On the other hand, in the postscript of "Hasha no Ie," a novel about Ieyasu, Ryotaro SHIBA wrote that 'There were bad aspects as well as good aspects' in the Edo period started by Ieyasu, and he also pointed out that 'The ethnic natures of the Japanese were made undersized and deformed,' and he was quite critical about the closed nature and conservatism of the control.
一方、司馬遼太郎は家康について記した小説「覇王の家」あとがきで、家康が築いた江戸時代については「功罪半ばする」とし、「（日本人の）民族的性格が矮小化され、奇形化された」といった論やその支配の閉鎖ないし保守性については極めて批判的である。