When Shōgun premiered in February 2024, most viewers believed it to be a show that would end after one season. That’s because FX’s historical drama is based on James Clavell’s 1975’s novel of the same name, and Season 1’s 10 episodes adapted the entirety of the original story. But shortly after Shōgun‘s first season ended, FX announced that it would be developing not one but two more seasons of the show.
To say that Shōgun Season 1 has dominated awards season would be an understatement. At the 2025 Golden Globes, the series won all four awards it was nominated for including Best Drama Series, Best Female Actor in a Drama Series for Anna Sawai, Best Male Actor in a Drama Series for Hiroyuki Sanada, and Best Supporting Male Actor in a Drama Series for Tadanobu Asano.
Shōgun also had an impressive showing at the 2024 Emmys, winning a record-breaking 18 awards — the most by any series in a single year. Its critical acclaim, combined with the show being FX’s most-watched series ever based on global hours streamed, makes the renewal announcement hardly surprising.
FX has said that Shōgun‘s co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo are both returning to develop the additional seasons. They will be joined by Michaela Clavell, James Clavell’s daughter who was an executive producer on Season 1.
While Shōgun Season 2 is going to take a while longer to cook, we do know something about what to expect from it. Let’s take a look at the details that have emerged so far.
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Shōgun Season 2 latest news
On Nov. 12, FX revealed the full cast for Season 2 — Hiroyuki Sanada and Cosmo Jarvis had been the only confirmed cast members up ’til then.
Folks from Season 1 who will pop up again include Fumi Nikaido as Ochiba, Hiroto Kanai as Omi, Yoriko Doguchi as Kiri, Shinnosuke Abe as Buntaro, Yuko Miyamoto as Gin, Eita Okuno as Saeki, Tommy Bastow as Alvito, and Yuka Kouri as Kiku.
We’ve got a host of new names as well. Asami Mizukawa, Masataka, Kubota, Sho Kaneta, Takaaki Enoki, and Jun Kunimura will be joining the main cast this time around. And in mid-November, FX announced that J-pop superstar and actor Ren Meguro would join the series as well.
Shōgun Season 2 premiere date prediction
Shōgun Season 2’s production isn’t set to begin until January 2026, so we may be looking at an early 2027 release date for the next chapter of the feudal drama.
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Shōgun Season 2 cast
In addition to returning as producer for Shōgun Season 2, Sanada is set to reprise his role as Lord Yoshii Toranaga. FX confirmed this on April 30. The network also shared that Jarvis will return as John Blackthorne in Season 2. The English pilot’s return is not particularly shocking considering Season 1’s finale showed him in his old age — a tease that his story is only just beginning.
More about Shōgun Season 2
At the 2025 Golden Globes, Marks and Kondo shared with TV Guide about how they’re particularly excited about the costume design for the upcoming season. “There are so many cases of just the fantastic armor that these characters wear into battle in Season 2,” Marks said. “We should just have a red carpet for the armor,” Kondo responded.
Marks agreed, saying the show could host its own Met Gala. “Some of the stuff that Toranaga wears in a single day is just awesome — multiple costume changes.”
Shōgun Season 1 ending
Shōgun Season 1 Episode 10, “A Dream of a Dream,” showed that most of the events that had transpired were exactly as Toranaga had planned. Even some of his closest allies didn’t know what he had intended by sending Sawai’s Lady Mariko to Osaka. But in his final conversation with Asano’s Lord Yabushige, Toranaga explained that because of Mariko’s actions before the Council of Regents — which, devastatingly, led to the translator’s death — a battle was avoided.
“A Dream of a Dream” also revealed Toranaga’s true feelings toward becoming shōgun. “It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?” Yabushige asked. To which Toranaga responded, “Why tell a dead man the future?”
“In the book, the answer is a little clearer,” Justin Marks told TV Guide about whether the character wanted to become shōgun since the beginning. “We decided to play it with a look, because how do you really articulate what’s inside a person’s secret heart?” Rachel Kondo added that for Toranaga, being shōgun meant something different. “I think he wants to be shōgun but not in the way that his ancestors had claimed the shogunate,” she said. “It’s a more complex, living thing for him — he wants to use the office of shōgun as a means of manifesting this great vision that he has for his country.”
Where to watch Season 1 of Shōgun
The first season of FX’s Shōgun is available to watch on Hulu.
