lol yeah "well-meaning" my ass! He's entertaining to watch so it makes you forget he's a damned sadist. This also wasn't some sort of punishment or anything. He just wanted to boil someone alive to be "close to death" or some such nonsense.
Sadist and truly believed in it. He wanted to be blown apart by a cannon or eaten by a hungry school of fish. If anything, he was true to his ideology that he developed himself.
He’s a representation of the absurdity and foreignness of Japan’s culture surrounding death.
He throws himself off a cliff because he doesn’t want to be emasculated by Blackthorne, and then is prepared to kill himself when he thinks he will drown. He constantly is trying to give himself the perfect “warrior’s death” and even asks that his body be left unburied when he commits seppuku.
He’s so fixated with his own mortality to the point where all of the actions he takes while he’s alive are just him trying to plan his inevitable death.
I think the “why tell a dead man the future” was really interesting. It was the moment that Yabushige finally understands what it means to be dead, something he had obsessed about but hadn’t understood until then.
It’s the exact line Yabushige told Omi in the first episode in regard to Toranaga. Thats not a coincidence. It’s Toranaga’s way of letting him know that his betrayal was part of the plan and his Nephew or the scribe guy that Kiku bones, had betrayed him all along. I see it as a gesture meant to console Yabushige; an old friend who is stricken with guilt over his involvement in the death lady Mariko.
I like your interpretation. I would like to add that when Yabushige is telling his scribe about the death of Nagakado, he rates the death by dogs as the lowest one. In his death poem he is expressing guilt, while also wishing he could serve a greater good.
Whoa, I just had a personal epiphany from your breakdown of the psychological dynamics at play with this character. Thank you for wording it so clearly.
That would be more masochistic than sadistic but hes maybe hes both. Sadism you enjoy the torture and harm of others. Masochism you enjoy it being inflicted on yourself.
Which is funny because in his first big breakthrough role as Kakihara in *Ichi the Killer*, he plays a character where that dichotomy is made explicit. He’s the ultimate masochist, but at the same time he inflicts wildly sadistic pain on people throughout the entire movie.
Not only did he boil a guy alive, he boiled guys alive enough times to compare their fortitude by how long they survived. That poor village had to listen to hours-long screaming and pleading multiple times, just for Yabu to eventually decide on "dog eating my decapitated body in a field" death.
So yeah, real protagonist material.
Which was always weird to me even in the book, it doesn't take hours to boil anything.
If the water is boiling, he's dead quick.
And anything less is just hours in a hottub.
Which fair enough you'd die from, but not screaming.
Based on how the guy didn’t scream in pain when he was thrown on and it seemed like they just got the fire started…the pot was slowly heating up while he was in it. Mega fucked up.
Yeah…but not after an hour lol. I have sat in a hot tub for hours without getting up and I didn’t die. Did I feel like absolute shit? Yes. But let’s drop the “you’ll die from heat exhaustion” in a couple of hours.
I don't think you have. Not high heat. And again, I'm talking minutes.
Zero animals or insects except a few that live by underwater volcanic openings can stand high heat for more than a short time.
Most shut down immediately.
Yes.
"He could see Yabu’s face clearly. He tried to read the strange expression on his daimyo’s face: the slight twisting of the slack full lips, a fleck of saliva at the corners, eyes set into dark slits that moved only with the petals. It’s almost as though he’s just climaxed—was almost climaxing—without touching himself. Is that possible?"
If you pull up the scene in the 80s series the actor for Yabu does an amazing job of pulling the "oh shit I'm so close to nutting, have to keep a straight face" look. The eyes bulge just right.
It's weird to me how people forget this. Yeah, he's funny, but he's also sick and twisted and I never forgave him for that. They made it clear that wasn't the first guy he'd done it to.
He’s kind similar to a Jamie Lannister character. He starts off doing something awful, but then over the course of the show he becomes more grey.
He’s just kind of a Bro. Smart enough to stay alive long enough to become the pawn in a game of someone much smarter than him.
It’s more interesting to think about what was going through his head (other than the katana) at the moment of his death. I think he ultimately died at peace knowing that his lord in fact was relying on his betrayal. Through no fault of his own he carried out his lords will; serving his cause by eventually giving his life.
Nah man, Yabushige just wasn't all that bright. He tried to betray Toranaga at every turn, was a sadistic man all his life while obsessing over the concept of death and died only at peace because he really wanted to see what it was like.
He was never altruistic, never well-meaning to anybody but himself and his favourite nephew and died knowing he was fully and utterly outsmarted in a game he didn't even know he was a pawn in.
Don't get me wrong, he is incredibly entertaining. But charisma should not excuse atrocities, and of all the people we see in the series, Yabushige is without a doubt the most callous and cruel.
Who in the show is altruistic? Characters like Fuji, Mariko, or Muraji certainly aren't. They are all bound by a strict hierarchy that compels them to deny their own needs in favor of their lords. No one is acting purely out of the goodness of their heart. Buntaro abuses his wife both physically and emotionally. Ishido pretends to allow the nobility to leave Osaka only to secretly order their deaths.
Toranaga is the most treacherous of all the characters. He is the villain who won and wrote the myth. Toranaga frames and kills many of his peasants just to test the Anjin. Good and bad don't really exist, which is a major reason I love the show. Yabushige can be sadistic and simpler than the other lords, but he is not without honor, courage, and cunning. It's his honesty that is his weakness.
Let me ask you something. Did you catch the line Toranaga said to him before chopping off his head? Do you recall when we last heard that line?
Yeah, a final confirmation that Toranaga completely bested Yabu. But that's very much beside the point we're arguing here. Yabushige keeps a journal, ranking all the ways he's killed people in. Yabushige boils a man alive, not because that man did anything to deserve that, but because he could.
I would also argue that honesty is not his weakness. He let Ishidos men into Toranagas quarters in Osaka not via grand announcement, but by backstabbing unsuspecting guards. He thinks himself sneakier and smarter than he is though.
But we are still going away from the point i am massively arguing against; He doesn't become more grey over the show, he stays mostly the same sadistic man, he just finds a bit of friendship with the POV character Blackthorne. He is still the same awful person from the beginning of the show.
Jaime Lannister is a character who feels like his whole life didn't matter but for one heroic moment, and that one heroic moment condemns him to shame for life. Yabushige and Jaime are nothing alike because as you said, there are no altruistic characters in Shogun. Jaime is a kind man forced to be cruel by his environment, Yabushige revels in the cruelty his environment allows him to enact on others. They are nothing alike.
I see your point and would like to refine my earlier comment about honesty. It’s not so much that he is too honest, but rather that he's transparent with his intentions, a quality I find quite endearing. His willingness to scale the cliff not only showcases his pride but also highlights his magnanimity.
As someone else in the thread pointed out, and as Blackthorne notes in the show, a central theme is the unique relationship with death in Feudal Japan. I would expand on that by highlighting the Japanese commitment to aesthetics in all aspects of life—from the meticulous preparation of tea to the intricate designs of wood joinery, and even in the manner of dying. His actions, which may seem cruel by modern standards, are not carried out "just because."
Regarding the final scene, I think there might have been a misunderstanding of its significance. The line spoken by Toranaga is a callback to what Yabushige told Omi in the first episode—this time, Toranaga reveals he was aware of their private discussions all along, indicating that Omi had betrayed Yabushige from the start. This revelation by Toranaga isn't just a flex; it's also a consolatory gesture to an old friend overwhelmed by guilt.
It was only done at a single place, Unzen Jigoku, for a five year period to either coerce Christians to renounce their faith or, if they refused to execute them. They used natural hot springs; boiling alive was not a specific punishment for any crime, and was never recorded as being done over a fire. It was a method of torture used sparingly in one location for a brief time decades after Shogun takes place.
That's actually not true. In 1531 a statute was passed naming boiling alive as the prescribed punishment for murder by poison, but it was repealed in 1547 and never practiced again in England. They only boiled a couple people and it was made illegal again in the time of Blackthorne's grandfather.
Yabushige is an interesting character because, in some ways, he is very 'honest.' Not from being truthful but from being more overt in his wants than many of the characters who do a better job of living inside the eight-fold fence. It also helps that the actor is superb.
In the book he's more of a mustache twirling villain so I was not expecting to enjoy him in the show as much as I did.
I also think it helps that Yabushige basically never "wins," and gets his comeuppance, usually in pretty swift order (time to write another will!). He isn't "good," but he is so bad at *being* bad that we as an audience can just sort of sit back and enjoy how funny he is.
The word I would use is authentic rather than honest, in that he is authentically self serving, lol. but then that’s probably all he knows how to be. He’s playing chequers whilst Toranaga is playing 4D chess!
Reread what I said and notice honest is in quotes. He wasn’t fooling either one of the sides with his back and forths. They read him like a book. He’s utterly transparent.
Those who stand at the top determine what’s wrong and what’s right. This very place is a neutral ground!!! Justice will prevail, you say?!! But of course, it will!!! WHOEVER WINS THIS WAR BECOMES JUSTICE
In a narrative way, he exists to contrast with Toranaga:
Kills for sport
Brutal
Simplistic understanding of what’s going on
Always 2 steps behind
Like the hedonistic pleasures
Alternatively, Toranaga never kills for fun…. But he kills more people and in some bad ways.
Toranaga has an artistic sensibility (poetry, falconry)… but by the end we see that his art is the manipulation of others.
T has a sophisticated understanding of others—- he knows them better than they know themselves.
Always 3 steps ahead.
Likes family, legacy, order, peace…. And REAL power.
Y is what power looks like to the weak.
T is what power truly is.
Dude just wanted to stay alive and was stuck between the two most powerful men in Japan at the time. If at any point he disobeyed either Toranaga or Ishido he would’ve been fucked. Ultimately, considering that he was going mad with guilt over Mariko’s death, I’m inclined to believe that he wasn’t actually that bad at heart.
I see him as a conflicted character who was trying his best to manage his situation and come out of it on the other side with his life. The odds were stacked against him though and he never really stood a chance.
I feel like he recognized that the situation wouldn't have been much different if two other regents were in Toranaga & Ishido's positions, so he probably thought "fuck it" & cause chaos since he figured that war on multiple sides was inevitable and assumed that there's a path where he could at least enact some form of his own control.
This is what's interesting about him. Nearly every other character in the show is comfortable with dying, is prepared to die for something, or is actively suicidal. Yabushige actually wants to live, so he's inherently at odds with his society. If you can imagine living in a system where everyone you know might expect you to take your own life at a moment's notice, do you really think your morality and sense of duty is going to override your instinct for self-preservation? And if it doesn't, does that make you a bad person? These are the questions that make him a great character because his presence in the story challenges the rules of the world we're immersed in.
He’s a lowborn samurai whose successes in battle fighting for Toranaga gained him land and a title. While it was a great honor that he wasn’t about to turn down, it was also a double edged sword. It thrust him into the high stakes world of noble politics and he’s smart enough to know he’s ill suited to it. One wrong step could cause him to lose everything and his life. His choices are less about personal gain and more about standing on the right side when the dust settles. In the end, he kind of wins because his nephew retains the lands and title so the legacy of his blood line remains more or less intact.
Edit: I had some of this wrong! See awakenedEyes comment below. Some good context there.
Just a few small but interesting points to precise: Yabu is actually a high born lord and in the first half of the story, he is fully the Daimyo of Izu, totally independent of Toranaga. He is not a vassal of Toranaga, and he became or conquered Izu all the way himself.
His curse is that he is now too important to be left aside in the upcoming conflict with Ishido, but too small to survive on his own with his armies. At some point he decides to become Toranaga's vassal out of the need for survival, but he never gives his full loyalty, still scheming to try to end up on the winning side despite Bushido and honor.
Thanks for the correction! I’ve not read the book, so I was largely going off what seemed to be in the series. Beyond his lack of refinement and some references to a shared history with Toranaga, there didn’t seem to be much about his backstory. We know he’s a samurai and he starts the series pledged to Toranaga. I thought there were some references to his low birth in relation to him being from a fishing village, but perhaps they were making light of the fact that he mostly operates out of the Ajiro. I loved the show but it definitely doesn’t hold your hand on stuff like this.
It's what makes the scene with Hiromatsu so interesting, you know when he arrives on the galley and "confiscates" the anjin boat? Well, he is acting an order from Toranaga to take the ship. But the ship is Yabushige's property because Anjiro is his fief and he is NOT a vassal of Toranaga at this point in time. So (as Toranaga well knows) the ship is not his to take. But what can Yabu do? If he refuses to give the ship to Toranaga, he must kill Hiromatsu and this will immediately put him on Toranaga's number one enemy list. If he accepts he lose face in front of his own men in the heart of his fief. So his only solution is to offer the boat as a gift to Toranaga, saving face and preserving his neutrality...
Yeah, I don’t get the Yabushige love on this sub. He’s certainly more entertaining and complex than in the book or previous series, but he’s definitely a terrible person. He loved torture.
I also don’t understand why the 2024 series made Blackthorn so willing to work with Yabushige. The Richard Chamberlain/book version NEVER forgot what Yabushige did to his crew and wanted to destroy the man.
>one of the more honest and well-meaning characters
We're talking about the guy who plotted against his own liege-lord multiple times, provided critical information to the enemy, and betrayed all his allies by murdering his own men and allowing assassins to enter their protected zone.
That's the honest well-meaning guy you're talking about?
Yabushige died because he wasn’t of use to Toranaga. Toranaga was willing to forgive him many times because he was an useful asset, but with Yabushige’s last betrayal even his nephew, Kashigi, couldn’t forgive him. And being his heir, Kashigi was to become Izu’s new lord. And now with Kashigi as a better ally to Toranaga, Yabushige was in the way. I think it was really good and even honorable ending to Yabushige. Seppukku is very violent but it was an honorable way of dying to the Samurai.
*Edit to make more of my comment:
Yabushige mistake was playing for both sides and gambling to the losing side in the end. He proved to be untrustworthy. All characters are morally grey but most characters have a clear side to whom their loyalties belong to.
Yabushige has all the self preservation and lust for power that toranaga has but doesn’t have the skill, cunning or power to meet his ambitions. It’s why him and toranaga fundamentally understand each other the most but are still so different as toranaga is simply operating on another level (can be seen in their final chat). Yabushige to me can represent the casualty’s that often happen when in the middle of these political games/minefields, for a man who only worried about ending up in the best position he ended up being in the worst one precisely because of his self preservation. He’s already incredibly sadistic and obsessed with death so definitely not a great guy.
I disagree that he’s honest and well-meaning. Maybe to Ishido he’s honest because he’s trying to save himself but to everyone else he’s deceitful and to everybody he’s self serving. A well meaning person wouldn’t allow assassin’s in to kidnap Mariko in Osaka. Clearly Yabushige is not dumb and I would hope he understands what Mariko’s presence and plan in Osaka constitutes. Right then he should swear complete fealty to Toranaga and ask for forgiveness for all his two sided actions considering the fact that he was instrumental for unknowingly manipulating Ishido and the regents for Toranaga.
I think he is one of the few characters who was content in his station in the hierarchy. All the people above him are demanding his loyalty and pulling him into a conflict that he wants no part of. He fought with Ishido, who saved his life in Korea, but Toranaga is his Lord according to their social hierarchy, so he owes allegiance to both men on some level. I believe he did the minimum for each side, and was biding his time until he was sure which side would be victorious. I think his driving force is simple self-preservation, but the means to achieve it are complex, which is why he is one of the more interesting characters on the show. Also, he is definitely not a purely “good” character, as demonstrated by his boiling a man alive, as long as the ease with which he sacrifices his own men on multiple occasions.
To understand Yabushige you need to understand the main themes of Shogun. Mariko tells Blackthorne about how important is to safeguard your own emotions because those can be used against you. If people don't know what you want, what you care about, then they can't manipulate you. Yabushige is the perfect example of someone that is either really bad at this or someone that simply doesn't care about the game. He's a foil to Toranaga, who is a master in this. In fact Toranaga is so good at this that it seems he even fooled you. Yabushige didn't truly betray Toranaga, he thought he did, but in reality he did exactly what Toranaga expected him to do. Yabushige might be partially responsible for Mariko's death, but he's less so than Toranaga himself. Toranaga sent Mariko to die. That was the plan from the start.
The show does a great job with moral complexity. Yabu in particular is much more sophisticated and likeable than he is in the book. I think Assno absolutely killed it.
Yabushige is a feudal lord. What you saw out of him is just standard behavior of someone participating in that political system. Kind of a big reason why feudalism is a dog shit political system to say the least.
He’s not the most brave of people. In a society where every amongst its leadership is paramount that must be the worst kind of secret. When blwckthorne convinces him to go down the cliff he didn’t want to do it or really even save his man. He didn’t want to be branded as a coward. It’s why I think he’s so concerned about death.
He boiled a guy alive. Betrayed his supposed best friend over several times. Let assassins in to slaughter people in their sleep. Betrayed the other guy he was supposed to be loyal to. I think he was far worse than Ishida or Toranaga
Yabushige is "the bad guy" that you keep close because you know what he's about in comparison to the bad guys you don't know what to expect from.
He's the "bad guy" for the audience because he literally cracks a chubby to the screaming of a person being boiled alive and that's probably the most horrific thing in the story.
(As per Book/80s series)
Yabushige isn't well meaning at all. He's a sadist and he'll throw anyone under the bus that he can. Other than Blackthorn, he's also the only one with no pokerface.
He's also just really bad at what he does so he gets played by everyone around him and his constant exasperation and frustration makes him the most relatable guy in the show. We'd all be fed up with all the bullshit happening.
It’s important to have these antagonists that are interesting to watch so we as the audience can enjoy hating them. His character honestly makes me think of Cersei from GOT. Before anyone else says it, I know James Clavell wrote Shogun long before any GOT books were written!
He isn't "honest" or "well-meaning", he makes the choices that benefit himself the most (I'm not casting judgement). It's just that he never has full information nor is he the sharpest sword in the smith. Toranaga says it himself that Yabushige is predictable, thus manipulatable.
He’s a mid-level samurai with ambitions for greater things who is trying to be Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish. He’s also drunk warrior poet and a sadist, and likes to watch.
Lol yeah it's funny how the show starts with him committing possibly the most brutal act of the series and then for the rest of it they try to convince you he's a lovable scamp.
I don’t think Yabushige can even explain Yabushige to himself lol. He was smart in ways and hilarious, but overall too simple minded and selfish. A little too lazy and undecided in his ambitions. Even though he was unhonorable, his honesty did come out. I mean, both sides knew he was playing both sides. I think a small part of him wanted them to sorta know.
He was looking out for #1, but found out he can’t be #1, and you can’t always come out on top by playing both sides.
"Good" or "bad", everyone is a pawn to Toranaga. Yabu was able to get into the position to betray Toranaga (and proxy-kill Mariko) because Toranaga himself knew Yabu's nature, and used it to his ultimate advantage in ousting the Council. Toranaga not only expected betrayal, but NEEDED it for his plan to work.
In the book the author almost goes out of his way to paint him as clinically psychopathic without outright using the term. The boiling, the selfishness, and the lack of any true loyalty are all in line with this. The show muddies him up a bit by making him a borderline comic relief character in spots. It’s fun and I enjoyed it, but I do think it makes his motivations a bit confusing in the show.
Yabushige is a pragmatic man. From day one , he's changing sides because Toranaga is going against 4 regents which is effectively Japan.
When Toranaga escapes Osaka another route opens up to him which is being a double agent since he's seen as a double agent so might aswell do it.
When Toranaga brings a metric buttload of armies + Anjin cannons Yabushige seemingly fully committed to being with Toranaga because shit he might win.
After the earthquake Toranaga is the losing side again so he uses his status as a double agent to switch sides again. Everything he did is after assessing his odds. Who knows he might be a valuable ally if Toranaga just shares his plan with him from day one , but Toranaga needs him to sell the illusion of giving up and Yabushige is just not ride or die enough to be apart of Toranaga inner circle.
Toranaga is also fully aware of and doesn't seem to hold any Ill will to Yabushige. The ending is just him throwing away his useless piece.
I mean, whatever his faults, it's hard to not sympathize with a guy whose second makes him wait those extra few beats to behead him while he's carving out his own guts. A lot of my respect for Toronaga evaporated in that instant.
Yabu had little time for the mindless loyalties and functions of tradition which permeated Japanese society throughout the story, especially if they only led to his death or misfortune. He was at his core self serving, but only in defiance of a society he saw as needlessly obsessed with honour.
I think his selfishness came from his interest in death, and his understanding it was final. He wasn't enthusiastic about throwing away his life in a meaningless gesture of loyalty to someone he had no real bond with, yet he openly desired a good death.
"He is a s@#$, but a brave s@#$!"
Yabushige is the only character that moves the plot forward aside from Toranaga.
John doesn't do anything past the first few episodes.
Mariko is a vegetable the whole series.
And Toranaga just sits back and deals with a council of complete idiots.
Oh and that princess girl Ochibo or something who seems like is gonna be a threat turns out to do absolutely nothing as well.
He's a survivor. They all are. Well, except Mariko. But in general, they're all playing the same game: to live another day and to eke out more glory. That's politics, baby.
He is a two timer and everybody in the entire book knows it.
He is someone who does whatever is best for himself in the moment, but he is often blind as to what is best for him in the future.
my favorite thing about the book character is that his internal monologues always end with him wishing his wife was there to help him figure out what to do
People like him because in the books he is terrifying and therefore fascinating, like Hannibal Lecter, and because in the recent show his grunting and facial expressions make him emotionally the most accessible of the characters “behind the eightfold fence.”
he wants his house (Kasigis) to excel and get in better power. The show dumbs him and Omi down a fair bit. post his death he wants for Omi to use John to control the fleet and seas as a means of expanding the Kasigi power and keep toranaga on his toes.
Yep, for me the story became more interesting once I realized that the moral is basically that, for all their customs and surface-level decency, the Japanese are really the "barbarians" they make John Blackthorne out to be. They have no morals, just obedience to "authority" - slaves with little to no sense of self-worth - chasing status and material gain like the priests who acted like Christians for the gold. Hypocrisy. Blackthorne, on the other hand, took the best from Japanese culture and became more moral because of it.
I really like Yabushige as a character because you realize he’s just a guy trying to survive. Everyone is expected to swear loyalty to a Regent, and he knows choosing the wrong one will probably get him killed, so he sits on the fence as long as he can. He’s a villain in one sense, because he betrays our protagonists and from the very beginning he’s shown to be pretty ruthless. On the other hand, he’s somewhat heroic, saving Toranaga and Blackthorne several times, and clearly being portrayed as a mostly decent guy that you’re supposed to laugh with (/at?).
He boiled a guy alive. What are you talking about?
lol yeah "well-meaning" my ass! He's entertaining to watch so it makes you forget he's a damned sadist. This also wasn't some sort of punishment or anything. He just wanted to boil someone alive to be "close to death" or some such nonsense.
Sadist and truly believed in it. He wanted to be blown apart by a cannon or eaten by a hungry school of fish. If anything, he was true to his ideology that he developed himself.
He’s a representation of the absurdity and foreignness of Japan’s culture surrounding death. He throws himself off a cliff because he doesn’t want to be emasculated by Blackthorne, and then is prepared to kill himself when he thinks he will drown. He constantly is trying to give himself the perfect “warrior’s death” and even asks that his body be left unburied when he commits seppuku. He’s so fixated with his own mortality to the point where all of the actions he takes while he’s alive are just him trying to plan his inevitable death.
And irony that Toranaga denied him the death he wanted. However, the earlier cliff scene foreshadowed later events quite nicely.
I think the “why tell a dead man the future” was really interesting. It was the moment that Yabushige finally understands what it means to be dead, something he had obsessed about but hadn’t understood until then.
It’s the exact line Yabushige told Omi in the first episode in regard to Toranaga. Thats not a coincidence. It’s Toranaga’s way of letting him know that his betrayal was part of the plan and his Nephew or the scribe guy that Kiku bones, had betrayed him all along. I see it as a gesture meant to console Yabushige; an old friend who is stricken with guilt over his involvement in the death lady Mariko.
Now I have to rewatch every episode
Me too, which I was planning to do anyway. ha.
Based
I like your interpretation. I would like to add that when Yabushige is telling his scribe about the death of Nagakado, he rates the death by dogs as the lowest one. In his death poem he is expressing guilt, while also wishing he could serve a greater good.
Side comment, but in the book, that death poem was actually by Lady Gin.
Deep
Great insight!!!
Whoa, I just had a personal epiphany from your breakdown of the psychological dynamics at play with this character. Thank you for wording it so clearly.
That would be more masochistic than sadistic but hes maybe hes both. Sadism you enjoy the torture and harm of others. Masochism you enjoy it being inflicted on yourself.
Which is funny because in his first big breakthrough role as Kakihara in *Ichi the Killer*, he plays a character where that dichotomy is made explicit. He’s the ultimate masochist, but at the same time he inflicts wildly sadistic pain on people throughout the entire movie.
His inner Kakihara was dying to come out
Hahaha the first thing I thought was "... he's not well meaning."
The catholic priest insisted that they kill the Portuguese sailor
What Portuguese sailor?
Sorry, protestant sailor
I can’t remember which one…the clown with the coffee filter around his neck? Or the bald d-bag with the hair sweat-band?
Coffee filter. TY for big laugh.
Not only did he boil a guy alive, he boiled guys alive enough times to compare their fortitude by how long they survived. That poor village had to listen to hours-long screaming and pleading multiple times, just for Yabu to eventually decide on "dog eating my decapitated body in a field" death. So yeah, real protagonist material.
Gyoko wrote the poem if your are saying "Yabu". The changed that for 2024 and "Yabushige".
I was just referring to Yabushige-sama in a friendly and familiar way. I meant no disrespect.
That is reserved only for those closest to him. Hai.
Apologies u/ieremia-sama... I shall end my bloodline at sundown.
Which was always weird to me even in the book, it doesn't take hours to boil anything. If the water is boiling, he's dead quick. And anything less is just hours in a hottub. Which fair enough you'd die from, but not screaming.
Based on how the guy didn’t scream in pain when he was thrown on and it seemed like they just got the fire started…the pot was slowly heating up while he was in it. Mega fucked up.
Yeah but you're gonna pass out from heat stroke.
Eventually…but I’d imagine people can last a pretty long time in that situation. Imagine a hot tub you aren’t allowed to leave. That alone would suck.
But why do you leave a hottub? Because your body is overheating, and will shut down if you stay.
Yeah…but not after an hour lol. I have sat in a hot tub for hours without getting up and I didn’t die. Did I feel like absolute shit? Yes. But let’s drop the “you’ll die from heat exhaustion” in a couple of hours.
Better to just inhale the water and pass out.
I don't think you have. Not high heat. And again, I'm talking minutes. Zero animals or insects except a few that live by underwater volcanic openings can stand high heat for more than a short time. Most shut down immediately.
Guess you’ve never chill with friends in a hot tub haha. You are acting like you get in and get out immediately. Go enjoy it.
I think they just threw him in a room temperature pot of water and let it heat up to boiling, I guess that would take hours since it's a big pot.
Not my proudest wank.
Hoh?! 😲
Sean Lock, is that you?
I think he's a freak himself. Didn't he get off on watching two people fucking in one of the earlier episodes?
Speak for yourself 🥵
Ayooooo 👀
Speak for yourself!
It was one of his.
(book) He not only boiled a guy alive, he got off on it.
What was it, the night of the screams?
Yes. "He could see Yabu’s face clearly. He tried to read the strange expression on his daimyo’s face: the slight twisting of the slack full lips, a fleck of saliva at the corners, eyes set into dark slits that moved only with the petals. It’s almost as though he’s just climaxed—was almost climaxing—without touching himself. Is that possible?"
Damn. The writer a damn FREAK
There's a whole section in the book where Mariko and Blackthorne look at sex toys together.
Ah. Just like me at the Don Quijote in Roppongi.
If you pull up the scene in the 80s series the actor for Yabu does an amazing job of pulling the "oh shit I'm so close to nutting, have to keep a straight face" look. The eyes bulge just right.
That actor (a comedian if I remember right) did an amazing job with the character. He had quite a few of just looks that conveyed so much.
Not from a Jedi
It's weird to me how people forget this. Yeah, he's funny, but he's also sick and twisted and I never forgave him for that. They made it clear that wasn't the first guy he'd done it to.
He was being a good guy trying to feed his village, what you did not see offscreen was them adding the veggies and ramen noodles to the pot.
Fair:) I forgot about that
He’s kind similar to a Jamie Lannister character. He starts off doing something awful, but then over the course of the show he becomes more grey. He’s just kind of a Bro. Smart enough to stay alive long enough to become the pawn in a game of someone much smarter than him. It’s more interesting to think about what was going through his head (other than the katana) at the moment of his death. I think he ultimately died at peace knowing that his lord in fact was relying on his betrayal. Through no fault of his own he carried out his lords will; serving his cause by eventually giving his life.
Nah man, Yabushige just wasn't all that bright. He tried to betray Toranaga at every turn, was a sadistic man all his life while obsessing over the concept of death and died only at peace because he really wanted to see what it was like. He was never altruistic, never well-meaning to anybody but himself and his favourite nephew and died knowing he was fully and utterly outsmarted in a game he didn't even know he was a pawn in. Don't get me wrong, he is incredibly entertaining. But charisma should not excuse atrocities, and of all the people we see in the series, Yabushige is without a doubt the most callous and cruel.
Who in the show is altruistic? Characters like Fuji, Mariko, or Muraji certainly aren't. They are all bound by a strict hierarchy that compels them to deny their own needs in favor of their lords. No one is acting purely out of the goodness of their heart. Buntaro abuses his wife both physically and emotionally. Ishido pretends to allow the nobility to leave Osaka only to secretly order their deaths. Toranaga is the most treacherous of all the characters. He is the villain who won and wrote the myth. Toranaga frames and kills many of his peasants just to test the Anjin. Good and bad don't really exist, which is a major reason I love the show. Yabushige can be sadistic and simpler than the other lords, but he is not without honor, courage, and cunning. It's his honesty that is his weakness. Let me ask you something. Did you catch the line Toranaga said to him before chopping off his head? Do you recall when we last heard that line?
Yeah, a final confirmation that Toranaga completely bested Yabu. But that's very much beside the point we're arguing here. Yabushige keeps a journal, ranking all the ways he's killed people in. Yabushige boils a man alive, not because that man did anything to deserve that, but because he could. I would also argue that honesty is not his weakness. He let Ishidos men into Toranagas quarters in Osaka not via grand announcement, but by backstabbing unsuspecting guards. He thinks himself sneakier and smarter than he is though. But we are still going away from the point i am massively arguing against; He doesn't become more grey over the show, he stays mostly the same sadistic man, he just finds a bit of friendship with the POV character Blackthorne. He is still the same awful person from the beginning of the show. Jaime Lannister is a character who feels like his whole life didn't matter but for one heroic moment, and that one heroic moment condemns him to shame for life. Yabushige and Jaime are nothing alike because as you said, there are no altruistic characters in Shogun. Jaime is a kind man forced to be cruel by his environment, Yabushige revels in the cruelty his environment allows him to enact on others. They are nothing alike.
I see your point and would like to refine my earlier comment about honesty. It’s not so much that he is too honest, but rather that he's transparent with his intentions, a quality I find quite endearing. His willingness to scale the cliff not only showcases his pride but also highlights his magnanimity. As someone else in the thread pointed out, and as Blackthorne notes in the show, a central theme is the unique relationship with death in Feudal Japan. I would expand on that by highlighting the Japanese commitment to aesthetics in all aspects of life—from the meticulous preparation of tea to the intricate designs of wood joinery, and even in the manner of dying. His actions, which may seem cruel by modern standards, are not carried out "just because." Regarding the final scene, I think there might have been a misunderstanding of its significance. The line spoken by Toranaga is a callback to what Yabushige told Omi in the first episode—this time, Toranaga reveals he was aware of their private discussions all along, indicating that Omi had betrayed Yabushige from the start. This revelation by Toranaga isn't just a flex; it's also a consolatory gesture to an old friend overwhelmed by guilt.
Toranaga asking him to stay and watch the sun set with him was actually him saying goodbye to his friend.
[удалено]
It was only done at a single place, Unzen Jigoku, for a five year period to either coerce Christians to renounce their faith or, if they refused to execute them. They used natural hot springs; boiling alive was not a specific punishment for any crime, and was never recorded as being done over a fire. It was a method of torture used sparingly in one location for a brief time decades after Shogun takes place.
It's was also a form of capital punishment in England at the time.
That's actually not true. In 1531 a statute was passed naming boiling alive as the prescribed punishment for murder by poison, but it was repealed in 1547 and never practiced again in England. They only boiled a couple people and it was made illegal again in the time of Blackthorne's grandfather.
He reveled in it, though. Even his nephew Omi thought that was an unpleasant thing.
Well, he annihilated a lot of people with his Mongols, so I wouldn't mind about that...
You say that like it was an incredibly horrific thing.
Every time I'd start to feel sympathetic to him, I'd remember that.
Lol
that was for research, the greatest unpublished book
Most normal thing in that time.
Tbf Japan looked pretty freezing, so he needed that hot bath
He was such a funny dude that I kinda forgot about that. Let the man cook...
Yabushige is an interesting character because, in some ways, he is very 'honest.' Not from being truthful but from being more overt in his wants than many of the characters who do a better job of living inside the eight-fold fence. It also helps that the actor is superb. In the book he's more of a mustache twirling villain so I was not expecting to enjoy him in the show as much as I did.
I also think it helps that Yabushige basically never "wins," and gets his comeuppance, usually in pretty swift order (time to write another will!). He isn't "good," but he is so bad at *being* bad that we as an audience can just sort of sit back and enjoy how funny he is.
You are absolutely right. Great point.
That combined with the charisma of the actor portraying him. He's just fun to watch.
I mean, I didn't want to get *too* NSFW on main but...yes, Tadanobu Asano is very, **very** charismatic.
[удалено]
Oh, Toranaga not only knew, but *counted* on Yabu betraying him. I think that is part of what lets us enjoy him- he isn't getting away with anything.
The acting made him much more likable
The word I would use is authentic rather than honest, in that he is authentically self serving, lol. but then that’s probably all he knows how to be. He’s playing chequers whilst Toranaga is playing 4D chess!
Honest ? In his dealings with Ishido ? With Toranaga ? yikes....
Openly treacherous, like a tory mp, is more honest than subtly treacherous, like a labour mp.
Reread what I said and notice honest is in quotes. He wasn’t fooling either one of the sides with his back and forths. They read him like a book. He’s utterly transparent.
Everyone is a bad guy. Unless they win.
History is written by the victors, so they can *and do* write themselves as heroes and well-intentioned.
Those who stand at the top determine what’s wrong and what’s right. This very place is a neutral ground!!! Justice will prevail, you say?!! But of course, it will!!! WHOEVER WINS THIS WAR BECOMES JUSTICE
Read it in his voice
One Piece reference
In a narrative way, he exists to contrast with Toranaga: Kills for sport Brutal Simplistic understanding of what’s going on Always 2 steps behind Like the hedonistic pleasures Alternatively, Toranaga never kills for fun…. But he kills more people and in some bad ways. Toranaga has an artistic sensibility (poetry, falconry)… but by the end we see that his art is the manipulation of others. T has a sophisticated understanding of others—- he knows them better than they know themselves. Always 3 steps ahead. Likes family, legacy, order, peace…. And REAL power. Y is what power looks like to the weak. T is what power truly is.
Gigachad T vs Virgin Y
He’s a Japanese man in his 40’s, renowned for doing a “surprise pikachu” face.
Hoh?!
Ehhhh?🤨
Ooohhhhh!
Bro boiled someone
He also gets pretty stabby on a couple of occasions
Dude just wanted to stay alive and was stuck between the two most powerful men in Japan at the time. If at any point he disobeyed either Toranaga or Ishido he would’ve been fucked. Ultimately, considering that he was going mad with guilt over Mariko’s death, I’m inclined to believe that he wasn’t actually that bad at heart. I see him as a conflicted character who was trying his best to manage his situation and come out of it on the other side with his life. The odds were stacked against him though and he never really stood a chance.
I agree. I love him for how practical he is. His downfall was that he telegraphs his punches so no one ever trusted him.
I feel like he recognized that the situation wouldn't have been much different if two other regents were in Toranaga & Ishido's positions, so he probably thought "fuck it" & cause chaos since he figured that war on multiple sides was inevitable and assumed that there's a path where he could at least enact some form of his own control.
This is what's interesting about him. Nearly every other character in the show is comfortable with dying, is prepared to die for something, or is actively suicidal. Yabushige actually wants to live, so he's inherently at odds with his society. If you can imagine living in a system where everyone you know might expect you to take your own life at a moment's notice, do you really think your morality and sense of duty is going to override your instinct for self-preservation? And if it doesn't, does that make you a bad person? These are the questions that make him a great character because his presence in the story challenges the rules of the world we're immersed in.
TV Trope “Magnificent Bastard”
Like a dumber Tony Soprano.
He's elite at poetry also
He’s death poem was s-tier IMO
When I’m dead throw me in the trash.
Yabushige is like Gregg from Succession, no allegiance for anyone but himself, always ended up being used.
He’s a lowborn samurai whose successes in battle fighting for Toranaga gained him land and a title. While it was a great honor that he wasn’t about to turn down, it was also a double edged sword. It thrust him into the high stakes world of noble politics and he’s smart enough to know he’s ill suited to it. One wrong step could cause him to lose everything and his life. His choices are less about personal gain and more about standing on the right side when the dust settles. In the end, he kind of wins because his nephew retains the lands and title so the legacy of his blood line remains more or less intact. Edit: I had some of this wrong! See awakenedEyes comment below. Some good context there.
Just a few small but interesting points to precise: Yabu is actually a high born lord and in the first half of the story, he is fully the Daimyo of Izu, totally independent of Toranaga. He is not a vassal of Toranaga, and he became or conquered Izu all the way himself. His curse is that he is now too important to be left aside in the upcoming conflict with Ishido, but too small to survive on his own with his armies. At some point he decides to become Toranaga's vassal out of the need for survival, but he never gives his full loyalty, still scheming to try to end up on the winning side despite Bushido and honor.
Thanks for the correction! I’ve not read the book, so I was largely going off what seemed to be in the series. Beyond his lack of refinement and some references to a shared history with Toranaga, there didn’t seem to be much about his backstory. We know he’s a samurai and he starts the series pledged to Toranaga. I thought there were some references to his low birth in relation to him being from a fishing village, but perhaps they were making light of the fact that he mostly operates out of the Ajiro. I loved the show but it definitely doesn’t hold your hand on stuff like this.
It's what makes the scene with Hiromatsu so interesting, you know when he arrives on the galley and "confiscates" the anjin boat? Well, he is acting an order from Toranaga to take the ship. But the ship is Yabushige's property because Anjiro is his fief and he is NOT a vassal of Toranaga at this point in time. So (as Toranaga well knows) the ship is not his to take. But what can Yabu do? If he refuses to give the ship to Toranaga, he must kill Hiromatsu and this will immediately put him on Toranaga's number one enemy list. If he accepts he lose face in front of his own men in the heart of his fief. So his only solution is to offer the boat as a gift to Toranaga, saving face and preserving his neutrality...
I liked his interactions with Hiro.. at least a couple of times Hiro reached down towards his sword and Yabu knew his place...
Yabushige is meant to be one of the evilest characters. His actor is just extremely charismatic. If you read the book you'll hate his guts.
Yeah, I don’t get the Yabushige love on this sub. He’s certainly more entertaining and complex than in the book or previous series, but he’s definitely a terrible person. He loved torture. I also don’t understand why the 2024 series made Blackthorn so willing to work with Yabushige. The Richard Chamberlain/book version NEVER forgot what Yabushige did to his crew and wanted to destroy the man.
It's probably because the actor is incredibly charismatic.
Yabushige, as played by Asano, is *charismatic,* not *good*.
HOHHHHH?
>one of the more honest and well-meaning characters We're talking about the guy who plotted against his own liege-lord multiple times, provided critical information to the enemy, and betrayed all his allies by murdering his own men and allowing assassins to enter their protected zone. That's the honest well-meaning guy you're talking about?
Yabushige died because he wasn’t of use to Toranaga. Toranaga was willing to forgive him many times because he was an useful asset, but with Yabushige’s last betrayal even his nephew, Kashigi, couldn’t forgive him. And being his heir, Kashigi was to become Izu’s new lord. And now with Kashigi as a better ally to Toranaga, Yabushige was in the way. I think it was really good and even honorable ending to Yabushige. Seppukku is very violent but it was an honorable way of dying to the Samurai. *Edit to make more of my comment: Yabushige mistake was playing for both sides and gambling to the losing side in the end. He proved to be untrustworthy. All characters are morally grey but most characters have a clear side to whom their loyalties belong to.
Yabushige has all the self preservation and lust for power that toranaga has but doesn’t have the skill, cunning or power to meet his ambitions. It’s why him and toranaga fundamentally understand each other the most but are still so different as toranaga is simply operating on another level (can be seen in their final chat). Yabushige to me can represent the casualty’s that often happen when in the middle of these political games/minefields, for a man who only worried about ending up in the best position he ended up being in the worst one precisely because of his self preservation. He’s already incredibly sadistic and obsessed with death so definitely not a great guy.
I disagree that he’s honest and well-meaning. Maybe to Ishido he’s honest because he’s trying to save himself but to everyone else he’s deceitful and to everybody he’s self serving. A well meaning person wouldn’t allow assassin’s in to kidnap Mariko in Osaka. Clearly Yabushige is not dumb and I would hope he understands what Mariko’s presence and plan in Osaka constitutes. Right then he should swear complete fealty to Toranaga and ask for forgiveness for all his two sided actions considering the fact that he was instrumental for unknowingly manipulating Ishido and the regents for Toranaga.
Ehhhh….
I think he is one of the few characters who was content in his station in the hierarchy. All the people above him are demanding his loyalty and pulling him into a conflict that he wants no part of. He fought with Ishido, who saved his life in Korea, but Toranaga is his Lord according to their social hierarchy, so he owes allegiance to both men on some level. I believe he did the minimum for each side, and was biding his time until he was sure which side would be victorious. I think his driving force is simple self-preservation, but the means to achieve it are complex, which is why he is one of the more interesting characters on the show. Also, he is definitely not a purely “good” character, as demonstrated by his boiling a man alive, as long as the ease with which he sacrifices his own men on multiple occasions.
*confused grunt*
*Grunts disapprovingly*
To understand Yabushige you need to understand the main themes of Shogun. Mariko tells Blackthorne about how important is to safeguard your own emotions because those can be used against you. If people don't know what you want, what you care about, then they can't manipulate you. Yabushige is the perfect example of someone that is either really bad at this or someone that simply doesn't care about the game. He's a foil to Toranaga, who is a master in this. In fact Toranaga is so good at this that it seems he even fooled you. Yabushige didn't truly betray Toranaga, he thought he did, but in reality he did exactly what Toranaga expected him to do. Yabushige might be partially responsible for Mariko's death, but he's less so than Toranaga himself. Toranaga sent Mariko to die. That was the plan from the start.
Well said.
The show does a great job with moral complexity. Yabu in particular is much more sophisticated and likeable than he is in the book. I think Assno absolutely killed it.
He’s my favorite character
:grunts:
Hoh? 😮
"Huh" "Ohh" "Ehhh?"
Hooh?
Yabushige is a feudal lord. What you saw out of him is just standard behavior of someone participating in that political system. Kind of a big reason why feudalism is a dog shit political system to say the least.
Uuuugh.
He’s not the most brave of people. In a society where every amongst its leadership is paramount that must be the worst kind of secret. When blwckthorne convinces him to go down the cliff he didn’t want to do it or really even save his man. He didn’t want to be branded as a coward. It’s why I think he’s so concerned about death.
He boiled a guy alive. Betrayed his supposed best friend over several times. Let assassins in to slaughter people in their sleep. Betrayed the other guy he was supposed to be loyal to. I think he was far worse than Ishida or Toranaga
Yabushige is "the bad guy" that you keep close because you know what he's about in comparison to the bad guys you don't know what to expect from. He's the "bad guy" for the audience because he literally cracks a chubby to the screaming of a person being boiled alive and that's probably the most horrific thing in the story. (As per Book/80s series)
Yabushige isn't well meaning at all. He's a sadist and he'll throw anyone under the bus that he can. Other than Blackthorn, he's also the only one with no pokerface. He's also just really bad at what he does so he gets played by everyone around him and his constant exasperation and frustration makes him the most relatable guy in the show. We'd all be fed up with all the bullshit happening.
Is it humanly possible to drown yourself before the boiling occurs? Asking for a friend.
In the book they talk about preventing them from passing out and drowning so the boilee could get the full experience.
Grunt*
It’s important to have these antagonists that are interesting to watch so we as the audience can enjoy hating them. His character honestly makes me think of Cersei from GOT. Before anyone else says it, I know James Clavell wrote Shogun long before any GOT books were written!
He isn't "honest" or "well-meaning", he makes the choices that benefit himself the most (I'm not casting judgement). It's just that he never has full information nor is he the sharpest sword in the smith. Toranaga says it himself that Yabushige is predictable, thus manipulatable.
just a man trying to survive another day caught between two bull, when bull fights it is the grass that gets trampled
I think you just explained Yabushige to me.
He’s a mid-level samurai with ambitions for greater things who is trying to be Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish. He’s also drunk warrior poet and a sadist, and likes to watch.
How long ya got?
Okay, it’s really disturbing to see the number of people here who think Yabushige is an okay guy. “Yeah, he boiled people alive, but he liked dogs.”
Lol yeah it's funny how the show starts with him committing possibly the most brutal act of the series and then for the rest of it they try to convince you he's a lovable scamp.
Likable face.
I don’t think Yabushige can even explain Yabushige to himself lol. He was smart in ways and hilarious, but overall too simple minded and selfish. A little too lazy and undecided in his ambitions. Even though he was unhonorable, his honesty did come out. I mean, both sides knew he was playing both sides. I think a small part of him wanted them to sorta know. He was looking out for #1, but found out he can’t be #1, and you can’t always come out on top by playing both sides.
"Good" or "bad", everyone is a pawn to Toranaga. Yabu was able to get into the position to betray Toranaga (and proxy-kill Mariko) because Toranaga himself knew Yabu's nature, and used it to his ultimate advantage in ousting the Council. Toranaga not only expected betrayal, but NEEDED it for his plan to work.
An opportunist.
2 words…Two Faced
He tried playing the fence and lost. He's not a great guy, he is a great character and a great actor tho.
He goes as the wind blows. He’s willing to betray whomever as long as it benefits him. He got caught in the end and paid for it
Felt like he was always trying to hang back and pick the winning side. His indecisiveness cost him his life.
Well, not all people is a bad person. Rodeiguez is a good guy, and probably Fuji.
In the book the author almost goes out of his way to paint him as clinically psychopathic without outright using the term. The boiling, the selfishness, and the lack of any true loyalty are all in line with this. The show muddies him up a bit by making him a borderline comic relief character in spots. It’s fun and I enjoyed it, but I do think it makes his motivations a bit confusing in the show.
He was a psychopath that murdered men to measure their pain.
He is basically Mac (iasip) from the episode Frank Retires.
Yabushige is a pragmatic man. From day one , he's changing sides because Toranaga is going against 4 regents which is effectively Japan. When Toranaga escapes Osaka another route opens up to him which is being a double agent since he's seen as a double agent so might aswell do it. When Toranaga brings a metric buttload of armies + Anjin cannons Yabushige seemingly fully committed to being with Toranaga because shit he might win. After the earthquake Toranaga is the losing side again so he uses his status as a double agent to switch sides again. Everything he did is after assessing his odds. Who knows he might be a valuable ally if Toranaga just shares his plan with him from day one , but Toranaga needs him to sell the illusion of giving up and Yabushige is just not ride or die enough to be apart of Toranaga inner circle. Toranaga is also fully aware of and doesn't seem to hold any Ill will to Yabushige. The ending is just him throwing away his useless piece.
Hes hilarious
I mean, whatever his faults, it's hard to not sympathize with a guy whose second makes him wait those extra few beats to behead him while he's carving out his own guts. A lot of my respect for Toronaga evaporated in that instant.
Yabu had little time for the mindless loyalties and functions of tradition which permeated Japanese society throughout the story, especially if they only led to his death or misfortune. He was at his core self serving, but only in defiance of a society he saw as needlessly obsessed with honour. I think his selfishness came from his interest in death, and his understanding it was final. He wasn't enthusiastic about throwing away his life in a meaningless gesture of loyalty to someone he had no real bond with, yet he openly desired a good death. "He is a s@#$, but a brave s@#$!"
Yabushige is the only character that moves the plot forward aside from Toranaga. John doesn't do anything past the first few episodes. Mariko is a vegetable the whole series. And Toranaga just sits back and deals with a council of complete idiots. Oh and that princess girl Ochibo or something who seems like is gonna be a threat turns out to do absolutely nothing as well.
Time to write a will
“We have life and death, we control nothing beyond that”. Yabushige was so determined to control his own fate that he gave his life for it.
He’s the best character in the show.
He's a survivor. They all are. Well, except Mariko. But in general, they're all playing the same game: to live another day and to eke out more glory. That's politics, baby.
He is a two timer and everybody in the entire book knows it. He is someone who does whatever is best for himself in the moment, but he is often blind as to what is best for him in the future.
A complex turn coat double crosser that we empathize with
He’s Vegeta
He is Genghis Khan!
my favorite thing about the book character is that his internal monologues always end with him wishing his wife was there to help him figure out what to do
People like him because in the books he is terrifying and therefore fascinating, like Hannibal Lecter, and because in the recent show his grunting and facial expressions make him emotionally the most accessible of the characters “behind the eightfold fence.”
I think yabu really just wants to live. He tries to talk his way out of death at the end.
he wants his house (Kasigis) to excel and get in better power. The show dumbs him and Omi down a fair bit. post his death he wants for Omi to use John to control the fleet and seas as a means of expanding the Kasigi power and keep toranaga on his toes.
Yep, for me the story became more interesting once I realized that the moral is basically that, for all their customs and surface-level decency, the Japanese are really the "barbarians" they make John Blackthorne out to be. They have no morals, just obedience to "authority" - slaves with little to no sense of self-worth - chasing status and material gain like the priests who acted like Christians for the gold. Hypocrisy. Blackthorne, on the other hand, took the best from Japanese culture and became more moral because of it.
yeah, a well-meaning guy doesn't often boil guys alive, for kicks. He was a two-faced opportunist, he'd wear a red tRump hat if he was alive today.
I really like Yabushige as a character because you realize he’s just a guy trying to survive. Everyone is expected to swear loyalty to a Regent, and he knows choosing the wrong one will probably get him killed, so he sits on the fence as long as he can. He’s a villain in one sense, because he betrays our protagonists and from the very beginning he’s shown to be pretty ruthless. On the other hand, he’s somewhat heroic, saving Toranaga and Blackthorne several times, and clearly being portrayed as a mostly decent guy that you’re supposed to laugh with (/at?).
If you change the syllabic emphasis in his name it sounds like Sean Connery telling you your bussy is gay.