By Andrew Hamlin
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
David Spafford delivers a lecture on the historical accuracy of the TV series Shōgun at Town Hall Seattle on Dec. 8, 2025. (Photo by Omar Willey)
Town Hall Seattle dove headfirst into the epic world of samurai, scheming, and shipwrecked outsiders this week.
A lecture, “Binging Shōgun: Can Historical Fiction Be Good fFor History?” on Dec. 8 explored how the beloved TV series and its source novel blend fact and fiction, with historian David Spafford unpacking the real stories behind the larger-than-life characters and dramatic events.
The presentation kicked off with a deft set from the Koto no Wa duo, laying down very fine traditional Japanese melodies. Town Hall’s Executive Director Kate Nagle-Caraluzzo gave a short introduction, as did Yumi Iwasaki, co-chair of the Steering Committee for Washin Kai, co-presenter, with Town Hall, of the presentation.
Iwasaki thanked the crowd for coming “despite the bad weather,” and introduced the featured speaker, Spafford, a former University of Washington professor, currently aAssociate pProfessor of Premodern Japanese History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, at the University of Pennsylvania. The discussion centered around the “Shōgun” TV series, the second television version of the story after the first one in 1980—both adapted from the 1975 bestselling novel by James Clavell.
Spafford admitted that prior to preparing his lecture, he hadn’t actually seen Shōgun yet. “I wasn’t sure how I felt about watching it.” He was skeptical based on other works about Japan from outside Japan, notably 2003’s “The Last Samurai,” wherein, Spafford remarks, “Tom Cruise meets the eEmperor and teaches him all about Japan.”
The professor found Clavell’s novel in 1991, and found it “fun, a page-turner.” But as he added with a laugh, once he went off to college, he learned how off-base on Japan most of the novel skewed.
This image released by FX shows Eita Okuno as Saeki Nobutatsu, from left, Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, Hiromoto Ida as Kiyama Ukon Sadanaga in a scene from “Shogun.” (Katie Yu/FX via AP)
He examined the three main characters in the new series: Cosmo Jarvis as Pilot Major John Blackthorne, aka the “Anjin”; Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Yoshii Toranaga; and Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, a highborn bilingual woman who serves as translator between Blackthorne and the Lord. Simply put, the Anjin arrives in Japan knowing little-to-nothing.; Tthe Lord wishes to learn from him and make use of him,; with Toda Mariko in the middle.
Spafford then stressed that all three characters derive, loosely, from real people. William Adams, an English sailor, drifted to Japan on a Dutch ship in 1600, and spent the rest of his life in the country, advising the powerful Tokugawa Ieyasu about the outside world.
Akechi Tama, usually known as Hosokawa Gracia, was a contemporary of both men and one of the best-known figures in Japanese history, although that is mostly for the power of her Catholic faith, something largely left out of the “Shōgun.” We have no evidence that she ever knew Adams.
Referring to the historical discrepancies, aside from the show’s creative approach to the look of Edo (Tokyo today), Spafford summed up,: “Facts aren’t just simplified, they’re oddly tweaked.” With so little hewing to truth, the story seems to be coming from some sort of alternate universe.
Photo by Omar Willey
Loyalty, he explained, filled the air during this time; and loyalty was expressed as service. But this was largely defensive. Those in power spoke of loyalty because it couldn’t be taken for granted. “It had to be wrestled out of people.” Upheavals great and small marked this era, a good deal of it ignored by the TV show.
Summing up, Spafford reflected that the new show isn’t topical, current, or accurate. The show is lots of fun and celebrates Japan, but “iIf you’re going to build a show with a naive outsider and a native informant, a little more complexity of the world would have been welcome.”
After the lecture came questions, some from the live audience, some from the online streaming audience. Tackling the query, “Is historical fiction destined to be bad history?” he countered that historical fiction can keep to the truth in terms of its broad strokes, while the fiction takes place in the gaps between textbook events.
“We don’t draw great lessons,” concluded Spafford. “We find small insights in things.”
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