John Blackthorne is pilot of the Erasmus, the only remaining ship of five that left England with the goal of trading and pirating on behalf of the Queen of England. When the ship hits a serious storm, he is unable to fight the weather and the ship washes up near the coast of Japan. When Blackthorne wakes, he is in a Japanese house and is treated initially as an honored guest though his host knows that he and all the crew are bound to be summarily executed. As Blackthorne and the survivors from the crew fight to regain their freedom, the overseer of the village—Yabu—arrives, tortures one of the men to death and prepares to offload all the bounty from the Erasmus as his prize. Before Yabu can secure the items, a representative of a council that rules the region arrives and...