Yumiko Watanabe

I really don't understand why people love it. The scripts were not so good. Some aspects should have been more highlighted. Toranaga's situation as a child and young adult was one of them. Not knowing why Toranaga thought and behaved the way he did, one may find that strange. The same was true for Mariko. And, names including these two were strange to the ears to Japanese people. There were several weird names, behaviors, mindset, etc. to Japanese people, such as, forcing someone sit in the sekitei, stone garden, and killing oneself for not following the master's order. To me, it was most strange when I heard Ochibano kata saying something like she and Mariko can live without thinking too much, being too serious about anything and just have fun as they are fortunate enough to have been born in wealthy families. They are the daughters of buke, samurais, not noble families related to the emperor. I have never seen such mindset in any of the movies and TV series portraying buke lives. In fact, once you know the life of Yodo dono, the model of Ochibano kata, you'll probably find that most strange. The footage was beautiful, but the music was far from Japanese. I heard some Tibetan-inspired sounds and other Asian-like sounds, but not Japanese. Maybe the Japanese music and tones were avoided to have this series be accepted more universally. Maybe the script was the same too. It's more like an Western interpretation on Japanese history. There are much more to it, but the interesting aspects were not fully captured in this TV series.