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Shōgun’s Anna Sawai Felt Freest in Lady Mariko’s Final Decision
“Up until then I had to hold it all in.”
Torn between loyalty to her family, whose memory she desires to honor, and her husband, Buntaro, who denies her the chance, Shōgun ’s resident translator, as portrayed by the preternaturally composed Anna Sawai, eventually finds herself central to Lord Yoshii Toranaga’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) grand plot to survive the political intrigue of Sengoku-period Japan. In a succession of breathtaking sequences, Mariko weaponizes those clashing codes of honor to undermine Ishido’s position, first sacrificing her retinue and fruitlessly trying to fight off the castle guardsin order to draw out evidence of everyone’s captivity. In a tragic, poetic moment, she commits to her role in Toranaga’s plan, sacrificing herself in an explosion meant to bust open the room they were holed up in, resolving her many tensions with an act that would finally bring her and her disgraced family honor.
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