From ‘Shōgun’ Fan to Historian: My Journey into Japanese History and the Making of a TV Epic

26th April, 2024

Author of In the Service of the Shogun, Frederik Cryns, was historical adviser on the new Disney+ television series, ‘Shōgun’, and in this blog he discusses his journey into Japanese history and how the show, and his book, came into being …

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At the outset of early 2021, an email appeared in my inbox asking me to advise on the historical aspects of a remake of the television series ‘Shōgun’. Based on James Clavell’s historical novel, the original production had captivated audiences in the 1980s. Following the odyssey of John Blackthorne, an English pilot thrust into the enigmatic tapestry of medieval Japan, the series unfolded the saga of his rise to the inner circle of Yoshii Toranaga, a cunning warlord who skilfully navigated the machinations of his adversaries. As portrayed by Richard Chamberlain, Blackthorne’s character resonated deeply with me in my formative years, and inspired a longing to walk the corridors of Japan’s medieval past.

Even before the TV show, I had a keen interest in Japanese culture. At the kindergarten I attended, I made friends with the child of a Japanese businessman who had been sent to my home country, Belgium. We corresponded by letter for a while after he returned to Japan. In primary school, I had started to study Japanese on my own, devouring all the books about Japan I could get my hands on. And then ‘Shōgun’ came along. Before I knew it, I had moved to Japan and immersed myself in the study of Japanese history.

While in Japan, I forgot about ‘Shōgun’ and researched a variety of historical subjects, often related to the early intercourse between East and West. But for some reason, after a while I found myself researching mainly historical documents relating to Tokugawa Ieyasu, William Adams and Hosokawa Gracia. Coincidentally, they are the models for the three protagonists in ‘Shōgun’, Yoshii Toranaga, John Blackthorne and Toda Mariko. In fact, what Clavell had done in his novel was to combine the stories of these three historical figures into one epic tale. And although Clavell’s novel is essentially fiction, especially regarding the relationship between Adams and Gracia, who never met in real life, his narrative is very recognisable to anyone with some knowledge of the period in which it is set.

ill. 1) Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga and Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, two of the three main characters in ‘Shōgun’. Courtesy of FX Networks. FX’s Shōgun is available on Hulu and Disney+.

Throughout the years, I had read thousands of authentic documents, both Japanese and Western accounts, and had seen and touched countless objects and visual historical materials of the period, so I had a fairly good grasp of all aspects of the way of life at the time. When I joined the Shōgun team, I was driven to make the new ‘Shōgun’ as historically accurate as possible. Creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks fully embraced this idea.

From then on, a long journey began: first, to teach the producers and scriptwriters how members of the samurai class would behave in everyday life or react in certain situations, what clothes they would wear, how they would communicate, how their palaces were built and how they lived there, how they would compose poetry or perform a tea ceremony, and many other aspects of samurai culture. I worked with the art department and visual effects to recreate Osaka Castle and the city around it and all the other locations, with the costume department to create historically accurate costumes and armour, with my wife Keiko to recreate the Japanese language of the Sengoku period.

No aspect was neglected, be it the ships, the palanquins, the props, the weapons, the hairstyles, the hanging scrolls, the letters, or even the smallest details such as the seating order or a plaque for a funeral. Hundreds of ideas I had from authentic documents found their way onto the screen, sometimes unintentionally, as Justin picked them up from our conversations. When producer and star Hiroyuki Sanada joined the team, he also shared this passion, which reassured me that the show would be as authentic as possible. And the result was beyond my wildest expectations. The commitment of the cast and crew involved has resulted in a masterpiece of unprecedented depth.

ill. 2) Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga in ‘Shōgun.’ Courtesy of FX Networks. New episodes of FX’s Shōgun drop Tuesdays on Hulu and Disney+.

While I was working on the show, one of my English friends persuaded me to write a book about William Adams. Adams’s story is the historical basis for Clavell’s novel, and I had thoroughly researched all the authentic documents relating to this Englishman in medieval Japan. So far, research has focused on English sources, such as Adams’s letters and the correspondence of the English trading house established through Adams’s mediation. Nevertheless, Adams arrived in Japan on a Dutch ship, and he maintained good relations with the Dutch even after he became a retainer of the shogun. When, at the suggestion of a Dutch scholar and dear friend, I indulged in a study of Dutch sources relating to Japan, I came across a wealth of hitherto unknown information about Adams.

Many books have been written about Adams, but most of them mix fact with fiction, even if they are advertised as academic works. This is probably because there are some crucial periods of Adams’s life that are less well documented. Above all, Adams’s story appeals so much to the imagination that fantasy creeps into the narrative, often unconsciously. But with the addition of the Dutch sources, combined with the scattered information in Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese sources, it is possible to make an accurate reconstruction of Adams’s real story. In the same way that I wanted ‘Shōgun’ to be as authentic as possible, I wanted to give the reader as accurate a picture of Adams’s accomplishments as possible.

ill. 3) Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne (a character inspired by the story of William Adams) in ‘Shōgun.’ Courtesy of FX Networks. FX’s Shōgun is available on Hulu and Disney+.

The events in the novel and TV series are based on just a few months in the 56 years of Adams’s life. Based on painstaking research, In the Service of the Shogun: The Real Story of William Adams (Reaktion, 2024) tells the story of how an English navigator ended up in medieval Japan, how he became a trusted advisor to the shogun, and what happened to him after the end of the series.

– Frederik Cryns

To read more about Adams’s fascinating life, order In the Service of the Shogun: The Real Story of William Adams from our online shop now.

Frederik Cryns is Professor of Japanese History at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan. He is the author of several bestselling books in Japanese on the early interaction of the Western world with Japan. In addition to his academic work, Frederik appears regularly on Japanese television history programmes and supervised the historical aspects of the television series Shōgun (2024).