James Clavel's novel Shogun is set around the late stages of the Sengoku period in Japan. Although a lot of the novel is fictional, it is largely inspired by real events and people, such as characters like Toranaga (Tokugawa Ieyasu), John Blackthorne (William Adams) and so on. The novel often depicts the japanese society of the time and describes the lifes of the farmers, samurai and others. My question is about how historically accurate are those depictions? Are they close to reality or just western reimagining? Any aditional comments about the novel are very welcome.

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