Summary
In a show littered with major deaths,Shogunseason 1’s Yabushige remains one of the more compelling, and editors Maria Gonzales and Aika Miyake are breaking down one key detail in the scene. Played by Tadanobu Asano, Yabushige served as a wildcard figure throughout the FX historical drama, frequently changing alliances betweenHiroyuki Sanada’s Toranagaand Takehiro Hira’s Ishido, one of the five Regents who is out to bring Toranaga’s rule to an end. TheShogunseason 1 finale saw Yabushige’s scheming finally come to the surface, with Toranaga ordering him to commit seppuku and being his second.
During a recent interview withScreen Rantfor their Emmy-nominated work on the show, Maria Gonzales and Aika Miyake were asked about Yabushige’s death in theShogunseason 1 finale. In looking at why Toranaga smiles while killing his former friend, the editors explain thatit’s one of the many callbacks layered throughout the sequence, and actually has a double meaning. See what Gonzales and Miyake explained below:
Aika Miyake: Yeah, so Maria in her editors cut, she put the smile before Yabushige killed himself, before Toranaga cut his head off. He turns to Toranaga and he smiled, and that moment was in Maria’s cut earlier, but then, along the process, we tried losing it, tried to make the cut shorter. In the process, we lost it somewhere. And I always remember that I wanted to bring it back when I had an opportunity, so at the very, very last moment, I was like, “Can we try to bring this back?”
I asked Justin to have a look, and he agreed, and when you watch the whole thing, he does the same thing when, in episode 1, Blackthorne and Yabushige came up from the hill in the ocean. Yabushige almost died, and he was brought up to the top of the hill, and Blackthorne had bowed. But Yabushige had the exact same expression of a smile, and I just really felt like, “Oh this is such a cool shot.” I was so happy that I could bring it back.
Maria Gonzales: Toranaga does a good share of smiles himself. [Laughs] I don’t recall actually ever having the discussion of leaving it out. It really sort of ties in for another callback that happens in that scene, which is, in episode 1, Yabushige and Omi are talking in the village, they’re walking down this path and Omi says to Yabushige something along the lines of like, “Don’t you want to warn Toranaga, our Lord, about this?” And Yabushige says, “Why tell a dead man his future?” So it’s something that ostensibly happened privately between these two characters.
And then, when we go to episode 10, in Yabushige’s final moments, Toranaga basically brings that line up back to Yabushige, and Yabushige says, “I would just really love to see or know what’s happening in the future.” And Toranaga basically says, “Why tell a dead man his future?” Which I think kind of goes along the lines of, “Dude, I played you all along. I knew everything that was happening, even in the alleys of some tiny village of Ajiro.” [Laughs] I think the smile is kind of appropriate, because he is Shogun.
Why Yabushige’s Death Was So Impactful For Shogun Season 1
Though it established its lethal stakes right from the start,thefinal few episodes ofShogunseason 1properly highlighted how deadlythe world of feudal Japan was for everyone from local fishermen to the lords of a region. Between Mariko’s explosive death in episode 9 to Nagakado’s incidental death in episode 7 and Yabushige’s aforementioned killing in the finale, showrunner Justin Marks kept everyone’s fates unpredictable, save for those familiar with James Clavell’s novel the show adapted.
Yabushige’sShogundeath, though, remains one of the most impactful for a few major reasons. The first is the fact thathe and Toranaga were generally depicted as being longtime friendsprior to the events of season 1, which made his frequent betrayal of the Kanto lord all the more heartbreaking for viewers to watch, including his refusal to warn Toranaga at the start of the show, resulting in the full-circle line of “Why tell a dead man his future?”. Furthermore, because his actions were alsothe reason for Mariko’s deathleft many audiences feeling Yabushige’s death was all the more deserved.
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The biggest reason Yabushige’sShogunseason 1 death left such an impact, though, was his relationship with Blackthorne, aka Anjin. Much like Mariko, Yabushige served as a sort of guide for Blackthorne about Japanese culture, helping him learn the ways of the samurai and the local political system. Though not fully explored in the season 1 finale, givenShogunseason 2 is currently in development, it will be interesting to see if this impact of Yabushige’s death on Blackthorne will be tackled in greater depth in the show’s next chapter.
Shogun
Cast
Shōgun, released in 2024, is set in Japan during 1600 at the onset of a significant civil war. It follows Lord Yoshii Toranaga as he battles political adversaries on the Council of Regents, while a European ship mysteriously appears in a nearby fishing village, complicating the tides of power.
