Shōgun obliterated ratings records and Emmy season throughout 2024 to become arguably the most iconic show of the year. Based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel about the power struggle within Japan’s government in the late 1500s and early 1600s that led to the Edo shogunate, the series is a rare breed in today’s TV landscape.
With incredible attention to detail, exquisite casting, accurate makeup and costume design, and music that fits the story to a tee, Shōgun is the entire package. The people making this Hulu series care about crafting art rather than just junk food television or a story you binge with your brain shut off. It requires you to think about what the characters are saying and invest in their motivations to get the most out of the plot and themes.
While Hulu and FX originality thought the show was going to be a miniseries because it’s an adaptation of a novel, the ratings and critical adulation for the series made it impossible not to follow up on the story with a second and third season. The White Lotus is another recent example of a show that was supposed to be a one-off and then evolved into a ratings bonanza with multiple seasons. Shōgun season 2 is in the earliest stages of development, and there are few details available about the project. Leave it to us to squeeze every last modicum of information from around the internet regarding this 18-time Emmy winner.
Who is starring in Shōgun season 2?
The season is in such early stages of development that only star actor Hiroyuki Sanada is confirmed to be returning so far. Sanada won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Yoshi Toranaga. Many fans felt the best performance in the series was from Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. It would certainly feel like something is missing without her, but Mariko died in the penultimate episode of season 1. The only way to get her back in the story is with creative measures like dream sequences, flashbacks, or other alternative methods of storytelling.
What will Shōgun season 2 be about?
Without a novel to base the story on, Shōgun season 2 has a lot of creative liberties it can express with its story. This is probably the biggest blessing and curse of pushing an adaptation past the point of the source material. Remember how Game of Thrones started to run off the track a little when George R.R. Martin wouldn’t finish his novels and the show strayed from his original story? Yeah, we don’t want to see that happen this time.
Because Shōgun is loosely based on real history and people from 1600s Japan, the writers will still draw inspiration from the events that happened during this era of history. We can assume that Lord Toranaga’s reign of power will be examined in a new way as the story picks up where we left off with him gaining control of the shogunate.
What are some similar shows to Shōgun to watch in the meantime?
Since it’s going to be quite a long time until the new season, we have some suggestions for shows that are similar to Shōgun that you can enjoy. Game of Thrones is the most thematically similar and grand in scale. The themes of backstabbing for power, loyalty, and royalty through differing bloodlines are some of the things that drew viewers to the HBO show.
If you want to stay in James Clavell’s world, there was a miniseries made using the same story in 1980. If you just like Japanese settings and the world of the show, you might enjoy something like Giri/Haji on Netflix.
When does Shōgun season 2 come out?
Shōgun season 2 will begin filming in the fall of 2025, according to Hiroyuki Sanada. The show’s star gave a little bit of wiggle room for this tentative date by saying that it would be pushed back if the scripts weren’t finished yet. The writer’s room is currently hard at work to produce another great season of TV. Without a lot of source material to draw upon, there is surely more debate about plotting, characterization, and the overall direction of the story.
If filming does begin in the fall, it should mean that we get the new season sometime in 2026. There aren’t a lot of special effects for this project compared to something like Stranger Things. Once filming gets underway, the process should move much quicker than some other popular series. Unfortunately, we don’t have a concrete date for when it will come out. Every prediction is based on previous filming schedules and how long it takes similar shows to release. With the slower production cycles in TV during the 2020s, expect to wait over a year for Shōgun season 2. Hulu and FX have already announced a third season of the show, too, which means we’ll have plenty of Shōgun in the works for the next several years.
