We once ran a feature at a site I used to co-operate that posed a question, usually a book related one, to a random panel of guest, to allow them to basically go off on a theme. We had many cool guests, best selling and award winning authors, including Brea Grant who has gone on to contribute to the book community a great deal over the years and always struck me as quite lovely to deal with even way back then. At the time I was like omg it’s the girl from Heroes!
One of those questions was about the love stories of our lives, essentially what 20th century or newer love story was one that had an impact on us I repurposed my answer a bit and reposted it here.
My father passed way recently and I’ve been thinking a lot about the past and books he put in my hands – Shogun being one of them – and just stuff I wrote I back in the day and this is somewhat more relevant now as Shogun was adapted into truly one of the great television shows of the decade recently (I loved seeing fellow halfie and Blankie Emily Yoshida in the credits).
The question seems a very direct one that allows very little room for interpretation, but I found myself actually rather intrigued with the instances that immediately came to mind and their nature. The question asks for a single example, and I will keep it to one, but I found it interesting that I was first exposed to the stories that came to mind at an age before I had my own personal experiences with the opposite sex. It made me wonder how those early impressions shaped what I would later look for in romance, or even how I came to identify acts of love.
So what story drew me in and why? The answer reveals more than a favorite writer, actor, character, or show. It reveals less about artistic appreciation and more about what we may ourselves value and admire beyond fiction. We mourned for two losses: the loss of a unique individual, and the loss of what was shared between two people. Too often, stories focus only on the latter. And yet, we felt uplifted. We felt love eternal.
I’m not sure if many literary critics would put James Clavell’s Shogun on a list of great modern literature — it’s perhaps too readable to garner such accolades — but for me, it remains a foundational piece of my reading life. One of the reasons is the love story between Blackthorne (Anjin-san) and the Lady Toda-Buntaro (Mariko). It’s a story that exists in two mediums: I loved the novel, and the nine-hour miniseries remains one of my favorite television experiences ever.
In an interview I conducted with novelist Peter V. Brett, we briefly discussed Shogun, and he noted that it reads very much like a fantasy novel in structure — a familiar protagonist navigating an alien world. (For context: I am half-Japanese.) Shogun showed me that not only can you find something in the unknown, but also you can come to love it. We recognize true love, even righteous love, in the midst of a morally complex situation. Both Blackthorne and Mariko were married, and in a society where that institution was anything but trivial. Mariko is both a devout Christian and the truest of Samurai. And yet, throughout the story, we hope she’ll forsake those values for Blackthorne. We wonder if Blackthorne would ever truly leave Japan if given the chance.
We want them together.
This wasn’t a story of love lost or unrequited. From the beginning, it was a story of love in motion. Both characters were adrift, both learned from each other. The dominant perspective is Blackthorne’s, and yet it’s Mariko who commands the reader’s respect. If there is a hero in the novel, it is Mariko. Her sacrifice is — as Toranaga puts it — the sacrifice of his queen. Blackthorne doesn’t merely desire her; he comes to respect her and her world. She, in turn, balances secret allegiances, spiritual convictions, and political strategy, knowing the cost.
There’s a scene I return to often, when Mariko confronts her fate with a sword in hand — fiercely, with dignity. She exhausts herself fighting, not out of desperation, but to earn the honor she is due. Even those watching — enemies, allies, strangers — cannot help but pause. She stands for something greater. In this, she is not diminished. She is made eternal.
Blackthorne himself is the classic “stranger in a strange land” and also falls into the “falling for your teacher” trope. What begins as admiration grows into something far more complex. As brave and adaptable as Blackthorne is, his feats feel secondary. The true act of bravery, the true sacrifice, is hers. And it is not done for a future together. It is done for love itself, as it exists in the moment.
Often, we hear that sacrifice is a part of love, but Shogun showed me that true love does not weigh options. There is no ledger. There is only the one path, the one choice. Mariko’s posthumous letter guides Blackthorne still. She does not know which faith will claim their afterlife, only that they will meet again. And that is enough.
When Toranaga ends one of his final conversations with Blackthorne with the words, “Without her…” and lets the silence carry the rest, we understand what was lost — and what remains. In that moment, the future ruler of Japan acknowledges a foreigner as his equal, not out of diplomacy, but in tribute to the woman they both loved.
In a sense, she gave them both life.
For me, Shogun was more than a grand historical saga. It was a personal reconciliation of cultures that I myself inhabit. Amid war, rigid social structures, and clashing ideals, Blackthorne and Mariko find something that moves the world — if only by the smallest nudge. They are more than their caste, their faith, their nationality. And in the end, those things do not matter. Not in the face of what they share.
I look back and see how often I used the word “true” in this reflection, and I suppose that’s the key. Clavell doesn’t let death end the story. Mariko’s letter gives Blackthorne — the lost pilot — a new heading. Whether in Christian heaven or a Buddhist afterlife, or something else entirely, it doesn’t matter.
True love conquered all.