Since Game of Thrones ended and left the television landscape with a prestige monocultural void, there have been several attempts at creating and crowning a successor. None have yet to come close to the event-like nature of Thrones. Shows like Amazon’s Rings of Power and even the Game of Thrones Spin-off House of the Dragon failed to capture what made audiences care so deeply and non-believers convert into fantasy enjoyers.
Early Thrones wasn’t an action-packed CGI spectacle. It was a chamber piece, with people talking in rooms for 90 percent of the episodes. People latched on to the show because of the drama and political machinations of its fleshed-out and developed cast of characters, not necessarily the dragons and ice zombies that lurked on the peripherals of the show until its last few seasons.
Shogun has the potential to be considered the next Thrones. And in this case, the comparison is more than a worthy one.
A limited series based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell, Shogun has been in development since 2018. Set in 17th-century Japan, the series takes place a year after the taiko, the supreme leader of Japan, has died, leaving the country in the hands of his council of five to rule in concert until his too-young-to-rule heir comes of age.
Every member of the council have their own agendas and factions. For example, there are the two Catholic Lords who have allied with the Portuguese and the Catholic Church, who hold a monopoly on trade with Japan. The council has turned against their fellow lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a famous warrior and loyalist to the taiko, who the council believes wants to establish himself as Shogun of Japan and rule the country singlehandedly.
We enter the story with Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira) scheming to vote on Toranaga’s impeachment, which, if found guilty, means death for himself and his underlords. At the same time, a Dutch ship piloted by John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) washes up on Japanese shores. The ship represents a threat to Portuguese dominance of the region. Toranaga sees it as an opportunity to disrupt the council and schemes to find the British pilot to learn everything he can and prepare for war.
Shogun is a historical fiction epic that is a bold series on a few fronts. It is almost entirely in Japanese, with some spoken English and Portuguese. It is a strong choice for a show angling to attract a significant audience to be so authentic and committed that it is unafraid of its audience reading subtitles.
It refuses to hold its audience’s hand, treating viewers like adults who can grapple with reading subtitles, which allows for some great performances from its mostly Japanese cast. Star and producer of the series Hiroyuki Sanada has commented on how the accuracy and care that went into the story and casting was non-negotiable if he was going to be on board.
Sanada has long been the actor Hollywood calls when they need a Japanese actor for a character in a movie, especially if that character wields a Katana (See John Wick 4). He starred alongside Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, a classic Hollywood white savior history movie, which Shogun could have absolutely been on the same spectrum as but thankfully isn’t.
In Shogun, Sanada is incredible as a calculating, enigmatic political tactician and honorable warrior. Toranaga is measured and reserved, and his subtle charisma tells us he is always three steps ahead. The show is a showcase for an actor who is one of the most recognizable Japanese performers ever and is now leading and producing a Western-made show that is one of the best-rated big-budget prestige series of the year.
As with Thrones, Shogun has several main characters with their own motivations and arcs. Alongside Sanada, we have Blackthorne, our unreliable audience avatar, who is a fish out of water in a foreign land. His character is anti-Portuguese/Catholic and is the key to the outside world for those in Japan skeptical of the Portuguese partnership. We see Blackthorne’s realization of how different the culture he is witnessing is through experiencing the ways of the Japanese people, how the Samurai operate, how their hierarchy is structured, and what their values are.
Another character of consequence is Anna Sawai’s Lady Mariko, who represents one of the key thematic angles of the show. She is a Japanese noble who speaks Portuguese and serves Toranaga. She is a devoted Catholic and is torn between translating Portuguese for her lord and her faith and relationship with the Portuguese priests she learned from. She starts to learn some of the truth about the role of her faith and how the Portuguese are using it to infiltrate Japan and make money with no other foreign powers to contend with.
Through three episodes, we understand so much about a character like Mariko, but there’s still so much under the surface that’s left to explore, and every character in the show appears to have that level of depth.
The show is not all political scheming; there is plenty of well-choreographed and staged action set pieces (Sanada with a sword is always something to behold). It is also gorgeous, looking every bit as expensive as its budget suggests. The political intrigue and character drama operate at a high level, augmented by the show’s faithfulness to the culture it depicts. It’s the type of show that, in less careful and considered hands, could have, unfortunately, been more like The Last Samurai than the Japanese Game of Thrones it thankfully is.
Shogun is streaming on Hulu.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
