Why Are People Asking If There Will Be a Shōgun ‘Season 2’…?
FX‘s adaptation of James Clavell’s doorstop of a novel, Shōgun, met — and for some, surely surpassed — any expectations, given its stellar cast and high-level production values.
The 10-episode series, which also streamed on Hulu and wrapped on April 23, covered the beginning, middle and end, and many key moments in between, of the 1,200-page novel that Clavell first published in 1975, building to a finale that was beautiful, poetic and largely satisfying.
TVLine readers, for one, gave said finale an average grade of “A-,” while the season overall earned a rare “A+.”
So while it’s understandable to see fans of the FX series clamoring for “more,” isn’t any “Season 2” talk a bit, well, silly? A case of, as foundation-less TV adaptations have taught us before, “be careful what you wish for”?
The Shōgun story has been told. There is no “second novel” involving any of these characters to adapt. Several major characters didn’t make it to the end, to live on in any form. And we know the sad destiny of one of the leads who did survive the finale.
It’s one thing for, say, HBO to look at the mantel full of Emmys that Big Little Lies — originally a closed-ended “limited series,” remember! — amassed and nudge that adaptation’s EPs to return to the well. But by most any metric, that follow-up season did not measure up to the first.
Any stab at a Shōgun Season 2 fashioned from whole cloth would seem destined for an even steeper drop-off in quality. Yet people are out there, prompt-prompt-prompting the TV series’ showrunners, the husband-and-wife team of Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, to roll the dice and do their best to emulate Clavell.
Marks and Kondo, thankfully, do not seem eager to take the bait.
“[It’s] not even [about] topping the book, but, how do you even equal the roadmap that Clavell laid out? And I don’t know if it’s possible,” Marks told our sister site THR.com. “I don’t know if Clavell could have done it either. That’s probably why he moved on to other books too, right? He knew what he had done.”
Speaking of those other books in Clavell’s Asian Saga, Marks said that he is in the middle of reading Tai-Pan (“a great book”), which Clavell penned nearly a decade earlier.
“I’ve been telling Rachel about it as I’ve been reading it and saying, ‘Well! He did it again.’ But it’s completely different” — not any sort of prequel or sequel to Shōgun, Marks noted. “It’s about Hong Kong in the early days, a totally different world, so it’s not just ‘playing the hits.’ He’s conjuring new vivid characters that stand 75,000 feet tall all at once.”
Are you relieved to see Marks and Kondo hesitant to tackle a Shōgun Season 2 based on nothing? And would you actually like to see a Tai-Pan miniseries instead?
Why? Because miniseries based off of one book have been made into more than one series (Big Little Lies, for example), so people think that a story can be made out of nowhere to further the plot, when the story has loose ends tied up (I assume, since I haven’t finished Shōgun yet).
This show should never be extended. The writing, sets, and especially the cast are what made it great. The main reason to leave it alone is because the glue of the show died and it would not be the same without Mariko, not to mention losing Fuji to being a nun. I’m more concerned that the show and cast get their flowers. If you don’t see the great work Anna Sawai did as Mariko just watch Shogun, Monarch, and Fast 9. Completely different performances in all 3.
If you want to see the story continued, find some fanfic, or write your own.
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Otherwise, you will only be disappointed.
I accept that Shogun ended, but Tai-Pan was like the 2nd book that makes up the Asian Saga of James Clavell’s shared “Shogun” universe and it does some have references to the previous book IIRC. I would love to see them tackle it next as also another miniseries and move forward with the rest of other books. I think it’s the best and logical solution to keep enjoying of these adaptations. So bring forward Tai-Pan! I would love to see it.
I get why they are focused on Tai-Pan – it’s a great book but there is – at least technically – a sequel of sorts to Shogun which is Clavell’s last published novel, Gai-jin. That story has Yoshi Toranaga, a descendant of Lord Toranaga and one of the Council of Elders, as one of the main protagonists for anyone interested. That said, Tai-Pan – or Noble House – are better overall reads if you like Clavell’s writing.
Even “Gai-jin” isn’t really a sequel. People would be misled if they thought it was. They’re far separated in time and have nothing to do with the characters from Shōgun. And I doubt the same team would be willing to make it, given how they shied away from giving Blackthorne any real role to play in “Shōgun”. “Gai-jin” is even _more_ Western-centric with a majority of the main characters being Europeans, and depicts a time in history when Japan was being forced to open up much more to the West. Not only did the production team largely avoid portraying those aspects of the plot in “Shōgun”, they focused on presenting an idealized view of Japanese characters, culture and history while relegating the Europeans to bit parts and backwards characterizations and, even in the case of Blackthorne, 1-dimensional characters. But “Gai-jin” is centered much more upon the negative (that is, human) aspects of both the Japanese and European characters’ cultures and institutions. I really don’t think Sanada Hiroyuki and the rest of the Japanese team would be willing to make a series like that.
Not sure if you’ve read Gai-jin. It’s not western centric, it tells two stories in one novel, half of the novel talks about the Tai-pan characters (or their families) and half of the novel covers the Toranaga descendants and their enemies and intermingles them. Gai-jin can also be a very good continuation of Shogun though the story is 265 years apart, it shows the gradual end of the Toranaga shogunate through the eyes of Toranaga’s descendant (who eventually becomes the last Toranaga shogun).
I’d love to see them tackle Tai-Pan, which is very different – though vaguely loosely sort of connected, as all of Clavell’s books are. It’s another saga of Europe and Asia and culture clash but about Hong Kong and it would be interesting to see how they could pull it off. (and far more interesting than trying to write a half-assed sequel where they pull some historical events and end up with another white guy showing up and having to introduce new characters).
Don’t do it. People are never content with just one amazing season of a show. Big Little Lies and GOT are examples that show going beyond the original text is not always a good idea.
Because we have history that can be drawn from. An actual sequel that really happened.
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And there are things Toranaga tells us are going to happen that they could show.
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And because if the second season was only half as good as the first, it would still be worth it.
“We have history that can be drawn from.” Yes you’re right. But we no longer have the storytelling genius of James Clavell. That’s the big problem. Clavell, like James Michener, takes history and creates a magnificent story from it.
I think Shogun was amazing and there is no need to shoehorn in another season. But I would love to see Marks & Kondo tackle other feudal Japan era novels like Lian Hearn’s Tales of the Otori series.
I’d love to see someone adapt Lucia St. Clair Robson’s “The Tōkaidō Road”.!
(On second thought, maybe not. I’m starting to get leery of adaptations of my favorite novels… They almost never do justice to them. Even “Shōgun”, as good and as beautifully done as it was, was a shadow of the story and characters that Clavell created in the novel.)
While the novel ends here, the story historically does go on. Anjin remains in Japan and serves a key figure in trade. Few other surviving shipmates also remain in Japan. After death of Tokugawa Ieyasu, his son takes over. The real life William Adams remarried in Japan to a japanese and had kids. There is more story.
I hated how the season ended. Part of the reason people are asking about 2nd season, because the ending was confusing and it leaves you thinking this is not the end.
Agreed. If you want to hear more about what happens to Anjin, read the wikipedia entry for William Adams (pilot). Good stuff
I LOVED this series. I saw the original Shogun in the 80s, I was very young but it impressed upon me, so I was excited to see this one. I do not think a second season would work. This one is great. I knew Mariko’s ultimate fate so I was prepared for that. The last episode was good enough. I was happy to finally see Fuji finally get what she wanted. I loved her character. In my head I have decided that Blackthorne checks in on her every now and then. Overall, I will miss this show but I am sure I will rewatch in the future. I also hope the original streams at some point soon.
I loved the series but I have to admit the finale was a disappointment. We wait for this big battle that NEVER arrives
So I get why people want more as this just didn’t do it justice. I enjoyed some parts of FX’s more than the 80s version, but the 80s version had a slower pace and longer runtime and was better served for it, though that didn’t focus enough on the Japanese characters (it was the 80s after all) which if it had another day or two on its run it would have been complete and not even need a remake. FX shifted it to really focus on the Japanese side of things this time, ignoring the rest of the cast to its detriment. I would rather had seen them do two seasons of 8 flushing things out for both and doing it right, etc. The difference for me overall is that I would watch the 80s version again and again, but I doubt I’ll ever watch this new version again.
I hate that people are forgetting meaning of “limited series”. Especially if its book adaptation and it is finished, I get that if we love a show we want more of it, but its not worth ruining perfect ending. Hope FX and showrunners won’t get swayed by the shows popularity and change their minds. I’ve seen cases like that, never ended well.
well there is continue for shogun in Callvel’s Gaijin
also the noble house has small camo of anjin descendant
Actually, there are two characters in Noble House that are descendants of Shogun characters, Riko Anjin, the wife of a spy, a descendant of Blackthorne, and Hiro Toda the shipping executive, descendant of Hiromatsu.
I mean, I get it, because I’d gladly watch more of just Toranaga and Blackthorne… but I know these things don’t tend to go well.
I hope they do Tai-pan. That is also one hell of a novel from James Clavell, about the giants that built Hong Kong. And then I hope they move on to Gai-jin, another good Clavell novel, combine the descendants of botht he Tai-pan characters and the Shogun characters into one big denoument. I hope they also remake Noble House, a great novel in modern day Hong Kong, but not in the way The Big Short was made, but more of like a Margin Call like movie.
They don’t need to do a season series (i.e season 2). If only they do a Clavell Asian Saga, that would be awesome. Tai-pan, the opium traders who went to war with China and built Hong Kong, Gai-jin, the downfall of the Toranaga shogunate, King Rat, Clavell’s fictional account of his POW years in Changi during World War 2, Noble House, a great business story in Hong Kong which was made into a miniseries in 1988 with Pierce Brosnan as lead. Even Whirlwind, how the west lost Iran during the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, which today is all too relevant given the West’s conflict with Iran. Those are great stories they can build on.