“Shōgun” already broke the record for most Emmy wins for a single television season, and we haven’t even reached the main event yet.
At the Creative Arts Emmy Awards — the ceremony where the year’s TV slate receives its “below the line” awards, like casting, costumes and stunt work — on Sunday, “Shōgun” racked up 14 wins out of its 16 nominations, with five more categories still to be decided at the Primetime Emmys on September 15. The series received an impressive 25 total nominations for its debut season.
The series follows a brewing war in feudal Japan between Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his fellow regents as the former ruler’s son comes of age. Caught in the middle of this conflict are the English pilot John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), whose ship crashlands in Japan, and Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), a highborn lady who serves as Blackthorne’s translator and is fiercely loyal to Toranaga.
With its grand scale, feudal time-setting and political drama, “Shōgun” drew comparisons to the legendary HBO show “Game of Thrones” early and often. While the parallel does offer high praise, “Shōgun” has distinctly superb qualities.
For one, the show — co-created by husband-and-wife-duo Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks — does not hold the viewer’s hand in how much it uses the Japanese language. Unless Blackthorne or another European character appears in a scene, the dialogue takes place entirely in Japanese. Sanada helped bring that spirit of authenticity to the project not just as its star, but also as a producer.
“When I came to Hollywood, my mission was to show our culture correctly,” Sanada told USA Today. “If there was a wall between East and West, I want to break it down. So yes, dreams come true.”
The show’s legitimately bilingual nature made the character of Mariko particularly essential. Luckily for “Shōgun,” Sawai’s performance blew audiences out of the water, as the former J-Pop star brought a sense of quiet strength and introspection to every scene. Sawai has an excellent chance to win the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series on Sunday. If she does, episode nine, titled “Crimson Sky,” will be the reason why. If it hasn’t already, that chapter of “Shōgun” should be remembered as one of television acting’s most impressive tours de force of the 2020s. The character’s backstory is revealed piece-by-piece throughout the series, but Sawai carries an expression throughout that makes the audience feel as if they know her entire life.
If “Shōgun” had been made 20, or even just 10 years ago (James Clavell’s 1975 novel was adapted into a TV miniseries released in 1980), it likely would have featured Jarvis’ Blackthorne in a more prominent role, wandering dangerously into white savior territory. But Kondo and Marks’ adaptation wisely showcases the extent to which Blackthorne cannot control his fortunes. The character has to learn Japanese and assimilate to a culture previously unimaginable to him, all the while escaping his Portuguese Catholic adversaries and their allied Japanese lords. From start to finish, Blackthorne is simply not having a good time. But Jarvis ensures the audience has a good time watching him, thanks to his awkward stance and mannerisms, complete with Tom Hardy-esque voice work.
The quality of performances runs so deep that Jarvis didn’t even receive a nomination for the Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category, where his co-stars Tadanobu Asano and Takehiro Hira are competing. They played Kashigi Yabushige, a scheming under-lord of Toranaga, and Ishido Kazunari, Toranaga’s main rival, respectively. Asano’s performance instills the show with rare humorous touches, as he brazenly flips his loyalties between multiple parties — one of the show’s most Thronesian qualities.
“Shōgun” will enter Sunday evening’s ceremony as a favorite to win the Outstanding Drama Series award, effectively the Emmy equivalent for Best Picture. FX’s latest and greatest hit enjoyed not only the critical acclaim necessary to vault into that conversation but also genuine water cooler popularity. The premiere tallied over 9 million views within its opening six days, making it Disney’s (who owns FX) biggest debut outside of IP juggernauts Marvel and Star Wars.
Despite exhausting Clavell’s source material, that level of success meant discussion of future seasons was inevitable. And in May, “Shōgun” seasons two and three were greenlit with Sanada, Kondo and Marks all set to return.
To catch up ahead of season two, you can watch all 10 episodes of “Shōgun” on Hulu. Or, if you’re really ambitious, binge the series ahead of Sunday’s Emmys, where “Shōgun” could add another handful of trophies to its tally.