I like it, the acting is really good, the visuals are awesome, the pacing is good and the overall story is great, so why does it fall short for me? Because it is an increadibly shallow adaptation of Clavell's book.
Clavell's book is about a stranger in a strange land, meaning understanding cultural differences, and the major themes are about honor, duty, sacrifice, and power. And that is the problem as I see it because besides the acting and the visuals - which are great - the story actually lacks these elements or gloss over them as if they are not important. But they are! It's what makes the book (and the 80's version great). Here's a couple of examples: We don't really get to know why Blackthorne (Anjin) is important, or the role of christianity in Japan, or pretty much any other social aspect of Japanese culture. There is sub-plot about a petulant and reckless son, which I don't remember from the book, and I have no idea what the point of him is, except for the writers to add to the story themselves. Similarly, Mariko from the book and the 80's version is probably my favorite character after Blackthorne, and I don't really recognize her in this version; by making her tougher, they also make her more distant and it diminishes her inner strength which makes her less sympathetic (to me at least).
In a nutshell this is what i see as the problem, when the show sticks to the book's original themes it is awesome, when they they don't you see actions taken where you sit back and say "that was weird why do that?" And here's the kicker, the very best dialogs and scenes are taken verbatim out of the book, so it's not like the writers don't understand that the source material is superior.
Still, the show is absolutely watchable, but I always measure a show's quality by whether I want to rewatch it, and I doubt it, instead I actually feel like watching the 80's version instead - that's not really a glowing endorsement is it?
