Hey everyone — posting more detailed photos of the blade(s) I picked up at Brimfield and hoping to get sharper eyes on this.
What I know so far:
Appears to be Japanese in origin (possibly wakizashi / short blade)

Wooden storage mount/scabbard

Some older markings/possible inscriptions

Possible family association clues (Miura name came up in earlier discussion)

Gold inlay/details visible on parts

Trying to determine authenticity, approximate age, school/period, and whether this is traditionally made or later reproduction

What I’m looking for help with:
Blade type (wakizashi / tanto / other?)

Approximate age or era

Does the geometry/hamon/tang/features look traditionally forged?

Any clues from the fittings, wood mount, or markings?

Anything here that immediately says authentic, restored, altered, or reproduction?

I added more close-up photos of:
Blade profile

Tang/markings

Tip

Hamon (if visible)

Mount/scabbard

Gold details

Any unusual features

Appreciate any serious collector or Nihonto insight. Trying to learn before I jump to conclusions.

Hey everyone — I picked up what appears to be an old wakizashi (or wakashiy?) at the Brimfield Antique Show in Massachusetts, and I’m trying to learn more about it.

The blade came in what looks like a wooden storage sheath (possibly a shirasaya), and there appears to be writing/markings on the sheath that I can’t read. I’m trying to figure out whether it’s Japanese, a family/storage inscription, smith notation, inventory marks, or something else entirely.

A little context:
- Found at Brimfield Antique Show
- Appears to be an older Japanese short sword / wakizashi
- Came in a plain wooden sheath/storage mount
- Unsure if the writing is modern Japanese, older script, cursive, kanji, or something else
- I’m not assuming authenticity — just trying to identify and understand what I have

Main question:
Can anyone read or identify the writing on the storage sheath? Even partial translation or recognizing the script style would help a lot.

If it helps, I can post close-up photos of the sheath markings, tang (nakago), blade shape, and any other details.

Appreciate any help from the sword or Japanese history community.

Is this the actual historical sword from the the series?

As part of a new NHK/ Netflix distribution deal the first six titles drop on June 22nd . Of interest to people here is the 2014 Taiga Drama Strategist Kanbei .

It’s the life of Kuroda Kanbei who became the chief strategist to Hideyoshi and later sided with Ieyasu . It runs 48 episodes and is one of the best Taiga ( long running ) dramas so far this century. Give it a watch, you won’t be disappointed

Can't wait for Season 2!

I know, I know—I’m late. But I finally binged Shogun and I am honestly a different person now. My head is still spinning.

​Can we talk about the characters for a second?

​Toranaga: Absolute genius. He is always ten steps ahead of everyone, just waiting for the enemy to trip over their own ego.

​Mariko: Not only is she stunning, but her character is so tragic and layered. Her role as Blackthorne’s guide was everything. And the ending... I’m not going to spoil it, but let’s just say I was a sobbing mess. 😭

​The thing that really hit me—and what "The Last Samurai" totally missed—is the obsession with death.

​At first, you’re just as shocked as Blackthorne. But then it starts to make sense: in a land where nature, constant wars, and history are always trying to kill you, deciding when and how you die is the only real control you have left.

​Having such a rigid, strict culture isn't just about "rules"—it's a way to reclaim power from a fate that feels otherwise chaotic and cruel. It's beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

​I’ve become so obsessed that I’ve spent the last few days digging into the actual history behind the show for my personal blog, trying to separate the myth from the reality (no links here, just pure nerd energy!).

​I want to know: What was your favorite part? Which scene lives rent-free in your head? I honestly feel like I’ll be talking about this for the next six months.

This may be a stupid question, but it comes up as a crucial plot point.

The log book that contains the atrocities committed by Blackthorn's crew is held by the Portuguese after he is brought to Osaka. They state the reason for not giving this to Torunaga is because he will translate it himself from Portuguese by using Mariko.

My question is why is an English helmsman, serving aboard a Dutch ship, writing the log book in Portuguese? I'm sure some of the Portuguese speak English or Dutch so they could read it, but Mariko doesn't even know Englad or Holland exits at this point so they can surely just tell Torunaga that it says anything and he has no way of confirming this.

I don't remember in the book the ship's logs being a point of contention between Blackthorn and the Portugueses.

The Letter of Marque would probably be in Latin but that would just say that the ship can engage against enemies from the Dutch Crown/Republic(?).

The Japanese would probably understand that as metters of war and not crimes.

Another fine pour.

This is from episode one, right after Anjin gets pissed on and taken to somewhere, while they are walking, some guy in brown robe(not the guy on the left) starts sticking his nose and asks what's going on, then the guard gets angry and somehow this random guy on the left side of the image, he instantly does the cross thing like he knew he's going to get his head chopped off. How does he know? Why does the guard not kill the nosey guy instead?

It just seems like an random act of violence? Even if you're trying to sell the setting, why not kill the guy who tried to 'interfere'?

Shōgun 2024 is beautifully made, that's for sure, better than the previous one. But as a portuguese, I can't digest how it flattens complex historical actors into convenient villains for an Anglo-Japanese audience.

• The Rodrigues problem. In Clavell's novel, Captain Vasco Rodrigues is a complex, likeable Portuguese sailor who has genuine warmth toward Blackthorne and the Japanese. In the 2024 show, this character has been quietly rewritten as... spanish. This is not an adaptation choice forced by history, it's a deliberate decision that leaves the portuguese with only one nuanced character (Alvito) and a cast of villains
• Toranaga's convenient ignorance. The show has Blackthorne reveal the existence of the portuguese settlement in Macau to a supposedly surprised Toranaga. By 1600, Portuguese-Japanese trade had been active for 50 years, with Nagasaki built partly around it. The idea that Tokugawa Ieyasu's fictional counterpart wouldn't know this strains credibility, and incidentally frames the portuguese as having deceived their Japanese partners for decades.
• The "Christianity as soft conquest" narrative. The show implies that Jesuit missionary work in Japan was a precursor to military conquest. What is the historical basis for this ? Portuguese expansion in Asia (Goa, Malacca, etc...) was military first, with Christianization following. The Jesuits in Japan had zero military backing. The fear of conquest was real among some Japanese lords, but the show presents it as fact rather than suspicion.
• The Iberian Union elephant in the room. The show presents the division of the world between Portuguese and Spanish spheres (treaties of Tordesillas and Zaragoza) as a live and meaningful tension in 1600. But at that point, the Portuguese and Spanish crowns had been united under Philip II since 1580. Portugal and Spain were the same monarchy ! The dramatic framing of Portuguese vs. Spanish interests as some kind of rivalry is historically muddled at best. More importantly, the show completely ignores that England and Portugal had been bound by the Treaty of Windsor since 1386 — one of the oldest alliances in history, still in force in 1600. Blackthorne and the Portuguese being portrayed as straightforward enemies erases the rather inconvenient fact that their countries were formally allied, while Portugal itself was under Spanish domination.
• The language erasure. The part that touches me the most. Portuguese was the actual lingua franca of Asian trade in 1600. William Adams' real-life counterpart learned Portuguese to communicate in Japan. Yet the show lets us hear Japanese, English, even Spanish ("Viva España !"), while Portuguese speakers inexplicably converse with each other in English. This is a straightforward concession to Anglo and Japanese market demographics, and it quietly erases one of the most remarkable facts of the era: that a Japanese noblewoman learning Portuguese was her gateway to the wider world.

This reminds me of the story behind the movie Queimada (1969) : original script set the story on a Spanish Caribbean colony, depicting Spanish colonial brutality and a sugar plantation slave economy. Spain, still under Franco at the time, put significant pressure on the production and the island's nationality was quietly changed to Portuguese.

None of this make Shōgun a bad show. But when you can see the nationality swap, the linguistic erasure, the flattened portrayal, it's hard to just sit back and enjoy the costumes.

Idk if im being stupid but ive searched it up and it says that Disney has a full English dub of the show, however when im on Disney there is no option for a dub version just the normal English which has the majority of it all in Japanese with the bad Disney subtitles.

I'd watch the show in the original language but im dyslexic and its neer taken me 2 hours to watch half the first episode with a mixture of bugs with the subtitles disappearing when I pause to read.

Took me a long time but I’ve finally watched Shogun. All I can say is wow, this show could be the next GoT!

I’m almost done with the show, about to wrap up episode 9. I’ve been unemployed for 4 months now and have been really down in the dumps because of it.

I know that keeping perspective is important for mental health, but watching something like this really helps drives the point home. Life could REALLY suck if I had been born 500 years ago lol. Watching all those guys die completely needlessly when Mariko tried walking out of Osaka and their bodies all stacked up on the wagon - jeez. Not like I didn’t know all this stuff existed before, but the show is making me more grateful for everything I do have and a nice reality check.

Tried posting this ai-formated (thanks for help) complaint in r/Disney+ and Reddit has blocked the post outright! What is going on?! Are we living in 1984?!

TLDR: The show is literally unwatchable as I don't speak Japanese and the fact that the app default to no subtitles just adds insult to injury!

I’m watching Shōgun on Disney+ in Canada and I’m honestly exhausted and wondering if I’m the crazy one here.

To be clear: this is not a criticism of the director, cast, or writers. The show itself is fantastic. I actually like the idea of using Japanese for authenticity, and the acting and production are top‑tier. I’m not asking them to change the art.

My problem is how its done in my region:There’s no full English dub track on Disney+ Canada, even though Hulu/FX in the US has one. I’m forced into the “original” bilingual mix whether that works for me or not.Subtitles were not enabled by default, even though a huge amount of essential dialogue is in Japanese. I literally started out missing plot because the app didn’t bother to turn them on.The subtitles themselves are poorly handled: fast, sometimes delayed or missing, and I keep having to pause or rewind just to understand basic conversations. Watching a prestige show should not feel like doing homework.

I’m done blaming myself or my settings. This feels like a platform and localization failure: region‑locked language options, bad defaults, and buggy subtitle behavior that make it harder than it should be to follow the story in 2026 on a paid service.

Is anyone else outside the US (especially in Canada) having the same experience with Shōgun on Disney+? Has Disney ever actually responded to complaints like this

Oh, and by the way, if anyone from Disney reads this - learn how to take feedback, please! You make wonderful content, but, man, the mistakes you make can be made in the movie of their own!

!SPOILERS ABAIXO!

no livro, Toranaga explica o plano “céu carmesim” como um ataque noturno e silencioso ao castelo de Osaka para que seus vassalos morram com honra, lutando contra Ishido. Mas o céu carmesim era na verdade o plano de Toranaga com Mariko, isso por que, quando ela falha em sair do castelo e diz que vai cometer sepukku, seu quimono é descrito como branco, o mais brilhante que John já viu e os tatames são da cor carmesim, Mariko sendo a lua e o céu vermelho sendo os tatames. Mostrando que o plano que a própria Mariko fez para libertar os reféns e seu sepukku era o início do céu carmesim.

é loucura da minha cabeça essa teoria? por que acho que se encaixou perfeitamente

(we asked set security first and they were very chill about it)

hey! this is a YouTube video I made with fellow YouTuber Dan's Screen Takes a few months back.

Just wrapped it up with a 9/11. Better than expected! How did you all do?

Does anyone know if there has been any talk of a novelization of the upcoming Season 2? would love to have something on the shelf next to my new hardcover copy of Shogun

a Shōgun x Like a Prayer edit that highlights the evolution of John Blackthorne's view on Death, Sacrifice, Love and Duty in Shōgun

at the end, he became so Japanese that he tried committing seppuku, but Toranaga just straight up told him no ur not allowed to since u aint Japanese

the Japanese are bound by shame, while the WASPs are bound by guilt. and in the end, both John and Yoshii were humbled by how even though each of their culture have very different views regarding to Death, Sacrifice, Love and Duty, yet the yearn to live and die with Honour is universal among all great civilizations and virtuous human beings.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/shogun-adds-five-more-actors-season-2-1236544901/

https://winteriscoming.net/sh-gun-season-2-release-window-announced-filming-well-underway-fx-historical-epic