The vassals’ argument coheres in an impassioned challenge from Hiromatsu, Toranaga’s oldest and closest friend, who begs him to stop “throwing away all we’ve fought for.” Hiromatsu threatens to commit seppuku on the spot if Toranaga persists in his plan to surrender. Minute after tense minute, the two go back and forth, barely stifling their tears in a grim game of chicken — but Toranaga won’t relent.
“So you do believe in pointless death,” Hiromatsu says, seemingly stunned. “Your vassal dies in vain.”
“Then die,” Toranaga replies.
The ritual of seppuku has been described and threatened by multiple characters since episode 1, but it isn’t until this point that “Shogun” finally depicts the act in graphic, agonizing detail. Indeed, Hiromatsu’s death scene functions as a microcosm of the whole series: teasing us with the taboo thrill of violence, then really making it hurt when it sinks the knife in.
The good-hearted Hiromatsu is the canvas on which the sound and effects team paint a grotesque portrait of metal tearing through flesh and muscle and viscera, until the sword of his son Buntaro, who Hiromatsu has asked to “second” the act, severs his head. It rolls directly toward Toranaga, like a grotesque accusation.
Here’s your code of honor, the show seems to say. Choke on it.
But this magnificent scene plays a second, unexpected purpose. As noted above, Toranaga spends the episode radiating loser vibes. He’s in mourning — the Regents grant him several weeks to grieve, as per custom, before he needs to report for his execution — and he’s physically sick. In his every action, he appears to have completely given up. Earlier in the episode, he goes so far as to dispatch Father Alvito, the diplomatic Portuguese priest, back to Osaka to report that he’s accepted his fate. (But first he grants the priest land for a new church — right next to the red light district he’s ordered up for Gin and Kiku’s courtesan operation. There goes the neighborhood.)
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