Shortly after World War II the Americans did observe and censor the newly made movies in Japan. Did Kurosawa make that many Shakespeare-adaptations in that time, because it was easier to get them accepted? Or was he simply a Shakespeare-fan?
Answer
One critic's opinion is that Kurosawa was indeed influenced by censorship, both Japanese and American, during World War II, but that was not the only reason that he produced a lot of foreign adaptations:
Perhaps the most significant factor in his stylistic development as a director was WWII. At the time that Kurosawa was developing his own distinctive style the censors had great power. During the war it was the Japanese who dictated content, and after it the Occupying American's [sic] had censorial control. However, his love of foreign literature and film predated this era.
It looks like the opposite of your question might be true. Kurosawa attempted to release a film in 1943 based on a judo novel by a Japanese author, and Japanese censors deemed the film too Western in style or content. From Wikipedia:
Shooting of Sanshiro Sugata began on location in Yokohama in December 1942. Production proceeded smoothly, but getting the completed film past the censors was an entirely different matter. The censorship considered the work too "British-American" (an accusation tantamount, at that time, to a charge of treason), and it was only through the intervention of director Yasujiro Ozu, who championed the film, that Sanshiro Sugata was finally accepted for release on March 25, 1943. (Kurosawa had just turned 33.) The movie became both a critical and commercial success. Nevertheless, the censorship office would later decide to cut out some 18 minutes of footage, much of which is now considered lost.
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