by mixing politics, trade and religion all into one awful deal with the natives. I didn’t think that’s how they acted towards the East though, I know they insisted on introducing Catholicism to eastern lands they established trade rights with, hence the Portuguese monks we see in Japan, I didn’t think they claimed political ownership of any of these places though, at least the way the Anjin implies since most of the far eastern colonies don’t happen for a hundred years or so, is there an example of where they did overthrow a government in the East? It’s just crazy arrogant you know? It one thing to conquer lands in the Americas with a few hundred conquistadors against a people who have no similar level of technology, it’s another thing to try it against the political entities of the East, especially since Europe knows super powerful empires exist there.

@@corvus2512you are right, of course. No nation can dominate half the world, much less in the 16th century in Asia. It was the right of exploration and trade that was divided. Of course, whenever possible, domination would be a choice, but not the original intention. After all, it was the Portuguese that were dying in the trips and in the explorations, why would someone else benefit from their sacrifice?

Maybe. Another theory is that it's simply some distance west of the most western islands of Portugal, Cape Verde and the Azores.