Aramintai

Its cast is mostly Japanese and lots of Japanese in staff. And it is a story about Japan. Does it matter where it was filmed and where money came from? And are you so sure Asian dramas nowadays are all-Asian? With global streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ ordering Asian dramas for global market?
Biased people like you are the problem why shows like these can't get objective scores on MDL.

Also, it won't be shown in the drama, because the book ends on an earlier date, but more than 10 years later Tokugawa (Toranaga here), already a shogun, besieged Osaka castle to eliminate her son so that he wouldn't threaten his dynasty's rule. She and her son were forced to commit seppuku and Osaka castle was burned to the ground.

So it's funny to hear Toranaga bullshiting everyone in the drama how he doesn't want to be a shogun and wants peace. Sure, man, but irl you really wanted to become one, just like everybody else at that time.

I didn't read the book, but she's based on a real historical noble woman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodo-dono

There's a popular opinion that she was a wicked trickster of a woman, but then again, history was written by the victors.

It's also interesting how sumurai clan members were all related to each other through marriages, but it never stopped anybody from betraying even close relatives.

His deeds and thoughts which you described were shown here in 5-10 minutes tops. Heck, they don't even show how he's being taught Japanese by Mariko. Let's not pretend they didn't shove the protagonist here to the backline for the sake of other characters.
And the merit of this drama should be gauged by what's in the drama alone, not what was in the book, most of the people here didn't read it and probably never will.

Toranaga doesn't trust anybody, I get it. His retainers want to backstab him/use him/or die with him, that much is clear as well.
Gin-sama wants to build Yoshiwara, I get it too.
You don't have to explain the whole plot to me. And it doesn't excuse the protagonist's misuse here. Sure, we can hope for exposition of Toranaga's intent or inner thoughts in the nebulous future, but it's been too many episodes already and that's the whole point of this drama - his intentions are hidden from everybody intentionally, not just from the clueless protagonist, because he's a trickster.

My only hope that they'll kick off some action soon in Osaka for the protagonist to finally be more involved, for I don't care much about him slacking around the village with nothing to do. But that's a slim chance because they'll most likely put Mariko at the front in Osaka, since her tragic fate there is already written.
And btw, their romance here is much worse than in the old TV series, not feeling it all. Maybe because they've cut most of their private moments together and she's just mostly there to translate for him.

Also, I don't know whether it was in the book, but these suicidal inclinations of family members who survived their family head's seppuku historically are all wrong. The whole point of seppuku was to save family's honor and lives. Usually only the one who was at fault committed seppuku and by doing that his family was spared repercussions. Nobody additionally killed their babies and other family members, for they were innocent. And it was not required of other family members to follow suit and commit seppuku, if everybody was forced to do that there'd be no samurai clans left soon enough. I've already read a number of historians commenting on this bs.
So Toranaga's retainer was a double idiot by killing his child and Mariko being suicidal over her father's betrayal and death is also something extraordinary. Also, contradictory to her catholic faith. The historical noble woman her character's based on actually refused to commit suicide when she was about to get captured by the enemy, her husband's retainer killed her instead on the prior orders from the husband in case something like that happened.

Watch the end of episode 4, it's a surprise.

It was a common practice for women from samurai families to learn to use naginata or a spear. It's nothing special here, Mariko also was shown to be a practitioner.

Are you from the West? It may be a stereotype, but westerners who don't have any contact with East Asian people in they daily lives have trouble distinguishing East Asian faces. You just need to watch more Asian media. They all clearly have very different faces.
Also, reading about historical events the drama's based on can also help figuring out who's who among the characters.

They're not giving the protagonist much to do in the last few episodes, do they? He starts to look like a prized exotic curiosity that Toranaga keeps around and maintains in good condition. I get that he was a very minor player in irl events, but since he's the protagonist here he needs something to do besides sitting around cluelessly or fumbling yet another local custom. His actor also has that perpetually surprised naive face that doesn't help his case either.
If he was relegated to a minor character or removed altogether from the plot it would still be awesome without him, because let's be honest here - it's all about Toranaga's ascension to become a shogun and interesting political intrigues framed by a peculiar set of rules, rituals and customs of that era.
I don't recall this being a problem in the old TV series, the focus on the protagonist was much clearer there and he was more involved.

Tis synopsis reminds me of Suspicious Partner.

He was a fool and died like one.

Half-assed plot and half-hearted performance. Lots of nonsense, dumbest break-ups and very unnecessary time skip. A way below average drama.

They add foreigner actors in dramas here as cameos at the very least. No excuse here besides bias or being lazy. Just need to create an actor page and add it to this drama.

Not really. People are mostly talking about bad writing in general.

Not really, FL's acting is questionable and both leads have failed to provide believable chemistry on screen. At times it's also partly due to nonsensical dialogues during emotional scenes.

Because it's badly written?

Still not an excuse to treat a child like that. What's worse he never told anybody the reason of his behavior, so at least people wouldn't misunderstand. He basically let everybody in the house bully ML.

You gotta be kidding, right?

What's more appalling was that the crashed car was just there on the road all that time until grandpa drove over. Nobody called the ambulance, nobody cared, they just ran off. So that reporter and father can tell all the stories they like, but they're guilty as sin.

It also sounds like Honest Candidate with Ra Mi Ran.