‘Shogun’ Creators Tease Epic War Scenes and Love Story for Season 2
The creators of the Emmy-winning drama “Shogun” offered a tantalizing glimpse into the ambitious scope of the show’s second season during a discussion at the Disney+ originals preview at the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort on Thursday, promising unprecedented battle sequences and an unexpected romance in addition to the series’ 10-year narrative leap.
Co-creator and executive producer Justin Marks described the second season as both a compelling love story and an exploration of the devastating costs of war, teasing visual scale beyond what audiences have seen before. “Part 2 is I would say two things,” Marks said. “Like the first season, I think part two is a very compelling, beautiful and you’ll never see an upcoming, completely unexpected love story. It’s also a story about war and the costs of war. There are battle sequences that we’re putting together now in part two. I don’t think you’ve ever seen anything like this on this scale, this kind of tragedy and this kind of humanity.”
The new season jumps forward ten years from the events that concluded season one, a creative choice that Marks says reflects both the realities of modern television production and an opportunity to rediscover the characters in a new context. “It’s going to take some time to produce this show. It’s not coming out a year later, and there’s something that drives me crazy when you watch a show that ended three years ago, and you get to season two and it’s like five minutes later,” Marks explained. “We’re trying to use this jump as a way to return to our characters for the very first time, to see them, to see what has changed in their lives over the course of the last ten years, and to rediscover them.”
The time jump also serves the show’s larger ambitions, which Marks described as “a saga first and foremost.” While the first season focused on agency and power, following “a man who sets out to establish peace from the doorstep of war,” the historical reality of Japan’s feudal trajectory means that season two will grapple with different themes. “As we know from history, that is not quite how things turned out for feudal Japan at the time,” Marks noted.
Co-creator and executive producer Rachel Kondo said the connection audiences made with the first season gave the creative team the confidence to venture into more challenging territory. “I think it was surprising to us that the audience was drawn into the story so emotionally and deeply,” Kondo said. “What we felt with the audience was that they had lent us the most important things. They lent us their time. They lent us their care, they lent us their attention. It’s really something that we’re taking with us into season two because it gives us courage.” That trust, she said, opens up creative possibilities. “If we let people follow us into this land of feudal Japan, perhaps they will follow us into deeper, more cavernous spaces.”
Star and executive producer Sanada Hiroyuki, whose performance as Lord Toranaga Yoshii earned him Emmy and Golden Globe awards, spoke at length about the show’s impact and what lies ahead. “It was a big surprise, a big surprise,” Sanada said. “We’ve won a lot of awards, and for me, especially as a producer and as a lead actor, every time I got an award was amazing. I never would have imagined a few years ago that I would be shooting in Vancouver.”
The veteran actor, who started out as a child actor in Japan and has worked locally for 40 years and in Hollywood for 20 years, reflected on pouring all that experience into the first season. “Being recognized in this way is an important point in my life,” he said. “During the award ceremonies, the faces of all the people involved, my seniors and teachers, appeared in my mind. In a way, I feel like I was able to repay them.”
Sanada emphasized the broader significance of the show’s success for Asian talent worldwide. “The awards I have received are not only for this work, not only for Japanese actors, but represent opportunities for talented individuals from different countries,” he said. “What was once called a dream can now be achieved if you work towards it. I hope this becomes a message.”
He had encouragement for aspiring actors. “As long as you prepare yourself so that you don’t get confused when your opportunity comes, by learning language, acting and physical skills, including movement, I believe these types of opportunities will arise again,” Sanada said. “I think this ‘Shogun’ platform has become an important stage to give opportunities to wonderful young talent and introduce them to the world. Please look ahead.”
Speaking about working with younger actors, including Asano Tadanobu, who played Yabushige Kashigi in the first season, Sanada said the experience was enriching. “Working with young actors is always stimulating, and I learn a lot from them,” he said. As an actor and producer of the series, he was able to provide guidance from the early stages of production, including advice on physical movements, sword techniques and how to properly sheathe the sword. “When good recordings were made, I felt even happier than when I succeeded myself. I worked with a parental sense of joy,” he said.
When asked what audiences can expect from the new season, Sanada teased surprises. “This is a historical story, but even those who know what happened in history will once again be surprised and excited by the twists and turns,” he said.
Sanada acknowledged the pressure to continue the success of the first season while expressing confidence in the team. “Of course I have pressure for season 2, but we have teamwork from season one and we have a lot of great new casts, so I can’t wait to start filming, and I can use my pressure as a force to create an even better season two,” he said. Kondo playfully reminded him to rest and take vitamins, noting that the new season will be demanding. Sanada joked that playing the character ten years older would allow for a calmer performance.
The production brings back two directors from the first season, Kamata Hiromi and Fukunaga Takeshi, while adding new voices including Anthony Byrne, Kate Herron and Marks himself to direct. Marks praised the new directors’ deep commitment to the world of the show. “Anthony and Kate, these two new faces coming to our show in Vancouver, are filmmakers and visionaries in their own right, and they came to this show as people who had really immersed themselves in the world of season one and fallen in love with it. We were really touched by that and the insights they had.” The directors are currently in pre-production in Vancouver, building sets for what promises to be a visually ambitious season.
With Season 2 expanding beyond James Clavell’s original novel, Marks emphasized the continued close collaboration with the author’s estate. Clavell’s daughter Michaela remains executive producer of the series and has been intimately involved in every creative decision. “She has been with us from the very beginning, our muse in this process, someone who really understands her father’s words and has been involved in every concept, every casting choice, every director’s choice,” Marks said. “She really is someone who keeps us honest with the words.”
The creative team began developing ideas for Season 2 during production of the first season, drawing on what Marks described as “the spirit of storytelling from the era in which ‘Shogun’ was written, which is a great serialized saga narrative from the 1970s where you could just pick up a story and immerse yourself in 100 different horizontal directions.
Kondo suggested that working within constraints actually improved their storytelling approach. “I think we found that having parameters improves the story,” she said. “We’ve had so many blocks along the way, COVID, a huge shoot, inexperienced people. We’ve learned to invite parameters. The biggest parameter for us right now is this history itself. We have to work within the boundaries of what happened, make choices and have discernment.”
Marks credited FX with giving the production creative freedom from the start, including the bold decision to produce the show primarily in Japanese with subtitles. “They allowed us to take these risks,” he said. “To do this show in the United States, mainly in Japanese, so that we can subtitle it the way we did. That’s up to them, to really give it to us. It was a very brave choice on their part.” That creative courage extended to allowing the show to explore “poetry, performance, dance competitions and all kinds of other things” rather than falling back on more conventional, action-driven storytelling.
While the creators remained tight-lipped on specific plot details, Marks acknowledged that the new season will introduce new faces in addition to returning cast members. “We killed a lot of people” in the first season, he said. “We have some really exciting characters this season, characters that I want to tell you all about but I can’t. These faces really stood out to us, so we’re so excited to bring our own families together with these new faces and see how they become part of this world.”
Season 1 of ‘Shogun’ broke the record for most Emmy Award wins for a series in a single season with 18 nods. Sanada became the first Japanese actor in history to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama. Anna Sawai was also the first actress of Asian descent to win the award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama.
