Katie Yu/FX
FX's "Shōgun" is a historical drama set in Edo-era Japan, tracking a power struggle further muddied by the arrival of a foreigner, who may be a powerful asset.
The series, created by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, is based on James Clavell's 1975 novel. It stars Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Toranaga, a figure reminiscent of a real-life shōgun (military ruler) of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu. When a foreign pilot named John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) washes ashore, Toranaga realizes that he may have political utility. Toda Mariko, played by Anna Sawai, serves as a translator between the two.
But if you, like many critics, have been loving "Shōgun," there's a chance you're going to be disappointed.
"We took the story to the end of the book and put a period at the end of that sentence," 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."
Still, the show has been wildly successful for FX. And while there's no official word yet on how things will pan out, here's everything we know about whether the show will continue.
Not yet, but don't lose all hope.
When THR asked Marks to clarify whether his comments precluded a second season, he didn't immediately shut it down.
"Oh, that's just our bodies talking. Like, do you want to have another kid right now?" he said. "You know, we also made this show so long ago, because of the long tail of postproduction on it. 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 season two by now."
But Maria Gonzales, one of the show's editors, told ComicBook TV that the crew hadn't explicitly discussed a second season.
"At the time of completing, when we were done cutting, there wasn't really any mention of, or any serious plans about a season two," Gonzales said. "And I think that's kind of where we're at still. I'm not sure if it will happen."
Difficult to say. While a second season wouldn't necessarily require the same level of research and preparation — Marks told THR that the show's "production primer on feudal Japan" could save another show almost a year's time — the first season of Shōgun was a five-year journey, Marks told Town & Country.
And per Marks' comments, continuing onwards would mean diverging from Clavell's road map since the source material only consists of one book.
"Shōgun" is a self-contained novel. But Clavell wrote a series of novels, referred to as the "Asian Saga," that follow the meeting of Eastern and Western cultures.
There are five other novels in the series: "King Rat," "Tai-Pan," "Noble House," "Whirlwind," and "Gai-Jin," published from 1962 to 1993. They're set in a variety of countries and time periods, including the more recent past — "King Rat" takes place during World War II, and draws from Clavell's personal experience as a prisoner of war. "Tai-Pan," his next novel, takes place in 19th-century Hong Kong.
At this point, it's impossible to tell where a second season would go. If the show wanted to follow Clavell's work, it could take an anthology approach. Or, it could extrapolate past the original "Shōgun" novel and decide what's next for the show's characters.
"Shōgun" season one is now available to stream in its entirety on Hulu.
