Review
King of Zipangu is one of the most entertaining drama-historical series i have seen. Portraying Nobunaga's life from beginning to end during the violent Sengoku era.
The reasons i enjoyed the show are many. And although the excellent intro movie deserves it's own paragraph, i shall focus mostly on other things. The history of Nobunaga's time is filled with betrayals, assassinations, battles, warfare, and intrigue. The introduction of Christianity is also a big theme, and the way it clashes with Japanese society at the time. Especially as Nobunaga spearheads the "barbarian religion" and the foreign technologies as an alternative to the Buddhism and traditionalism that so consistently challenges his rule. Focus is given to important historical characters of the time also. Although there are taken some not so great "creative liberties" with an certain made up character, which i will come back to.
Nobunaga himself is an very interesting and charismatic character, he is consistently shown to be ruthless and pushing the boundaries of what is deemed sociably acceptable at all times. He cares not in the slightest for the rules of others, but sees himself as the ultimate authority and the way forward for Japan. This predictably ends up with him making many enemies, but defeat simply doesn't seem to be an concept to Nobunaga. Even if the battles take a single day or 7 years, it ultimately always ends in Nobunaga's favour. Even the Japanese emperor is ultimately sidelined by Nobunaga when his army and confidence increases in size.
Nobunaga's insolent and unusual nature makes him an fascinating character to behold, and he manages to steal the spotlight in almost every scene. Even the child actor in the first episode does a decent job at it. Although the grown up Nobunaga takes the cake with acting skills. There's also an young adult actor for Nobunaga, but he didn't last long enough in the show to have much of an impact.
The consistent warfare is given a lot of attention, and seems to draw inspiration from Kurosawa's works with the importance placed on military formations, musket warfare, flags and clear battlefield shots. As an military/combat nerd these scenes kept me very entertained.
The series is almost entirely historically accurate, which is why these Taiga drama's are so great to me. There might be some creative liberties taken for cinematic effect, but everything that happens is believable and grounded on historical basis.
However there is one major complaint i have about the show, and it can be entirely summed up as "Zuiten". He is one of the strangest characters i've ever seen in cinema. He is not even remotely likable, he is strange, occult, even a bit perverse. And yet this unwelcome and made up addition to the series is given unreasonable amount of screentime. It is not wrong to say that in the close to 50 episodes this series has to offer, this character contaminates almost half of the episodes with his insufferable presence. Yet this character is so central to the series, from the first to the last episode he is an major character that follows Nobunaga's life from start to finish.
So who is he? He is essentially an occult shaman that swears fealty to the Oda clan, but at time acts treasonously. Is loyal to Nobunaga, yet seduces his mother in an incredibly awkard scene. Get's "killed" by Nobunaga in an early episode by taking a slashing sword to his body about 20 times yet miraculously survives.
In the last episode this guy get's shot by arrows and muskets to the extent that his body looks like a run over porcupine, yet he keeps walking calmly and lives for a bit longer to say goodbye to his lord before dying.
Is he an ghost? Some kind of demon? And if so, what is this magical ugly old man doing in an historical series? He sticks out from the tone of the series like the mole on his face does. It's like you're watching an excellent real nature documentary on Animal Planet and suddenly an animated Mexican Peter Pan comes flying in to have an vaguely rascist dance off with the lions in the middle of the show. Why on earth is he here? It's completely random and he ruins the setting. Why on earth was this character added to the show and given so much screentime?!
So is he supernatural? Who knows, who cares. I was cheering for his death when it seemed like Nobunaga finally killed him in an early episode, thinking he would be gone from the show. But then that was a fakeout to my eternal displeasure and Nobunaga eventually took back in this... Zuiten creature.
What's even more silly is that Nobunaga is clearly portrayed as having Atheistic tendencies, which Nobunaga's priestly Western friend even comments on. But yet the show has to make this tribe shaman somehow prove that magic exists in the world in the strangest way despite everything else in the show being firmly grounded in reality.
So in the end, great show in most ways. But make sure you're ready for dealing with an character as revolting and immersion breaking as Zuiten, invariably ruining the mood everywhere.
The reasons i enjoyed the show are many. And although the excellent intro movie deserves it's own paragraph, i shall focus mostly on other things. The history of Nobunaga's time is filled with betrayals, assassinations, battles, warfare, and intrigue. The introduction of Christianity is also a big theme, and the way it clashes with Japanese society at the time. Especially as Nobunaga spearheads the "barbarian religion" and the foreign technologies as an alternative to the Buddhism and traditionalism that so consistently challenges his rule. Focus is given to important historical characters of the time also. Although there are taken some not so great "creative liberties" with an certain made up character, which i will come back to.
Nobunaga himself is an very interesting and charismatic character, he is consistently shown to be ruthless and pushing the boundaries of what is deemed sociably acceptable at all times. He cares not in the slightest for the rules of others, but sees himself as the ultimate authority and the way forward for Japan. This predictably ends up with him making many enemies, but defeat simply doesn't seem to be an concept to Nobunaga. Even if the battles take a single day or 7 years, it ultimately always ends in Nobunaga's favour. Even the Japanese emperor is ultimately sidelined by Nobunaga when his army and confidence increases in size.
Nobunaga's insolent and unusual nature makes him an fascinating character to behold, and he manages to steal the spotlight in almost every scene. Even the child actor in the first episode does a decent job at it. Although the grown up Nobunaga takes the cake with acting skills. There's also an young adult actor for Nobunaga, but he didn't last long enough in the show to have much of an impact.
The consistent warfare is given a lot of attention, and seems to draw inspiration from Kurosawa's works with the importance placed on military formations, musket warfare, flags and clear battlefield shots. As an military/combat nerd these scenes kept me very entertained.
The series is almost entirely historically accurate, which is why these Taiga drama's are so great to me. There might be some creative liberties taken for cinematic effect, but everything that happens is believable and grounded on historical basis.
However there is one major complaint i have about the show, and it can be entirely summed up as "Zuiten". He is one of the strangest characters i've ever seen in cinema. He is not even remotely likable, he is strange, occult, even a bit perverse. And yet this unwelcome and made up addition to the series is given unreasonable amount of screentime. It is not wrong to say that in the close to 50 episodes this series has to offer, this character contaminates almost half of the episodes with his insufferable presence. Yet this character is so central to the series, from the first to the last episode he is an major character that follows Nobunaga's life from start to finish.
So who is he? He is essentially an occult shaman that swears fealty to the Oda clan, but at time acts treasonously. Is loyal to Nobunaga, yet seduces his mother in an incredibly awkard scene. Get's "killed" by Nobunaga in an early episode by taking a slashing sword to his body about 20 times yet miraculously survives.
In the last episode this guy get's shot by arrows and muskets to the extent that his body looks like a run over porcupine, yet he keeps walking calmly and lives for a bit longer to say goodbye to his lord before dying.
Is he an ghost? Some kind of demon? And if so, what is this magical ugly old man doing in an historical series? He sticks out from the tone of the series like the mole on his face does. It's like you're watching an excellent real nature documentary on Animal Planet and suddenly an animated Mexican Peter Pan comes flying in to have an vaguely rascist dance off with the lions in the middle of the show. Why on earth is he here? It's completely random and he ruins the setting. Why on earth was this character added to the show and given so much screentime?!
So is he supernatural? Who knows, who cares. I was cheering for his death when it seemed like Nobunaga finally killed him in an early episode, thinking he would be gone from the show. But then that was a fakeout to my eternal displeasure and Nobunaga eventually took back in this... Zuiten creature.
What's even more silly is that Nobunaga is clearly portrayed as having Atheistic tendencies, which Nobunaga's priestly Western friend even comments on. But yet the show has to make this tribe shaman somehow prove that magic exists in the world in the strangest way despite everything else in the show being firmly grounded in reality.
So in the end, great show in most ways. But make sure you're ready for dealing with an character as revolting and immersion breaking as Zuiten, invariably ruining the mood everywhere.
