9/20 (Fri) 6:22 Bunshun Online – “Shogun”, produced by and starring actor Hiroyuki Sanada, has won 18 Emmy Awards, considered the Academy Awards of the American television world. “Shogun” achieved many “firsts in history.” This is the first time in history that a work produced by a Japanese person has won an Emmy Award. It was also the first time in history that a Japanese person won the Best Actor and Best Actress awards. It is also a first in history, having won 18 awards, the most in Emmy Award history. However, in Los Angeles, home of Hollywood, the “shogun festival” had already begun before the award. On the street corner there was a huge billboard with the word “shogun” on it. Many media outlets were certain that “Shogun” would win an Emmy Award. And as expected, “Shogun” won awards in multiple categories. ■A historic award win Entertainment magazine The Hollywood Reporter commented on Shogun’s achievement as follows: “Shogun’s victory is monumental in several ways. The historic win marks a major win for FX and parent company Disney in a big-budget TV series that was nearly a decade in the making and once considered a highly uncertain gamble. It’s also important for Asian and non-English speaking television programming. “Shogun” is the first non-English-speaking series to win the Outstanding Drama Series award (the Korean series “Squid Game” broadcast on Netflix was nominated in 2022 but lost to HBO’s “Succession”), and Sanada and Sawai are the first Japanese actors to win an Emmy Award.” (omitted) ■ The work itself was purely praised The paper also sees the influence of the popular American drama “Game of Thrones” behind the success of “Shogun.” “Shogun is a product of the post-Game of Thrones television world. It’s a high-budget, medieval action-adventure period drama with strong melodramatic elements. While many of the shows inspired by Game of Thrones are fantasy, Shogun is pure historical fiction. But the grandeur of the images makes it seem like an epic fantasy without dragons.” Shogun also reflects the way in which the importance of diversity and inclusion in American society is seeping into Hollywood. Hollywood, which has been criticized for its bias toward white actors, has in recent years been moving toward properly rewarding excellent work regardless of the attributes of the producers or actors appearing in it. In that sense, it can be said that “Shogun” did not win the award because its cast and crew are Japanese, a minority, but rather as a result of the film itself being purely evaluated. ■Voices questioning the diversity of “Shogun” On the other hand, there are also voices questioning the diversity of “Shogun.” Medium, an online opinion platform, published an article titled “Where are the black people in Shogun?” in which the author argues that there are no black characters in the story, despite historical evidence showing that black people were in Japan at the time. Regarding “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” there were voices questioning why Hispanic Americans, who make up 20% of the American population, were not cast, and similar voices were heard about “Shogun,” suggesting that there are people in America who are sensitive to whether a work is woke (awakened to issues such as social justice and racism). (Omitted) (The rest is omitted, please check the source for the rest.)
>>9 I think it’s okay because Hiroyuki Sanada is the producer, but I think it’s only a matter of time before it succumbs to the woke (recently, politically correct people have started calling themselves awakened people) forces. After all, it’s being distributed by Disney, which is heavily contaminated by political correctness.
It’s only interesting at the beginning anyway. If it gets popular, they’ll force a second and third season even if they had no plans to continue it. Then black people and Chinese people will start appearing. That’s American drama.
I mean, I feel like there’s a politically correct element to the reviews themselves, like, “The act of reviewing a work by a non-white person is so great.”
Are you talking about Yasuke? There are records that black people were among the slaves brought over by missionaries from Portugal, but nothing else is known. The name Yasuke was also chosen arbitrarily. The man who fabricated the story, Nihon University Associate Professor Lockley, has reportedly deleted all of his online accounts and gone on the run.
There are a ton of foreigners who think Thomas Lockley’s ridiculous Yasuke is historical fact. Also, recently, AI-generated photos of black people in armor and black geisha have been circulating as evidence. They’re called black shougun.
I have a feeling that in season 2, as a reaction to the first season, black samurai will play a major role, and black feudal lords may also be introduced.
There may have been black people, but there weren’t any black people who had any influence on the story, and if they were honestly portrayed as slaves led around by white people, wouldn’t that anger them in itself? If you get involved, you lose.
Well, since the original novel was written by an American, it’s fantasy so it’s not unusual for black people to appear in it. They probably didn’t appear in the TV drama adaptation in the 80s, though.
By including black people who were in Japan at the time, you mean “slaves brought by white people” should appear in the work, but are you serious about that? Since there’s no consideration for historical accuracy, there won’t be any samurai like the legendary hero Yasuke-san.
First of all, there are so few historical documents about Yasuke that it is not possible to adequately criticize them, and it is difficult to come up with a common theory.
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