"Preferred TV Adaptation of Shogun?" Topic

Which television miniseries adaptation of Shogun do you prefer?
* 1980
* 2024

I watch both a few times and I do like the 2024 version a little more than the original.

1980 gave me the dumb idea to order in "Japanese" at a … sushi restaurant. The waiter was amused.
I clearly remember when Buntaro, who HATED Anjin, apologizes for being hostile at a drinking session. "Sake, Anjin-San". So polite!

I've only seen the latest via YouTube Shorts, mainly because I'm too cheap for a streaming service. 🙄
But it looks better.

One thing it did was turn me on to Clavell's entire series of novels.

I was glued to the set for 1980. Six, eight? hours, 90% in Japanese. I had read the book. My Dad had not. 🤷 But he put up with me. After all, I put up with him watching Dallas. 😄

I've seen both miniseries. While the 1980 one was good, I thought the 2024 one was excellent!

Jim

2024 by a hair.

2024 was better by a long shot in my opinion

2024 hands down. I saw both and read the original book.

Haven't seen 2024. Did see 1980, but I don't remember much of it.

I am very fond of 1980, but have yet to view 2024. Not sure if I'll find it as enchanting. It might be "better," but will it be "better?" For me, after all these years of familiarity with the 1980 version? Which I've re-watched every couple of years since.

Read the book back then (and was already a fan of Clavell from King Rat, which I'd borrowed from my father's book collection), but didn't have a tv and didn't see the original series.

I really enjoyed the 2024 tv series, which felt mostly true to my recollection of the book.

I would have to go with 1980. I think it covered more of the side plots and I just liked the brighter color of the overall production.

Just finished a re-watch of 1980, picked up the DVD set pretty cheap. It's still pretty good, but I definitely prefer 2024.

The original had not much in the way of side-plots except for the Black Ship; side-effect of the superb idea to not use sub-titles for any Japanese language and do the whole show from Anjin-san's perspective. The newer one with subtitles (which was disappointing at first) did allow bang-up development of a number of the Japanese characters as we could now follow their dialogue.

Definitely recommend the 1980 boxed set for the vid library though — the disc full of extras is wonderful. (When they built the big galley, no one thought to put a motor in it. Had to be rowed everywhere, even when not filming!)

Neither. Not a fan.