Series Plot: Shogun, set in feudal Japan, charts the collision of two ambitious men from different worlds and a mysterious female samurai: John Blackthorne, a risk-taking English sailor who ends up shipwrecked in Japan, a land whose unfamiliar culture will ultimately redefine him Lord Toranaga, a shrewd, powerful daimyo, at odds with his own dangerous, political rivals and Lady Mariko, a woman with invaluable skills but dishonorable family ties, who must prove her value and allegiance.
Episode plot: Blackthorne's arrival in Osaka stirs up a hornet's nest of rivalries. Mariko is trapped between her cause and her faith when she must translate for the barbarian in Lord Toranaga's custody.