The short answer is a resounding "No!" because no place is perfect. Perusal of any textbook on modern Japan (ca. 1500-present) will reveal that Japan is a entity that had its fair share of famines, crime, villains, betrayals and other sordidness. The Sengoku era (ca. 1450s-1600s), which Shogun takes place in, tended to be a period in which was characterized by a chaotic social order and pervasive warfare. Although the Tokugawa Era did impart to Japan about two hundred years of peace and a rich cultural development, there were tensions underneath and the Tokugawa state did have a very punitive system of justice.

The question though remains is if these flaws are so apparent, and to which it must be said are shared by countries other than Japan, why have so many Westerners romanticized Japan? There's a very important book in British colonial studies, Ornamentalism by David Cannadine, that provides an interpretative model applicable to this situation. Cannadine argues that one of the cultural imperatives driving British imperial expansion was a desire of some Britons to escape the grim realities of the industrial revolution and capitalism. When the British encountered societies in Africa, India, or Asia, they projected their own sense of hierarchy, which was increasingly under attack within the metropole, onto these non-Europeans. The British thus romanticized entities like the Indian Raj or African tribal culture, often ignoring the complicated social realities that lay underneath these structures. Implicit within this idea was the notion that these non-European societies were uncorrupted by industrial capitalism and reflected a static eternal culture.

There is some of the Western portrayals of Japan that fall under this rubric of using another culture as a means for escape. The Last Samurai features a shell-shocked Western protagonist who finds solace in Japanese culture. The agents of the West are both corrupt and corrupting for Japan. However, this romanticized notion of Japan long predates Tom Cruise. Lafcadio Hearn was a British-Greek expatriate who made his home in Japan and translated many Japanese folktales for a Western audience in the 1890s. Although Hearn was in many ways an admirable pioneer folklorist, bringing to the West Japanese tales and folklore, his novels and translations often glossed over the negative sides of Japanese culture. Hearn's books, such as Glimpse of an Unfamiliar Japan also posited that Japanese culture possesses an inscrutable eternalness.

The problem with this conceptualization of Japanese culture, aside from its inaccurate take on its history and society, is that it reduces the role of Japanese into spectators into their own culture. Implicit within this cultural lens is the idea that Japanese culture, architecture, its Bushido code, katanas, Ikebana, exists for the pleasure and edification of non-Japanese. After all, even though Ken Watanabe was the titular "last samurai," the real star is Tom Cruise. It creates an expectation of Japanese society and culture that the Japanese cannot possibly meet.

If you're still with me here, Columbia University published a good booklet Learning From Shogun that details some of the history behind Clavell's novel.

Tokugawa Japan was far from perfect. The Tokugawa Era is indeed known for around 200 years of peace in Japan, but the end of the era is known for famine, taxes, and riot because of them. In 1866 alone there were 35 urban riots and 106 peasant riots. You have to ask yourself something about the Tokugawa Era in relation to this question. If Japan was so perfect then why was there a revolution?

Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.