Shogun Finale

 

The Finale of Shogun can be summed up in the words, “Flowers are only flowers because they fall.” This nihilistic haiku perfectly encapsulates what happened to this series. While it is coded message to Toranaga, denoting an alliance offered by Ochiba-no-kata is sadly also the prevailing spiritual path upon which Ajin San, also known as John Blackthrone takes. In the beginning and for most of the series, Blackthorne was a Protestant in a predominately Catholic and Pagan world. His love was Mariko, a Catholic, and yet in the end he becomes not a papist or pagan, he adopts the most idiotic of all beliefs universalism. He tells the Jesuit Priest, “Its all a shame real, Protestant, Catholic, Shitic, it should change, but it will never change will it father?” The one character that was a sounding board, who’s lens we are suppose to look through in the end abandons all faiths. 

This not only is bizarre for the time period its set in; people has strong religious sensibilities, and while Mariko had to juggle her Catholic dogmas with her traditional ones, she at least had devotion, even if it was bi polar. No Ajin in the end is not swayed to Catholicism having loved a Catholic, nor to Japanese faiths, he decides to throw it all away and mock the whole thing. He who was a paragon in a dark world, the only Protestant, his shipmates have such a reduced role in this series compared to Chamberlin series that he really is the only Protestant. I mean the Council of Regents, two of whom were Catholics, one a leper, wanted him dead because he was a Protestant, too bad they did not hear his blasphemy in the woods, there fears would be assuaged. 

I hate this, last episode I remarked how Blackthorne was like Jesus for Mariko, this episode he is the devil spouting the greatest dribble of all, “why can’t we all just get along and lower our religious draw bridges”. Because John Blackthorne, there is only one way!, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6), there is only one salvation, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved,” (Acts 4:10-12), and there is only one gate, 

“Jesus said, I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.”

Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved.” (John 10:1-9). All roads do not lead to heaven you Pilot piece of papyrus! 

To end the series on this note after such a complex labyrinth of religion and politics is bad form! It is hideous! It makes me unable to recommend the series! Which is a shame because Toranaga played by Hiroyuki Sanada is magnificent. His scenes on the cliff overlooking the sunken ship and his promise that Ajin will not ever leave Japan is powerful, except we see Blackthorne old and with grandkids in England which robs the searing edge and haunting potency of Toranaga’s words. 

The series as a whole was disjointed. Many of the episodes I did not review because they felt like filler and bored me to tears, and I can appreciate a slow burn. I loved Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa, which took its time to get to battle at the end. Shogun had moments of cinematic brilliance where the cinematography, costumes, acting, and story was all in sych and it was like watching a living painting with a brilliant array of colors, but then it would shift to dull black and white, and now it ends in a void spiritually  that does not fit in time period even. People were not Universalists then! The Reformation was not even a hundred years old, and The Counter Reformation led by The Jesuits was in full swing. To book end this story with universalist propaganda that would please Opera is horrendous! Its an outrage! And so despite a good beginning, and some blossoms on between, the end of this miserable saga of very important Japanese history falls like those aforementioned flowers. Amen.