Asian Saga / YMMV - TV Tropes

Americans Hate Tingle: The Shogun miniseries was a ratings monster in the USA but was not received warmly in Japan. It was seen as subpar when it aired in Japan and criticisms included the fact that all in all it was just a generic period piece. Japan already had plenty of samurai epics and historical dramas on television so it wasn't as mindblowing as it was to Western audiences. It doesn't help a lot of the miniseries's inaccuracies and perspective of Japan through the eyes of an Australian author and Western studio filming it insulted audiences during its first airing in the country.
Complete Monster: Most of the books of the Asian Saga heavily feature a Gray-and-Gray Morality, and the majority of the antagonists are well rounded and semi-sympathetic, but Gorth from Tai-Pan is one of the exceptions, being a brutal sexual sadist who, unlike his father, has no sense of honour whatsoever. Gorth enjoys hurting or assaulting others and clearly enjoys their pain. In order to hurt his enemy of the Struan family, he tries arranging for his son to be drugged and bedded by a prostitute with syphilis which was completely incurable in those days and a very, very horrible way to go.
Cry for the Devil: In King Rat, Smedley-Taylor is a classist Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who is unrepentantly stealing food meant for the enlisted men, but the reveal that half of his family died while he was a prisoner is still a bit sad.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Linbar Struan's Butt-Monkey status as the least likely person to succeed Dunross as tai-pan throughout Noble House is a lot less amusing when Whirlwind strongly implies he became tai-pan by having Dunross' actual successor murdered.
- A real-life example: in the novel the First Central Bank of New York is scorned by most of the British characters for calling in all their loans and fleeing Hong Kong when it looked likely the Communists would take over in 1949. In real-life Jardine Mathesons, the company Struan's is based on, would incorporate itself in Bermuda rather than Hong Kong to avoid Communist takeover in 1997, a move derided by many within the Colony (Swires, the company Rothwell-Gornt is based on, notably stayed and suffered no ill effects).
Hilarious in Hindsight: In Shogun, Blackthorne politely refuses to "pillow" a woman, but goes ballistic when his hosts suggest that he might prefer a male instead. In the mini-series, where Blackthorne is portrayed by Richard Chamberlain (who eventually came out as gay), this scene today strikes a very different note.
Heartwarming Moments: In Shogun, Mariko's letter to Blackthorne after her death, encouraging him to build his boat and to never fear. He, in return, dreams of a beautiful, a perfect ship that will conquer all the seas of the world, and unite England and Japan, and will be named The Lady, in Mariko's honor.
Magnificent Bastard (Shogun): Lord Yoshi Toranaga flawlessly combines The Chessmaster and Manipulative Bastard gloriously, playing an endless game of Xanatos Speed Chess when his plans get derailed. Both Toranaga and his nemesis Ishido had sworn to their late master that they would protect his young son until he was old enough to rule, but Ishido believes Toranaga intends to supplant the boy and become Shogun himself, and he's absolutely right. Toranaga proceeds to manipulate the entirety of Japan, pulling off a set of brilliant, almost impossible gambits to provoke Ishido into war, marginalize his rivals and allow Toranaga to move against them with full support of the populace. In the end, Toranaga's brilliance ends in him completely crushing his rivals and ascending to the position of Shogun with aplomb, with narration even stating that his victory "wasn't an Act of God. It was an Act of Toranaga."
Memetic Mutation: From Shogun: Hai, Toranaga-sama!.
Nightmare Fuel: During a Heroic BSoD, Blackthorne ends up having a vivid and nightmarish hallucination in Shogun, which is presented as a rambling run-on sentence that runs for about a page. Where he is at the time is no barrel of laughs either.
- Say what you will about Ishido, but his was a HORRIBLE way to die.
- In Noble House Linc during the slide, being stuck under over a dozen feet of rubble in complete darkness and unable to move.
- Hong Kong SI's Red Room.
Retroactive Recognition: A pre-Hogan's Heroes Richard Dawson appears in the 1965 adaptation of King Rat as Weaver, the paratrooper who arrives at the camp as an advance scout.
Strangled by the Red String: It is clear that Clavell is very fond of Erikki Yokkonen and enjoys writing the romance between him and Azadeh in Whirlwind. But with Erikki flying off into a rage at the drop of a hat and Azadeh coming across as a wallflower, the romance can appear as a farcical melodrama distracting from the main plot.
Woolseyism: The Saga as a whole received two translations into Polish. One is done "a book a piece" by random translators. The other is by Małgorzata and Andrzej Grabowski^note, a married couple that translated almost entire Saga on their own. As such, it has very distinctive and consistent style, since the translators put effort into applying Polish-specific dialects and local grammar patterns to indicate how different characters talk, rather than doing literal, 1:1 translation. This especially shines in Tai-pan and King Rat, where even such things like Texan drawl, differences between Malay and Javanese or Brock's antiquated phases get their Polish equivalent, which aren't direct translations, but still instantly "click" to Polish readers with regional- and period-specific associations.

YMMV / Asian Saga

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