Summary
As development on the next two seasons of the show gets underway,Shogunis celebrating a new milestone of success with 25 Emmy nominations. Serving as the second adaptation of James Clavell’s novel of the same name, the show is set in 1600s Japan and exploresthe life of John Blackthorne, a Protestant English pilot who is marooned in the country during a turbulent era of multiple lords vying for ultimate power. One such figure is Yoshii Toranaga, the lord of Kantō who has been condemned to death by the other regents of the country, but has his own mysterious plans.
Hiroyuki Sanada and Cosmo Jarvis leadthe ensembleShoguncastas Toranaga and Blackthorne, with the rest of the roster including Anna Sawai as Mariko, a consort tasked with acting as translator for Blackthorne, Tadanobu Asano, Takehiro Hira, Tommy Bastow, Fumi Nikaido and Nestor Carbonell. The show was developed byCounterpart’s Justin Marks and debuting screenwriter Rachel Kondo, with the former also acting as showrunner for the historical epic drama.
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Airing on both FX and Hulu,Shogunhas proven to be one of the biggest hits of 2024, netting a near-perfect 99% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes with praise directed at the show’s faithfulness to its source material, the performances of its cast, particularly Sawai, and its direction. This, in turn, led to the show setting a few milestones at the upcoming Emmy Awards, including being the first Japanese-language show to be nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, the second non-English-language series to earn that nomination afterSquid Game, and bringing in a total of 25 nominations.
In honor of the show’s Emmy nominations,Screen Rantinterviewed editors Maria Gonzales and Aika Miyake to discussShogunseason 1, their feelings on the awards recognition, capturing the Japanese authenticity of the story, how the ending was nearly different, and putting together some of the season’s most iconic deaths.
Gonzales & Miyake Are “So Proud” By Their First-Time Emmy Nominations
Prior to the historical epic, Gonzales and Miyake have been part of the editing team for a number of major productions, including the Beyoncé visual albumBlack is King, the Apple TV+ post-apocalyptic dramaSeeand the sci-fi thrillerCounterpart. WithShogun, though, the duo find themselves landing their first Emmy nominations, with Miyake expressing being “ecstatic” about the recognition, while Gonzales feels it’s “incredibly gratifying”, even as she finds it “a little bit difficult to process”:
Aika Miyake: Oh, I’m ecstatic. I am so proud. Also, it’s really, really meaningful that a lot of Japanese people are also nominated at the same time, and that I’m nominated for something that represents our culture. It’s really a huge moment for me and my family.
Maria Gonzales: For me, it’s still a little bit difficult to process. It’s my first time being nominated, and at least for me, I never really felt like, “Oh, this is going to be part of my career.” I just feel so incredibly lucky to be part of this project, and that it was so recognized. We all worked so hard, so it is incredibly gratifying and satisfying when people actually recognize your work and enjoy your work. I often say it’s just as hard, if not harder, to make a bad show. [Laughs] You just never know if people are gonna welcome your work, or what the response is going to be. So, this is definitely icing on the cake.
Crafting A Translator Character Was “Really Meaningful” For Miyake
One of the biggest and mostemotional arcs ofShogunseason 1is that of Mariko serving as the translator for Blackthorne to the world of Japanese culture and customs, all while grappling with Toranaga’s plans and her desire to redeem her family name. When it came to finding the right balance of portraying this authenticity and easy-to-access for American audiences, Miyake found it a “really interesting” process, while also pulling from her own life experience:
Aika Miyake: It’s really interesting, the way that Blackthorne is, we had to make sure the learning curve of Japanese culture [was felt] throughout the whole series. There were a lot of conversations, like, “Oh, he feels like he understands more, but he doesn’t understand here.” But then, I listened to the Japanese, and some of the characters speak faster, like Yabushige, and it’s hard to understand, even for Japanese people sometimes. We were just going back and forth to make it right. Also, it’s really interesting to show the translator role — Mariko’s role, Alvito’s role — because that’s been kind of like my life, as well.
I learned to speak English when I was 20, and a lot of the situations that I was in, like working environment, stuff with friends, sometimes, I’d have to translate. You feel like you are the sub character of the group when you’re doing that. And in this show, she is the main character. It’s really important for me, as a woman, and as a Japanese person, that’s usually a side character, but she’s actually the main character for this show. So, it was really meaningful to make it right.
Mariko’s Shogun Death Required A Lot Of Intricate Editing
Mariko’s arc ends in tragedy inShogunseason 1when she sacrifices herself in episode 9 to prevent the shinobi’s explosives from killing everyone else trapped in the room with her, including Blackthorne. In reflecting on putting together the scene, Miyake recalled that fellow editor Thomas Krueger was the original editor for the episode, with her coming on to “fine tune” her death, explaining the difficulty of finding the right way to cut to black at the end:
Aika Miyake: Yeah, so that scene was edited by Thomas Krueger originally, and I was added as an additional editor at the end of the process to actually fine tune that last scene. It was a lot longer before, but Justin, the showrunner, he really wanted to make it super abrupt. It’s really hard, actually, to cut something that feels abrupt. [Laughs] I did have shots that the director, Frederick Toye, shot, like an amazing shot of her.
I think they blew like a big funnel of air, and her hair is all blown out, and she’s really backlit, and it goes into the light kind of shot. So, I used that really, really quickly at the very, very end. But, a lot of the other edits are there when I was cutting it, so kudos to Thomas. But yeah, we had to watch it from the really, really beginning to actually find this abruption. It needs to feel right, and also how long the black needs to be after that was really fun to make that edit. I love watching the reaction videos and people in shock. [Laughs]
Miyake & Gonzales' Favorite Scene Is A Full-Circle Toranaga & Yabushige Moment
When asked about their favorite scenes to get to work on together, both Gonzales and Miyake pointed towards Yabushige and Toranaga’s epic confrontation intheShogunseason 1 finale, in which the former commits seppuku with the latter as his second. In addition to feeling that Yabushige was “one of the cutting room’s favorites” of the show’s roster, they both found that putting together said sequence was a “true collaboration”, including ensuring that Toranaga’s smile before cutting Yabushige’s head off remained:
Maria Gonzales: Well, Aika and I worked together on the last episode, episode 10, and I think from the collaboration that we had together, it would have to be — right, Aika? — the scene between Toranaga and Yabushige. Yabushige’s final scene. It was something that was a true collaboration for the two of us, because I kind of started it in the editors' cut, Aika worked on the director’s cut. And then, once Justin Marks, our showrunner, it was his turn to do a pass, he came up with this whole sort of scramble of the scene that we then worked on together. And, character wise, Yabushige was one of the cutting room’s favorites. It was just always super fun to cut scenes with him.
Aika Miyake: Yeah, so Maria, in her editors' cut, she put the smile before Yabushige killed himself, before Toranaga cut his head off. He turned to Toranaga, and he smiled, and that moment was in Maria’s cut earlier, but then, along the process, we tried losing it, tried to make the cut shorter. In the process, we lost it somewhere. And I always remember that I wanted to bring it back when I had an opportunity, so at the very, very last moment, I was like, “Can we attempt to bring this back?”
I asked Justin to have a look, and he agreed, and when you watch the whole thing, he does the same thing when, in episode 1, Blackthorne and Yabushige came up from the hill in the ocean. Yabushige almost died, and he was brought up to the top of the hill, and Blackthorne had bowed. But Yabushige had the exact same expression of a smile, and I just really felt like, “Oh this is such a cool shot.” I was so happy that I could bring it back.
When discussing Toranaga’s smile, in particular, Gonzales explained that it was one of multiple callbacks meant to happen in the scene, along with Sanada’s character reusing a line Yabushige said in episode 1 that could’ve led to Toranaga’s death:
Maria Gonzales: Toranaga does a good share of smiles himself. [Laughs] I don’t recall actually ever having the discussion of leaving it out. It really sort of ties in for another callback that happens in that scene, which is, in episode 1, Yabushige and Omi are talking in the village, they’re walking down this path and Omi says to Yabushige something along the lines of like, “Don’t you want to warn Toranaga, our Lord, about this?” And Yabushige says, “Why tell a dead man his future?” So it’s something that ostensibly happened privately between these two characters.
And then, when we go to episode 10, in Yabushige’s final moments, Toranaga basically brings that line up back to Yabushige, and Yabushige says, “I would just really love to see or know what’s happening in the future.” And Toranaga basically says, “Why tell a dead man his future?” Which I think kind of goes along the lines of, “Dude, I played you all along. I knew everything that was happening, even in the alleys of some tiny village of Ajiro.” [Laughs] I think the smile is kind of appropriate, because he is Shogun.
Shogun’s Ending Was Almost A Bit Longer
In a slight twist from the book’s ending, theShogunseason 1 finale sees Toranaga explain some of his future plans to Yabushige before killing him, includinghis Crimson Sky strategybeing to convince Ochiba to withdraw her support from Ishido ahead of the future Battle of Sekigahara, which wins him the battle without any actual fighting. When asked whether there was more footage of this flash-forward, Gonzales confirms that there “was a version of the script” that looked even further to the future, though was “quickly eliminated”:
Maria Gonzales: I think there was a version of the script, there was going to be sort of a flash-forward to the future of Japan. Because the real-life character of Toranaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, he’s the architect of modern-day Japan. So, there was a little bit of a snippet of that in that scene where Toranaga talks about the future of Japan, but that was quickly eliminated. I don’t think that even survived, barely survived the editors cut. I think as soon as Fred, the director, got involved, that was cut out, and it was never put back in. So, in terms of the battle itself, yeah, no, it was never going to be much more than what we saw on the screen. This was very much a show where the battles happened inside of the ceremonial rooms and back rooms, and it was the battle of words, more so than swords.
Shogun Episode 1’s Cliff Sequence Presented A Unique Challenge for Gonzales
As much as the show is a “battle of words”, it does feature a number of exciting action set pieces. In reflecting on which was their favorite to put together, Gonzales recalls the episode 1 cliff sequence as one that presented a unique challenge for her, as she tried to capture the “underlying objective” of the scene:
Maria Gonzales: You know, a lot of the crazy action that happened was just happening in bursts. Like, I had something in episode 4, I had something in episode 7. In episode 4, when Nagakado kills Jozen in the battlefield, or in episode 7, when Nagakado attempts to kill his uncle, but ends up dying himself. It’s just very quick and just sudden action. The bigger sequences that I cut were in episode 1, there was a big storm sequence, and then followed by a cliff sequence, when they’re trying to rescue Nestor. So, those were like the big action sequences that I was actually involved with cutting, and they were quite intricate in getting the right pace of them, too, so that they fit the overall intentions for the show.
But also, with a lot of these scenes, in the background, we’re always trying to take care of the cultural aspects of the time. For instance, it was just really difficult to get that cliff scene going, but also showing what Yabushige was going through, and Blackthorne taking it in, meaning that he would rather die by his own sword than to be killed by the waves, or by the sea and, and Blackthorne sort of taking that in and just being one of the first steps of learning about the culture. So, a lot of the action sequences always had an underlying objective, as well, that had to come to the forefront.
Gonzales & Miyake Don’t Know What The Plan Is ForShogunSeasons 2 & 3 (But Are Keen To Return)
Despite initially being billed as a miniseries, the show’s critical and viewership success led to FX renewingShogunfor both seasons 2 and 3. Gonzales and Miyake both admit that because they’re not in the writers room for the show, they’re unsure what the exact plan is for the next chapter, but recall the “900-page Bible” Caillin Puente crafted to build the world, and shared what their hopes are for where it will go:
Maria Gonzales: I mean, we’re not in the writers room, so we know that the writers room is open, and they’re actively working on season 2. We also know from the first season that Caillin Puente, who was part of Justin’s team, wrote this Bible, a 900-page Bible, that was steeped in Japanese history, and it was kind of used as the Bible on set for all the different rules of the time, be it costumes, or how people of different ranks regarded each other in public settings. Everything was in this book, and there was a lot of actual history in it, as well. So, undeniably, Japan has a rich history, I think a lot of what’s coming is going to be rooted in that. Even though we don’t have a book. [Chuckles]
Aika Miyake: I’m really excited to be able to showcase more of Japanese culture. I was never like a history kid, who loved reading about history, when I was young. But even still, I’m really intrigued about learning more. The good thing about Japan is there are still a lot of places that you may visit, even where Blackthorne has a house in Tokyo, there’s a monument.
I’m super excited to be able to showcase the history of it, and also dig into what really happened, and also, maybe in the future, I’ll have to visit and travel and find out, “Oh, this person was here and there.” And Mariko, the person who she’s based on, she actually existed, and her story is even more heart-wrenching, in a way. As a woman, it’s really inspiring, and I would love to visit the temple dedicated to her, like, she has a statue and monuments and stuff. But, yeah, I’m like really super excited to be able to — nothing is official right now, but I’d love to be part of that.
Maria Gonzales: Yeah, we don’t really know, we have no inside knowledge, really. And honestly, when we heard that there was a second season, possibly a third season — I guess they’re both tentative — my initial reaction was like, “What? How are we going to do that? No Yabu, no Mariko. Some of my favorite characters are gone. Like what, who, why, what is this going to look like?” So, I would love it if some of those characters would come back in some form or another. But that’s for the writers to figure out, if, at all, they’re thinking that way.
AboutShogunSeason 1
FX’s Shōgun, an original adaptation of James Clavell’s bestselling novel, is set in Japan in the year 1600 at the dawn of a century-defining civil war. Producer Hiroyuki Sanada stars as Lord Yoshii Toranaga, who is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him.
Shogun
Cast
Shōgun, released in 2024, is set in Japan during 1600 at the onset of a significant civil war. It follows Lord Yoshii Toranaga as he battles political adversaries on the Council of Regents, while a European ship mysteriously appears in a nearby fishing village, complicating the tides of power.
