Why Lord Toranaga Smiles During Shoguns Final Seppuku Scene

WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Shogun’s finale.

Lord Toranaga smiled during Yabushige’s seppuku in Shōgun’s finale, subtly confirming Yabushige’s suspicions about Toranaga’s true motives. Shōgun episode 10 was very faithful to James Clavell’s novel and concluded the story without showing any major battles. Rather than depicting the Battle of Sekigahara between Toranaga’s forces and Ishido’s, Shōgun’s finale focused on revealing how Toranaga had been manipulating everything and everyone since the beginning of the show.

It did not take long for Yabushige to be exposed for helping Ishido attack the Osaka Castle, which directly led to Lady Mariko’s death in Shōgun episode 9. Sentenced to commit seppuku, Yabushige asked Toranaga to be his second. Before it happened, the two characters had a brief but important conversation in which much was revealed.

Just before he committed seppuku, Yabushige asked Toranaga to reveal his plan. As noted by Yabushige himself, he was going to take the secret with him to the grave anyway. Considering Yabushige’s life was about to end there, Toranaga had no problem telling him the truth about his plan. This is when Shōgun’s finale explains how Crimson Sky had already been completed, why Lady Mariko’s death was essential for Toranaga’s plan, and how Ishido would be defeated in the Battle of Sekigahara. After years of deception, Yabushige finally understood what Toranaga was plotting.

With the Heir on his side and Ishido defeated, Toranaga would have no obstacles in becoming shōgun, even though he always said this was not his goal. When Yabushige realized becoming shōgun was Toranaga’s plan the whole time, he asked the Lord of Kanto to confirm his theory. Toranaga refused to answer, saying “Why tell a dad man the future?” However, just as he was about to cut Yabushige’s head off, Toranaga subtly smiled. This was the confirmation Yabushige needed to know that he was right. Toranaga was indeed plotting to become shōgun the whole time.

Yabushige’s seppuku scene was arguably the most important moment in Shōgun’s finale. As a “man with no future,” Yabushige could ask Toranaga questions he would never answer to anyone else. Yabushige, Mariko, John Blackthorne, and everyone else on Shōgun were pawns in Lord Toranaga’s long game, which is something most of them did not realize. Interestingly, in episode 1, Yabushige said to Omi “Why tell a dead man the future?” This was the exact same line Toranaga used during Yabushige’s seppuku, suggesting Omi was also working for Lord Toranaga from the start.

Except for the unpredictable arrival of the Anjin in Japan, everything that happened in Shōgun was part of Toranaga’s plan. His journey into becoming shōgun started way before the events of the show and can be traced back to the death of Lady Mariko’s father, whom Lord Toranaga manipulated into rebelling against Kurada. Shōgun’s Lord Toranaga is based on the true story of Tokugawa Ieyasu, whose shōgunate started in Edo at the beginning of the 17th century and lasted hundreds of years.

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