I absolutely loved the when I first watched it 15yrs ago. I was born in 1982 so unfortunately did not see the original airing. I was with my uncle who asked if I’d like to watch his favourite show and after watching his copy of it I immediately fell in love with this masterpiece, and it will always remain the best of what true cinematic storytelling should be, I even appreciated the language even I couldn’t understand it it gave me a sense of immersion like no other….I literally felt like I was in the shoes of Anjin-san and managed to learn some Japanese along the journey that is this work of art. Domo internet archive!

After watching this movie, the question I have is why was Marico given a Buddhist funeral and she was supposedly a Christian ?
She surrounded herself with Church leadership and was a valued member of the Church and community ?
The love story tie in with Blackthorn gave the movie depth and an interesting look into the Samurai / Warrior class.
The 2024 version was not as good as this.
The reason for not getting 5 stars is the ending I was left hanging on what happened to Blackthorn on how the story ends.

Video's a little grainy and low-quality, black bars appear to have been cropped instead of just having the full 720*480 DVD video. That fuzziness could be from the DVD transfer itself though, who knows. If I want any better, I guess I can just buy the show myself.

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/shogun-rather-longwinded-thoughts.310788
Going by the contents of this thread (spoilers within), one person goes at length to assure another poster that that particular 2003 DVD set (which I think this release here is based off) is complete and uncut. Things get pretty heated in there, and while I don't think Matt_Stevens really has the moral high ground getting as uppity as he does (is that a 2003 internet thing, or just how the kinds of people who use their real name on the internet still act?), I think he's most likely correct.

I personally feel like I'm missing at least a little bit by not getting to have those recaps and next episode previews if they -do- exist (though I wouldn't have actually watched them), but I can see how they'd be completely omitted from a home video release.

The bigger shame is probably how at which point the episodes cut has probably changed (if the TV release really did have five episodes instead of four, which everything online seems to indicate), but an actual recording of this show as it aired most likely doesn't exist on the internet, plus I trust the directors to have not cut any non-recap footage and ended episodes in places that are about as dramatically appropriate

I wish there was more to watch. As a modern viewer my want for content is insatiable.

The original version shown on US TV ran for five consecutive nights, first episode filling a three-hour slot, second through fourth two hours each, and the final episode again filling a three-hour slot. I figure about fifteen minutes of ads per hour, more or less, so the copy I have that runs a total of approximately nine hours may be complete, but I can't be sure. Certainly, this copy, at eight hours, is not complete.

I don't remember if I saw the whole thing at the time, or if I even saw all of it at all....I just remember being amazed at how good it was, despite watching it on an old 19" B&W TV. I do recommend making the effort to find a more complete copy than this one, though.

School homework prevented me from watching Shogun when it was originally broadcasted. Many thanks to you so that now I can enjoy this epic triumph!
sardonik007

My husband and I loved this series when it first aired on TV. Though he has passed away, I still love this series more than any other mini series that was produced.

There is no use, telling you the whole plot of this TV-mini-series, you can read it there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dgun_(novel)
At the core of it is Blackthorne, an english pilot of a dutch ship, who strands together with the rest of his crew in Japan. He is soon employed into the DimyoToranaga's military service but he does not learn japanese customs properly. The problem is, that he insists on having a love-affair with his japanese-teacher and translator Mariko, who is married to a high ranking Samurai, this leads to her death.
There are political and religious issues, i.e. the protestant Dutch and English are rivalling the catholic Spanish for trade-relationships with Japan.
Put at simple terms, the series is very good, the visual quality is good, you should prefer this over the book, because that has more than 800 pages, thus it provides too many details and reading it takes much more than eight hours.
Was broadcasted on german TV in 45- or 60-minutes portions, I believe