The samurai stereotype: A fiction created by entertainment?

Have you already watched the global hit TV series “Shōgun” on Disney Plus? As a Japanese person, I was proud to hear it won several awards, recognizing its quality.

In Japan, many people are analyzing why it was such a big hit. The consensus seems to be that Shōgun’s greatest strength is its authenticity and realism. Indeed, in most Hollywood productions to date, Japanese samurais often feel “off” to us Japanese viewers, primarily due to their stiff behavior and awkward swordplay.

Thinking rationally, this is amusing because we, the present-day Japanese, have never seen a real samurai. Nevertheless, we share a standardized, stereotypical image of samurais because we have watched countless hours of samurai-themed TV shows (jidaigeki). For your information, Hiroyuki Sanada, the lead actor in Shōgun, is a master of swordplay, deeply rooted in the Japanese action movie industry. In this sense, Shōgun is undoubtedly high in authenticity and reality.

However, this begs the question: Is this common sense authenticity, or merely a sophisticated fiction created by the entertainment industry over decades? Let’s see how much cultural continuity we actually retain from around 1600, the period in which Shōgun is set.

Lost in translation: The 17th-century language barrier

First, let’s consider the language. Mariko, a key character in Shōgun, speaks both Japanese and English fluently. Her style of speaking Japanese sounds noble and beautiful to me, a native speaker.

Yet, as often happens in historical dramas, the Japanese spoken in Shōgun is already a little difficult for present-day Japanese to fully grasp. I found some YouTube videos where we can hear the truly ancient Japanese language spoken during the Shōgun era. It was far more difficult than the Japanese spoken in the TV series. The truth is, if we time-traveled back to the 17th century, we would absolutely need translators.

In contrast, the exterior and interior design of the buildings in Shōgun looks incredibly natural and “Japanese,” even though the massive film set was built from scratch on a plateau in Vancouver. This is where cultural continuity is real: many old wooden buildings remain in Japan (the oldest dating back 1,400 years). The production team wisely sought expertise, including that of Frederik Cryns, a non-Japanese Belgian historian specializing in the Shōgun era. This external, objective perspective was likely a huge factor in ensuring the show’s praised realism.

The aesthetics of shadow: Why the samurai house is dark

As viewers of Shōgun likely noticed, the inside of the buildings was depicted as being very dark. This is historically accurate; the only lighting available was dim vegetable-oil candles.

This backdrop likely gave birth to a specific cultural aesthetic: the appreciation of shadow and dimness inside the house. Japanese people of former days found profound beauty in a dimly lit space. Shōji (paper sliding doors) were developed and widely used precisely to prevent harsh direct sunlight from entering the house.

Considering this, a story shared by the film crew makes perfect sense: they noted that the interior of the film set looked stunning when shot from the inside, with the garden landscape in the background, but much less impressive when shot from the outside (likely due to the overall darkness).

The implicit message here is that true Japanese beauty is revealed only in the shadows. If there is a cultural continuity in furniture design, then our own wooden products—with their deep grain and natural tones—may also look their most beautiful when placed and seen in a softly lit space, complementing the natural background.

Please try it: Find the perfect shadow for your CondeHouse furniture. You might just discover the hidden elegance of the samurai era.

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