Realizing the dream of a television production capable of best combining Eastern culture with the highest production values of the West, “Shogun” swept the board at the last edition of the Emmy Awards, taking home the most coveted recognition of best drama series and even beating the heavyweight “The Bear” , considered among the best titles in the competition for the second consecutive year.

Inspired by the novel of the same name by James Clavell, considered by many to be the Japanese “Game of Thrones” for its exceptional mix of political intrigue and action elements, the FX series triumphed with eighteen wins out of twenty-five nominations, among which the recognition for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Hiroyuki Sanada stands out .

As the first Asian star to receive an Emmy for his performance, Sanada expressed his heartfelt thanks to the cast and crew during his acceptance speech, as well as recalling how fruitful a work born from the comparison of two different cultures can be: "Thank you so much, I am beyond honored to be here with such extraordinary nominees. Thank you to FX, Disney and Hulu for believing in me. And thank you to my team for always supporting me, thank you to the entire crew and cast of Shogun. I am so proud of you. It was a dream project that brought together the East and the West, with all due respect. Shogun taught me that when people work together, we can make miracles. We can create a better future together. Thank you so much!"

As proof of how much respect for Japanese tradition was essential to guarantee the success of the show, we recall Sanada's statements last March in an interview with Vanity Fair. As a necessary condition for his involvement in the project, the actor asked the production to hire a cast composed entirely of Japanese, to be more faithful in the transposition, avoiding inaccuracies and imprecisions: "I needed some reassurance, I told them that if they didn't hire Japanese actors for a Japanese role, I couldn't be involved in this project".

Adding to this was the show’s co-creator Justin Marks: “The angle that he brought that was important and crucial to the making of this show was: I’ve been doing this here in Hollywood, in the United States, for 25 years. I’ve seen all the mistakes that Hollywood has made in representing my culture. So we had a list of things to avoid every single day while we were making this show, which means that what he started doing was saying: I know the person you need to hire, I know this person, I know this other person.”

As for the future of the series, producer John Landgraf revealed to Deadline that the second season is currently in development, and the recent Emmy acclaim has buoyed the team to move forward with the adaptation. Speaking about the ongoing work on the new script, he said, “We’re moving forward. The scripts are coming in, the drafts are coming in, we’re trying to figure out where we’re going to shoot, are we going to shoot exactly the same way and in the same place as we shot before or are we going to make some changes.”

On the possibility of shooting sequences in traditional locations, he continued: “I’ve always wanted to shoot in Japan. We’ve been trying to figure out how to shoot this show in Japan, we’ve had a hard time matching the location and the scale of what we can do there, coupled with the ambitions of the show. Unfortunately, medieval Japan, the castles, are no longer around in their previous form and frankly, if they were, you couldn’t shoot there anyway.” And on the possibility of a third season, he finally commented: “Seasons 2 and 3 are separate narratives. They’re all part of an ongoing narrative with characters that evolve, but they’re separate narratives. I don’t know if we’re certain that there will be three seasons, but really looking at the characters in the story that’s being portrayed here, even if it’s fictionalized, we feel like three is the right number of seasons to really do it justice.”

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