Kashigi Yabushige

Lord of Izu, Yabushige is a regional daimyo who plays every side he can reach, currying favor with Toranaga while quietly weighing what a shipwrecked English pilot and his strange cargo might be worth to his own ambitions. Curious, greedy, and quick-witted, he watches, calculates, and adapts as the ground shifts beneath the realm.

Asano plays him as a man perpetually solving a survival equation in real time, and the fun is watching his face do the math before his mouth commits to an answer. He's craven and vain, but never stupid, which makes him the show's best source of dark comedy without ever tipping into caricature.