I love this show more than I loved the original book. Yes, many things are left out, and it seems to me that this show is really about the women of the World of Shogun. Not about the men, except maybe Toranaga. But while this ruins other shows it works in Shogun. These women are excellent characters. Here we have "strong women" without the forced stuff, the nonsense politics. Also the show is maybe more Japanese as the book, because it concentrates on Japanese culture, not just on Clavell's notion that Europeans were stinky.
The picture, the actors, the scenes, the mood everything is nearly perfect. When it ends it is chatartic. But we really needed a Sekigahara battle scene...That is what I am missing still.