From HBO’s Euphoria to Netflix’s The Gentlemen, there’s a frustrating trend with the shows we actually want more of being stalled for whatever reason. And disappointingly enough, this also looks to be the case with Shogun season 2.
Hailed as “Game of Thrones set in Feudal Japan,” this prestige drama based on the 1975 James Clavell novel — which is itself loosely based on the relationship between English navigator William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu (daimyō turned founding shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate) — ticks all the boxes: monster viewership, critical praise across the board, and most importantly, elite quality content.
So what’s preventing the world from binging Shogun season 2?
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Has Shogun season 2 been confirmed by FX?
At the time of this writing, Shogun season 2 has not yet been greenlit by FX. Nor do there appear to be any plans for such an outcome given it had only been conceived as a miniseries.
“We took the story to the end of the book and put a period at the end of that sentence,” series co-creator Justin Marks told The Hollywood Reporter.
“We love how the book ends; it was one of the reasons why we both knew we wanted to do it — and we ended in exactly that place. And I’ve been party to this in the past with shows like this, where you build a whole factory, and it only pumps out 10 cars and closes up shop.”
“We’re very proud of that because the book ends so beautifully and boldly in this very unexpected and meditative kind of way. So, the story is complete.”
Justin Marks (via Town & Country)
Marks continued: “It’s a bummer. You know, one of our producers wrote a nearly 900-page instruction manual for how we do this show — almost as long as the book Shogun itself. All of this infrastructural knowledge went into it.”
“I just hope someone else — maybe a friend — needs a production primer on feudal Japan at some point, so I can be like, ‘Here you go, use this book. That will save you 11 months.'”
“It feels a lot like parenting, where you get really good at, like, washing bottles, or all the other things that babies require, and then suddenly they don’t need any of that anymore. And you’re like, ‘Aw, I got so good at that,'” added series co-creator Rachel Kondo (who also happens to be Marks’ wife).
There is, however, a sliver of hope. As fans of the literary inspiration know, Clavell’s fictional universe doesn’t end at Shogun. Both Marks and Kondo have also flirted with the idea of adapting The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell and calling it a “pseudo-season-2” as per the suggestion of The Hollywood Reporter’s Patrick Brezeski.
“We also made this show so long ago, because of the long tail of postproduction on it,” explained Justin Marks.
“It’s not like a normal TV series, where if we were in a situation like this promoting it, we wouldn’t just be in the writers’ room already, we’d be on set shooting Shogun season 2 by now.”‘
Justin Marks (via The Hollywood Reporter)
Elsewhere, in conversation with Town & Country, Marks revealed he was going to recovery time to “think about what will be next.”
“But honestly, it’s hard because you don’t have a master storyteller to set the map for you. So that would be a tough one.”
Fingers crossed.
What could the second season of Shogun be about?
Unless Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks decide to expand upon the original novel’s storyline — similar to how David Farr plans to continue The Night Manager starring Tom Hiddleston for the BBC and Amazon Prime Video — there’s only one path forward.
For context, the source material on which Shogun is based represents just one of six novels from James Clavell’s Asian Saga. Chronologically, it’s followed by:
- Tai-Pan (set in Hong Kong, 1841)
- Gai-Jin (set in Japan, 1862)
- King Rat (set in a Singaporean Japanese POW camp, 1945)
- Noble House (set in Hong Kong, 1963)
- Whirlwind (set in Iran, 1979)
Assuming it continues to explore a sensationalised version of Japanese history, they’ll pick things up over 200 years after the events of Shogun with Gai-Jin — official synopsis: “Chronicling the adventures of Malcolm Struan, the son of Culum and Tess Struan, in Japan. The story delves deeply into the political situation in Japan and the hostility Westerners faced there, and is loosely based on the Namamugi Incident and the subsequent Anglo-Satsuma War.”
But if they choose to take the anthology route a la True Detective and delve into Tai-Pan, we can expect another prestige drama about European and American traders who find themselves in Hong Kong circa 1842 (the end of the First Opium War).
It’s also worth noting the real-life Tokugawa shogunate famously lasted for over 200 years. Perhaps Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks could simply fill in the narrative blanks with David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet as the springboard?
Who would the Shogun season 2 cast members be?
Considering the only way forward for FX’s Shogun-verse is to adapt the other novels in James Clavell’s Asian Saga, we’d theoretically be dealing with a completely new cast lineup.
Sadly, this means we probably won’t be seeing any more Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Yoshii Toranaga, Cosmo Jarvis as Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, and — [SPOILERS] — certainly not Anna Sawai in light of what tragically happens to Lady Toda Mariko in ‘Chapter Nine: Crimson Sky.’
There is a Shogun season 2 release date or trailer…
… but watch this space for any potential developments on both fronts. In the meantime, check out the trailer for Shogun season 1 below and revisit the limited series in its entirety via Disney+.
Shogun (2024) Synopsis:
The series follows “the collision of two ambitious men from different worlds and a mysterious female samurai — John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), a risk-taking English sailor who ends up shipwrecked in Japan, a land whose unfamiliar culture will ultimately redefine him; Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a shrewd, powerful daimyo, at odds with his own dangerous, political rivals; and Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai), a woman with invaluable skills but dishonourable family ties, who must prove her value and allegiance.”
