Shogun Star Offers Season 2 Update

Shōgun is coming back to FX and Hulu for Seasons 2 and 3, while Season 1 of the show rides a massive wave of awards hype, having earned the most Emmy Nominations for a TV drama this year. Series star Hiroyuki Sanada (who plays Lord Toranaga) has already been confirmed to be returning for Shogun Season 2, and he has some cryptic but intriguing new updates to share about the future of the show. 

Sanada was featured as part of Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, where he was asked about the situation regarding Shogun Season 2. Season 1 of the show was an adaptation of the Shogun novel (1973) by James Clavell – including the somewhat definitive conclusion to the book’s story, and the arc of its characters. So how will Shogun the TV series continue the story with the same depth and authenticity that Clavell’s novel achieved? 

 “We don’t have the novel,” Sanada admitted. However, the veteran actor/producer is undaunted, seeing the lack of source material as an opportunity: “Freedom is there…I hope our writers will enjoy the freedom and respect the novel, of course.”

Clavell’s Shogun novel is arguably a lengthy introduction to its central character, Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Sanada). The climactic act of the book (and show) sees Toranaga’s true level of treachery revealed, as he successfully arranges to win a war against his rival lords and seize the title of “Shogun” once held by his ancestors. However, Shogun’s central characters – including Toranaga – were based on real-life Japanese historical figures, with “Toranaga” being a fictionalized version of Lord Ieyasu Tokugawa, the founder of Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate, who ruled for more than two centuries during one of Japan’s great periods of unification. 

“He became my hero because he stopped the war period and created a peaceful era for about 260 years,” Sanada said, about Ieyasu Tokugawa. 

Even with the runway of the Shogun novel having run out, history is providing much more road for the show to travel down. Even though Tokugaway successfully became Japan’s first Shogun, he still had to actually unify the country, dealing with threats both internal (treachery from family, allies, and conspiring lords – not to mention external threats from nations like England and Spain trying to control Japan’s future. There’s not only Toranaga’s story that keeps going – John Blackthorne’s story (based on the real-life figure William Adams) is still intertwined with Toranaga and the re-shaping of Japan under the Shogunate. 

In fact, Sanada teases that Shogun Season 2 will feature a mix of returning characters, while “the other half will be new characters coming in.”

Shōgun is now streaming on FX on Hulu.