The original Shogun miniseries featuring Chamberlain is actually a bit longer, feels more drawn-out, feels more melodramatic at times and actually isn't a closer adaptation to the original popular historical novel like last year's version was. And that novel itself was a fictionalized story based around real characters, events, settings and even battles from late Warring States period in the early 17th century and details how Tokogawa Shogunate finally ended a near-130 year long civil war and helped start a period of dynastic rule that would last until 1860's and 1868's Meiji Restoration (an event most Japanese historians and many Japanese today view as their 4th of July: the beginning of their country's modern period)