Shōgun is just the thing for friends of epic tales and historical dramas. The new show knocked it out of the park from the get-go, but are 10 episodes really it? What are the chances for a potential season 2?
With a mind-blowing score on Rotten Tomatoes even pre-debut, the new series Shōgun on FX and Hulu hit the sweet spot for fans of intense and epic shows. The historical drama by showrunners Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo takes place in feudal Japan and follows the story of English sailor John Blackthorne who finds himself in unfamiliar terrain. Lord Yoshii Toranaga has his own battles to fight together with his lackey Lady Mariko – but I'm not here to give all of the story away.
If you want to keep up-to-date with the show, with new episodes coming out every week, make sure to check out our Shogun release schedule to always catch the newest episodes once they air!
The show is based on the novel by James Clavell, so if patience isn't your strong suit, feel free to check it out, but beware: there are different versions to get. Clavell wrote one hell of a novel back in 1975, so if you want to test the waters first (and not wait for the show to catch up), you might want to get the first part of the book . But I won't tell you how to live your life if you're committed enough to get the over 1300-pages-long novel!
But let's get to the more important stuff – are ten episodes everything we're going to get or is there a chance of a second season?
Is Shōgun Season 2 Happening?
Currently, a potential second season for Shōgun seems unlikely. Shōgun is listed as a "limited series" and it looks like Marks and Kondo want to keep it that way. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the duo talked about their plans for the series and how they went about adapting the original book into a show.
Both John Blackthorne and Lord Toranaga are loosely based on real people: William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu, respectively.
In the interview, Justin Marks confirmed that they "took the story to the end of the book" and that the shows ends "in exactly that place". While it hasn't explicitly been said before, this confirms that indeed the entire book will be compressed into one season of TV.
Squeezing such a long and complex story into a single season seems like an impossible task, especially if you compare Shōgun to other high quality shows like Game of Thrones. Just to set that into perspective: Game of Thrones, the first A Song of Ice and Fire novel, had roughly 700 pages that were adapted in the first season (remember? Back when the show was good?). Shōgun as a novel is nearly twice as long and the has about the same runtime as GoT, which could make things harder for the showrunners.
So far, it looks like they're going for a pretty faithful adaptation and have done an amazing job. The show is still young though and there is still plenty of time left until the end of it, to see if they stick the landing.