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The recent FX mini-series “Shōgun”, an adaptation to 10 episodes of the 1975 epic novel by James Clavell, was a massive success. He won sufficiently solid notes and magazines that renewed him for two additional seasons, even if the source equipment was already fully covered. We do not know how the series can possibly maintain its quality with two of its best missing characters, but it will be at least interesting to see the show try.
With all these speeches on the 2024 show, it is easy to forget that “Shōgun” had already been adapted in a television program more than forty years earlier. This mini-series was only five episodes (extended to six in subsequent media outings), and they were all released on NBC during a week in September 1980. The mini-series was not well received in Japan (more on this subject), but it was a massive note struck in the United States.
Despite being a major success, the 1980 “shōgun” is surprisingly difficult to get their hands on these days. It is not available for free on a streaming service, so you will have to pay money directly on sites like Amazon, YouTube or Roku to look at it. (There is also a decent chance that the DVD is available in your local library, so check for it first to see if you can save the twelve dollars.)
Why is Shogun 1980 so difficult to get their hands?
It is not clear why the “shōgun” of 1980 is so difficult to find streaming, but perhaps a part is due to the aging miniseries. Especially the day after the excellent 2024 series, the original show drew the Flak for its representation of the Japanese characters of the series. The 1980 version does not eliminate Japanese characters to the same degree, or offer subtitles for their dialogue.
It is easy to see the attraction of this approach several decades ago: the showrunner Eric Bercovici understood that such a massive novel was impossible to adapt in whole, so it rationalized things by keeping the public limited from the point of view of Blackthorne. This helped keep an American audience more connected to Blackthorne, because we felt his confusion and his frustration with the language barrier next to him. Blackthorne’s frustration is a fairly underestimated element in the ’24 series; We know that the version of the character of Cosmo Jarvis has trouble understanding culture, but we do not feel this struggle so intensely.
It may have seemed to be a reasonable creative choice for Bercovici to keep Japanese characters at the time, but the problem is that Toranaga and Mariko are easily two of the most interesting characters in the book, and it looks like a shame for the mini-series not to dive into their head space to the same extent as the book has done. The approach also remained disrespectful towards Japanese viewers, many of which would have been frustrated by historical inaccuracies and the general lack of depth for Japanese characters.
Why the Shogun 1980 is always worth a watch
The 1980 showrunner “Shōgun”, Bercovici, sparked a certain controversy last year when he criticized the new show so as not to prioritize his American audience. “It is very technical and very difficult for an American audience to go there,” he said. “I spoke to many people who watched it, and they said,” I had to put it out because I don’t understand it. “So, the new filmmakers of the new did not really care about the American public.”
It is a strange criticism for a few reasons, one being that the American public clearly loved the new show despite everything that the friends of Bercovici seem to think. Although many television viewers of the television show did not know much about Japan in the 1600s, they respected a program that trusted their intelligence. Regarding the most shocking aspects of samurai culture, American viewers have proven to be willing to learn more or simply to adopt this confusion. The 2024 series did not need it stupid things, because the public was largely willing to meet them at their level.
The other problem is that “Shōgun” (2024) was clearly a show with international ambitions, which wanted to do the good of its Japanese viewers as well as its American viewers. He let his Japanese characters be co-protagonists alongside Blackthorne, a decision that was not only more true for the book, but which made a more nuanced and convincing story. Bercovici appreciated this to a certain extent, noting that he was “happy”, they made a different direction “because I did not want my show to be copied.”
But no matter what Bercovici said, the 1980 mini-series is still worth a shot for its overview of how the American television landscape has evolved. People often complain that American television has been stunned over the years, but the difference between the ’80 and ’24 series proves that this is not as simple as you think. You can also see, with the two series, the effect of a growing Japanese presence in American culture. Part of the reason why the American public was so on board with a “Shōgun” more focused on Japan is that Japanese emissions and films are much more popular with modern Americans than in 1980.
“Shōgun” (1980) has shown the kind of approach that a Japanese period drama should adopt to succeed in the United States; “Shōgun” (2024) showed how the needs of the American public (or rather the perception of their needs) changed in the following decades.
