Shōgun (novel)
James Clavell's epic novel "Shōgun" isn't just a book; it's a cultural phenomenon that transported millions to the tumultuous world of feudal Japan at the dawn of the 17th century. Loosely based on true events, it masterfully interweaves a gripping tale of political intrigue, clashing cultures, and the struggle for ultimate power. This story illuminates a pivotal moment when the East met the West, forever altering a nation's destiny and sparking a profound curiosity in its readers. The novel vividly portrays the intense political machinations and religious rivalries that defined Japan's transition into the Edo period. The unexpected arrival of a Protestant English pilot challenges established European monopolies and indigenous Japanese traditions, igniting a fierce struggle for control. "Shōgun" significantly broadened Western understanding and interest in Japanese history and culture, influencing countless adaptations across various media.
AI Summary
James Clavell's epic novel "Shōgun" isn't just a book; it's a cultural phenomenon that transported millions to the tumultuous world of feudal Japan at the dawn of the 17th century. Loosely based on true events, it masterfully interweaves a gripping tale of political intrigue, clashing cultures, and the struggle for ultimate power. This story illuminates a pivotal moment when the East met the West, forever altering a nation's destiny and sparking a profound curiosity in its readers.
- The novel vividly portrays the intense political machinations and religious rivalries that defined Japan's transition into the Edo period.
- The unexpected arrival of a Protestant English pilot challenges established European monopolies and indigenous Japanese traditions, igniting a fierce struggle for control.
- "Shōgun" significantly broadened Western understanding and interest in Japanese history and culture, influencing countless adaptations across various media.
Shōgun: An Epic Journey to Feudal Japan
Published in 1975, James Clavell's "Shōgun" is a landmark historical novel that plunges readers into the dramatic close of Japan's Azuchi-Momoyama period, roughly spanning from 1568 to 1600. It sets the stage for the powerful Edo period, which would reshape the nation for over two centuries. The story, while fictionalized, draws heavily from real events and figures, chronicling the intricate dance between European influence and internal Japanese conflicts that ultimately led to the Tokugawa Shogunate.
The novel quickly became a global sensation, selling over six million copies by 1980. Its impact extended far beyond the printed page, spawning two acclaimed TV series—one in 1980 and a highly praised adaptation in 2024—a stage musical, a board game, and several video games. "Shōgun" holds a unique place in Clavell's broader "Asian Saga" as the third of six published books, though its historical setting is the earliest.
A Nation Divided, An Empire's Grip
Imagine Japan in the late 16th century: a land fractured by nearly three decades of dynastic clashes, operating without a central Shogun. This power vacuum created an opportunity for external forces, specifically Catholic Portugal, in alliance with the Roman Papacy and its Jesuit missionaries, to exert significant influence. Their primary goals were clear: to control lucrative trade routes with Europe and to spread Roman Catholicism across East Asia.
For over 50 years, Portugal had enjoyed an exclusive and immensely profitable trading partnership with Japan. This comfortable monopoly, however, faced a severe threat with the arrival of the Protestant Dutch. Their appearance stirred unease among the Portuguese, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown between competing European interests.
A Storm-Tossed Arrival
Into this volatile landscape sails the Dutch ship Erasmus, on a clandestine mission to challenge Portugal's iron grip on the valuable Far East Asian trade. But fate intervenes: much of its crew, including the captain, succumbs to disease and the perils of the sea. The vessel is eventually marooned in Izu Harbor, its surviving crew becoming the very first Protestants to set foot in Japan.
The ship's armaments, records, and precious coin are swiftly seized by Kashigi Yabu, the local daimyō, or lord, who hopes to keep this unexpected discovery a secret. However, Yabu's ambition is thwarted when a spy relays word of the ship's arrival to his powerful liege, Yoshi Toranaga, Lord of the Kantō region and the formidable President of the Council of Regents.
Toranaga, a master strategist, immediately recognizes the potential leverage the Erasmus could provide. He orders the ship's navigator, an Englishman named John Blackthorne, brought to him in Osaka. Blackthorne, with his knowledge of European affairs and naval capabilities, could prove an invaluable asset in Toranaga's escalating rivalry with Lord Ishido Kazunari, his chief antagonist on the council.
Cultures Collide
Blackthorne's first audience with Toranaga is a tense affair, faithfully translated by a Portuguese Jesuit priest, Father Martin Alvito. During this encounter, Blackthorne reveals the deep divisions within Christendom—the ongoing war between Catholic Portugal and Protestant Elizabethan England. This revelation is a profound shock to Toranaga, who had been led to believe in a unified European religious front.
To shield Blackthorne from the other regents, Toranaga has him imprisoned alongside a Franciscan friar. During his captivity, Blackthorne begins to learn rudimentary Japanese from the friar, who, in turn, reveals the dark underbelly of Jesuit influence in Japan. The friar explains how Jesuit-backed rōnin, or masterless samurai, were allegedly used to instigate violent agitations, all to further the Portuguese crown's financial and political interests.
The Catholic regents, egged on by the Jesuits, conspire to have Blackthorne executed. But before their plot can be realized, Blackthorne is dramatically abducted during transit, a strategic move orchestrated by Toranaga to bring the valuable Englishman back into his fold and deny his enemies a crucial pawn.
Lady Toda Mariko, a Jesuit-educated Catholic fiercely loyal to Toranaga (not her church), becomes instrumental in revealing the full scope of the European threat. She faithfully translates Blackthorne's stunning account of the Pope granting Portugal colonial rights over Japan and East Asia—a right contingent on replacing all non-Catholic lords, including Toranaga, with those loyal to Portugal and Rome. Blackthorne also corroborates the Franciscan's report of Catholic rōnin from Macau invading Japan.
The Shogun's Gambit
Toranaga, now fully aware of the treacherous political landscape, refuses Portugal's request for their trading ships to leave Japan. In retaliation, the regents, after yet another failed attempt to assassinate Blackthorne, try to force Toranaga to commit seppuku, ritual suicide. But Toranaga is a step ahead.
In a brilliant tactical maneuver, Toranaga publicly resigns from the council and stages a daring escape from Osaka, making his way to the safer haven of Anjiro. Aided by Blackthorne's "clownish antics"—a diversion Blackthorne creates—Toranaga, Mariko, and his retinue successfully make their perilous journey. As a reward for his loyalty and assistance, Toranaga elevates Blackthorne to the esteemed samurai rank of hatamoto and gifts him a consort, Fujiko.
In Anjiro, Blackthorne's integration into Japanese society deepens. He even threatens seppuku himself when Yabu pressures him to learn Japanese faster, narrowly stopped by Omi. His grasp of the language and customs rapidly improves, and he trains a contingent of samurai in European-style warfare. After rescuing Toranaga from earthquake rubble, Blackthorne's respect for his lord and for Mariko, with whom he secretly has an affair, solidifies. A chance encounter with his old European crew, however, reveals the vast chasm now separating him from his past life—they are revolted by his 'Japanese ways,' and he by their coarseness.
Sacrifice and Destiny
To deceive his enemies, Toranaga feigns complete acquiescence to Ishido, professing no desire for battle to everyone except Mariko. He then sends Mariko back into Osaka with a perilous mission: to expose Ishido's egregious act of holding noble households hostage. As planned, Mariko attempts to leave Osaka, but Ishido's men violently block her party.
Intentionally unharmed, Mariko feigns defeat, then vows to commit seppuku the next day, claiming dishonor. Ishido, in a desperate delaying gambit, grants her leave at the last moment. That night, Toranaga's duplicitous vassal, Yabu, allows Ishido's ninjas into Toranaga's compound to kidnap Mariko. Retreating to a storeroom, Mariko willfully stands in front of a door rigged to explode, sacrificing herself. Her death, which Ishido frantically tried to prevent, forces him to free his noble hostages, shattering his military alliances. As Blackthorne and Yabu depart, the Jesuits inform Blackthorne that the Erasmus has been sunk. Yabu, exposed by Toranaga, obeys his lord's command to commit seppuku, bequeathing his prized katana to Blackthorne. Mariko, in her will, leaves money to Blackthorne, instructing him to build a seaworthy ship for Toranaga's burgeoning navy.
In a powerful soliloquy at the novel's close, Toranaga reveals his ultimate plan: he orchestrated the sinking of the Erasmus to forge crucial alliances with the Catholic lords. In return, they agreed not to kill Blackthorne. Toranaga muses on the concept of karma, stating that Blackthorne's destiny is to never leave Japan, just as Mariko's was to die for her lord, and his own is to become Shogun.
The epilogue takes place after the decisive Battle of Sekigahara, where Toranaga emerges victorious. He exacts a chilling final revenge on Ishido, burying him up to his neck and leaving him to die a slow, agonizing death over three days—a brutal end cementing Toranaga's undisputed rise to power.
Fact, Fiction, and Legacy
"Shōgun" is a masterpiece of historical fiction, intricately woven around the real power struggle among the successors of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, which ultimately led to the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate. Clavell skillfully based his characters on actual historical figures, like John Blackthorne on William Adams, Yoshi Toranaga on Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Toda Mariko on Hosokawa Gracia, though he changed their names to allow for narrative freedom.
Clavell's inspiration for "Shōgun" came from a single sentence in his daughter's textbook: "In 1600, an Englishman went to Japan and became a samurai." This sparked his imagination, leading him to research William Adams, who indeed reached Japan in 1600 and became a trusted advisor to the future Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Despite a harsh wartime experience as a prisoner of war in Changi Prison, Clavell deeply admired Japan, describing his novel as "passionately pro-Japanese."
While brilliantly evocative, "Shōgun" does take some historical liberties. For instance, Blackthorne's intimate relationship with Mariko deviates significantly from William Adams, who never met Hosokawa Gracia. The novel also contains minor historical inaccuracies, such as depicting Japanese castles with portcullises or 17th-century samurai using socket bayonets. Even Toranaga's extensive use of carrier pigeons was an anachronism, as they were unknown in Japan at the time.
The novel's reception was overwhelmingly positive. Webster Schott of The New York Times declared, "I can't remember when a novel has seized my mind like this one... It's almost impossible not to continue to read Shōgun once having opened it." Beyond its bestseller status, "Shōgun" profoundly influenced Western knowledge of and interest in Japanese history and culture. One editor estimated that 20 to 50% of American college students taking Japanese history courses had read the novel, calling it "a virtual encyclopedia of Japanese history and culture."
Clavell himself acknowledged the novel's transformative impact, stating that "Shōgun is B.C. and A.D. It made me. I became a brand name, like Heinz Baked Beans." Such was its influence that the ruler of a Middle Eastern petrostate reportedly offered him an entire oil tanker for a novel that could do for his country what "Shōgun" had done for Japan—a testament to its unparalleled storytelling power.
Adaptations: From Page to Screen and Beyond
The novel's immense popularity naturally led to its first major adaptation: a nine-hour television miniseries in 1980, starring Richard Chamberlain as Blackthorne and the legendary Toshiro Mifune as Toranaga. For American audiences, the creators simplified the narrative, focusing primarily on Blackthorne's adventures and his romance with Mariko, often leaving Japanese dialogue unsubtitled to maintain his perspective. This groundbreaking series earned an Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series.
In 2024, FX released a new, critically acclaimed TV series adaptation of "Shōgun," starring Hiroyuki Sanada as Toranaga, who also served as co-producer. This iteration diverges from the 1980 version by faithfully following both of the novel's major plot lines and providing full translations of the Japanese dialogue, offering a richer, more nuanced portrayal of the story. The 2024 series garnered widespread praise for its performances and deep historical detail, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series, marking a unique achievement for adaptations of the same source material.
Beyond the screen, "Shōgun" inspired a 1990 stage musical and several video games, including two text-based adventure games and a graphical adventure game. Its influence even seeped into other media, with developers of the pioneering RPG "Wizardry" admitting that the game's most powerful weapon, the "Muramasa Blade," was misspelled as "Murasama" due to referencing the sword's appearance in Clavell's novel.
Article
Shōgun (novel)
Shōgun is a 1975 historical novel by author James Clavell that chronicles the end of Japan's Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568–1600) and the dawn of the Edo period (1603–1868). Loosely based on actual events and figures, Shōgun narrates how European interests and internal conflicts within Japan brought about the Shogunate restoration.
By 1980 six million copies of Shōgun had been sold worldwide. The novel has been adapted into two TV series (in (/wiki/Shōgun(1980miniseries)) and (/wiki/Shōgun(2024TVseries))), a stage production (Shōgun: The Musical), a board game, and three video games. Though its historical setting is the earliest, it is the third of six published books in Clavell's broader Asian Saga series.
Premise
Shōgun (novel)
For nearly 30 years, Japan had been fractured by dynastic clashes and was without a Shogun (central ruler). Japan was also interfered with militarily and politically by Catholic Portugal in concert with the Roman Papacy and its Jesuits stationed in Japan and elsewhere in North East Asia. Their prime interests in Japan were to control trade with Europe and to propagate Roman Catholicism. Portugal had profited as Japan's exclusive European trading partner for more than 50 years, but it became uneasy when the newly arrived Protestant Dutch threatened their monopoly.
Plot
Shōgun (novel)
The clandestine mission of the Dutch ship Erasmus was to compete with Portugal for Japan and the rest of the lucrative far East Asian trade. After much of its crew, including its captain, dies, it ends up marooned in Izu Harbor, the survivors thereby becoming the first Protestants to set foot in Japan.
The ship's crew is held captive while armaments, records and coin are seized by Izu's daimyō (lord) Yabu. Yabu had hoped to keep the ship a secret, but a spy reported the ship's arrival to his liege Toranaga, Lord of the Kantō and President of the Council of Regents. Toranaga has the ship's navigator John Blackthorne brought to him in Osaka, knowing that the Erasmus could be a source of advantages against Lord Ishido Kazunari, his chief rival in the council.
Toranaga's meeting with Blackthorne is faithfully translated by a Portuguese Jesuit, Father Martin Alvito, despite revelations of war between Catholic Portugal and Elizabethan England. Until then Toranaga was unaware that Christendom was so divided.
To sequester Blackthorne from the other regents, he is imprisoned with a Franciscan friar who teaches Blackthorne rudimentary Japanese and relates how the Jesuits' rōnin (mercenaries) invaded Japan and launched violent agitations to profit the Portuguese crown. Before the two Catholic regents, urged on by the Jesuits, can have him executed, Blackthorne is abducted in transit and returned to Toranaga.
Lady Toda Mariko (a Jesuit-educated Catholic loyal to Toranaga, not her church) faithfully translates to Toranaga Blackthorne's account of the Pope granting Portugal colonial rights to Japan and East Asia in return for replacement of all non-Catholic lords, including Toranaga, with those loyal to Portugal and Rome. He also relates the Franciscan's report of Catholic rōnin from Macau invading Japan.
Toranaga is taken aback and refuses Portugal's trading ship request to leave Japan. In turn the regents, after once again failing to assassinate Blackthorne, try to force Toranaga to commit seppuku. Instead he resigns from the council and flees Osaka. Aided by Blackthorne's clownish antics, he, Toranaga, Mariko and others of his court make it to Anjiro, which is safer. Toranaga elevates Blackthorne to the samurai rank of hatamoto and gifts him a consort, Fujiko.
In Anjiro, Blackthorne threatens to commit seppuku after Yabu says he will burn down the village if the Englishman doesn't learn Japanese fast enough. He is narrowly stopped by Omi. Slowly, Blackthorne's grasp of Japanese speech and customs improves. He trains a contingent of samurai in European-style warfare, and after a devastating earthquake, rescues Toranaga from underneath rubble. In turn Blackthorne raises his regard for Toranaga and for Mariko, a key member of Toranaga's inner circle, and with whom he secretly has an affair. A chance encounter with Blackthorne's old crew finds them revolted by his Japanese ways, and he by the coarseness of their European character.
To deflect suspicions, Toranaga feigns to all except Mariko acquiescence towards Ishido and professes no desire to do battle. When Toranaga's half-brother Zataki, who has allied with Ishido, arrives, Toranaga apparently surrenders and has Mariko re-enter Osaka with the intention to lay bare Ishido's holding of noble households hostage. When, as planned, Mariko tries to exit Osaka, Ishido's men violently block her party until an intentionally unharmed Mariko gives up on leaving. Saying she has been dishonored, Mariko vows to kill herself the next day. She almost ends her life, but in a delaying gambit, Ishido grants her leave at the last minute. That night Toranaga's duplicitous vassal Yabu lets Ishido's ninjas into Toranaga's compound to kidnap Mariko. Having retreated to a storeroom, Mariko willfully stands in front of a door set to explode and is killed. Her death, which Ishido sought to prevent, forces him to free his noble hostages, thus weakening military alliances. As Blackthorne and Yabu leave, the Jesuits inform the former that the Erasmus has been sunk. As for Yabu, he is caught out by Toranaga and obeys his lord's order to commit seppuku, giving his prized katana to Blackthorne. Mariko wills money to Blackthorne to build a seaworthy ship for Toranaga's navy.
At the book's end, Toranaga in soliloquy says he sank the Erasmus to form alliances with the Catholic lords, who in return agreed not to kill Blackthorne. Blackthorne's karma, Toranaga says, is to never leave Japan, as Mariko's karma was to die for her lord, and as Toranaga's is to become shogun. The book's epilogue takes place after the Battle of Sekigahara with Toranaga burying Ishido up to his neck until he dies three days later.
Characters
Shōgun (novel)
Shogun is a work of historical fiction based upon the power struggle between the successors of Toyotomi Hideyoshi that led to the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate. Clavell based each character on a historical figure, but changed their names in order to add narrative deniability to the story.
• John "Anjin" Blackthorne – Miura Anjin (William Adams) (1564–1620) • Yoshi Toranaga – Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) • Yoshi Sudara – Tokugawa Hidetada (1579–1632) • Yoshi Naga – Matsudaira Tadayoshi (1580–1607) • Ishido Kazunari – Ishida Mitsunari (1559–1600) • Ochiba – Yodo-dono (1569–1615) • Nakamura Yaemon – Toyotomi Hideyori (1593–1615) • Onoshi – Ōtani Yoshitsugu (1558–1600) • Harima – Arima Harunobu (1567–1612) • Kiyama – Konishi Yukinaga (1555–1600) • Sugiyama – Maeda Toshiie (1539–1599) • Zataki – Matsudaira Sadakatsu (1560–1624) • Toda Mariko – Hosokawa Gracia (1563–1600) • Toda Hiro-matsu 'Iron Fist' – Hosokawa Fujitaka (1534–1610) • Toda Buntaro – Hosokawa Tadaoki (1563–1646) • Toda Saruji – Hosokawa Tadatoshi (1586–1641) • Kasigi Yabu – Honda Masanobu (1538–1616) • Kasigi Omi – Honda Masazumi (1566–1637) • Goroda – Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) • Taiko Nakamura – Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598) • Akechi Jinsai – Akechi Mitsuhide (1528–1582) • Lady Genjiko – Oeyo (1573–1626) • Father Martin Alvito – João Rodrigues (1561/1562–1633/1634) • Johann Vinck – Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn (1556?–1623) • Spillbergen – Jacob Quaeckernaeck (?–1606) • Father-Visitor Carlo dell'Acqua – Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606) • Brother Joseph – Miguel Chijiwa (1569?–1633) • Captain-General Ferriera – Horatio Neretti, captain of the Black Ship in 1600
Historical accuracy
Shōgun (novel)
Blackthorne's interactions with Toranaga are closely based upon accounts in the diaries of William Adams (1564–1620). However, while Adams served in Tokugawa's army at Sekigahara, he did not become a retainer or a samurai until 1607, seven years after the battle.
Adams never met Hosokawa Gracia, in contrast to Blackthorne's intimate relationship with Toda Mariko.
The novel contains numerous Japanese language errors, as well as mistakenly depicting Japanese castles as having portcullises and 17th-century samurai as using socket bayonets. Carrier pigeons, used extensively by Toranaga, were unknown in Japan at the time.
Background
Shōgun (novel)
Clavell was an officer in the Royal Artillery during World War II and was a prisoner of war at Changi Prison in Singapore from 1942 to 1945, an experience that formed the basis of his first novel King Rat. Despite this experience, he admired Japan and the Japanese people, and described Shogun as "passionately pro-Japanese."
Clavell stated that reading a sentence in his daughter's textbook that stated that "in 1600, an Englishman went to Japan and became a samurai" inspired the novel. Shogun was therefore based on an actual series of events involving William Adams, who reached Japan in 1600 and became involved with the future shogun Tokugawa. He achieved high status managing commercial activities for Tokugawa's shogunate, though much of the interaction between the various characters in the novel was invented. The first draft was 2,300 pages and Clavell cut it down to 1,700 with the help of his editor, German Gollob. However, Shogun was edited lightly in comparison to Clavell's earlier novels.
Reception
Shōgun (novel)
The New York Times's Webster Schott wrote, "I can't remember when a novel has seized my mind like this one [...] It's almost impossible not to continue to read Shōgun once having opened it". In addition to becoming a best-seller, with more than six million copies of the novel in 14 hardcover and 38 paperback printings by 1980, Shōgun had great impact on westerners' knowledge of, and interest in, Japanese history and culture. Henry Smith, editor of Learning from Shōgun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy (1980), estimated that 20 to 50% of all students in American college-level courses about Japan had read the novel. He described the book as "a virtual encyclopedia of Japanese history and culture; somewhere among those half-million words, one can find a brief description of virtually everything one wanted to know about Japan", and stated that "In sheer quantity, Shōgun has probably conveyed more information about Japan to more people than all the combined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the Pacific War". Criticizing inaccuracies in the author's depiction of Japan, Smith wrote in History Today that "Clavell is in effect delivering a sermon on the errant ways of the West", contrasting Blackthorne and other Christian Westerners' barbaric ways to the superior "meditative and fatalistic posture of the Japanese samurai". The author of James Clavell: A Critical Companion called the novel "one of the most effective depictions of cross-cultural encounters ever written", and "Clavell's finest effort".
Clavell said that Shōgun "is B.C. and A.D. It made me. I became a brand name, like Heinz Baked Beans." He reported that the ruler of a Middle Eastern petrostate offered him a full oil tanker for a novel that would do for his country what Shōgun did for Japan.
Adaptations
Television
In 1976 Clavell employed Robert Bolt to write a screenplay. In 1978, he selected Eric Bercovici to write a miniseries for NBC. Clavell and Bercovici decided to simplify the story for an American television audience by omitting one of the two major plot lines of the novel, the struggle between Toranaga and the other warlords, and focusing on the adventures of Blackthorne and his romance with Mariko. Due to the focus on Blackthorne's perspective, most of the Japanese dialogue was not subtitled or dubbed. This nine-hour television miniseries aired in 1980, starring Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Shimada, and John Rhys-Davies. This was edited into a two-hour theatrical release. A 5-disc DVD release appeared in 2003 and a 3-disc Blu-ray release in 2014.
On August 3, 2018, it was announced that FX would be adapting the novel into a TV series. The 2024 series stars Hiroyuki Sanada, who also served as co-producer, Cosmo Jarvis, Anna Sawai, Tadanobu Asano, Takehiro Hira, Tommy Bastow and Fumi Nikaido. The trailer was released in late 2023 and the first two episodes premiered on February 27, 2024. In contrast to the 1980 miniseries, this closely follows both plot lines of the novel and translates the dialogue between the Japanese characters, although several characters' names are changed, for instance, Yabu was changed to Yabushige. Moreover, certain changes were made, including which characters died, as in the show, Nagakado and Hiromatsu (Naga and Hiro-matsu in the books) both died when their book counterparts survived. The series was met with acclaim, with special praise towards Sanada, Jarvis, Sawai, and Asano's performances. In May 2024, a second and third season were officially announced to be in development.
This marks the first work to be adapted into two television series resulted to win two Primetime Emmys for two divisions: Outstanding Limited Series in 1981 and Outstanding Drama Series in 2024.
Stage musical
A stage musical adaptation, Shōgun: The Musical, was produced in 1990.
Games
There have been three video games based on the novel. Two text-based adventure games with sparse graphics were produced for personal computers, marketed as James Clavell's Shōgun by Infocom and Shōgun by Mastertronic. A unique graphical adventure game, Shōgun, was also produced for systems including the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and IBM PC by Lee & Mathias and released by Virgin Entertainment in 1986.
The tabletop game publisher FASA published James Clavell's Shogun in 1983. This was the third of four boardgame titles based on Clavell novels.
A developer of Wizardry, one of the RPGs (role playing game) that are considered to have pioneered the gaming genre, admitted that the most powerful weapon in the game called Muramasa Blade was originally spelled as Murasama, as a result of referencing the sword that appeared in the novel.