What now for ‘Shōgun’ after that life-and-death finale?

Shōgun is over. No more obsessive rules of loyalty and honour to follow. No more epic matcha tea ceremonies and 17th century poetry slams and endless beheadings. No more of Toranaga’s subtle nods, Buntaro’s mad eye twitches and Blackthorne’s posh insults (“fuck smear” really needs to make a comeback).

The miniseries ended with a bang, and then it went on for another episode and ended properly – giving James Clavell’s classic novel a new adaptation that felt definitive; an authentic, romantic, violent old-school epic that made everyone want to book a holiday to Japan (even though it was all filmed in Canada). What are we supposed to do now, sit down and stare at the rain for a few hours?

How did Shōgun end?

Quietly. The show’s only big explosion happened at the end of episode nine, when Mariko was blown up by ninjas, but her noble death was the one that spared everyone a far bloodier ending; all part of Toranaga’s perfect plan for peace.

‘Crimson Sky’ was over before we realised it had even started, giving Shōgun a soft, contemplative exit that might have felt like an anti-climax if it wasn’t all so beautifully put together. Of course Toranago knew what he was doing the whole time, and of course Mariko did too – not just forcing Ishido’s hand to release his prisoners, and his leverage, but also forging a secret alliance with Ochiba that would eventually leave Ishido without enough men to win a war.

The battle itself comes fleetingly, in an imagined epilogue (just as does in the book), and it’s won without anyone having to lift a finger. Blackthorne gets his own flash-forward dream sequence – imagining himself as an old man – but we know that’s not his fate when he symbolically drops Mariko’s crucifix into the sea. Now fighting for something beyond his own survival, and devastated by Mariko’s loss, his own story reaches something of an epiphany – and all that after 10 episodes of penance for whatever life he left behind in England.

The best of the finale, though, is saved for Toranaga and Yabushige. Learning the hard way that you can never play both sides and still win, Yabushige is ordered to kill himself at sunset. Parting with the best poem in the whole series (“With my body, don’t burn it, don’t bury it. Just leave it in the field. And with it, fill the belly of some hungry dog”), Yabushige shares his last moments with Toranaga, overlooking the sea, and the future he’ll never get to witness. Did Toranaga just want peace? Or did he do it all to help pave his way to the throne?

“It’s what you’ve always wanted isn’t it? In your secret heart?” asks Yabushige. “Why tell a dead man the future?” responds Toranaga, neatly lopping off his head. What an ending.

Will there be a second season of Shōgun?

According to the showrunners, Shōgun was always meant to be a standalone miniseries, with no sequels planned. As Mariko said, “a flower is only a flower because it falls”. Then again, as Blackthorne said, probably along with the studio executives who financed the show, “Which comes first, God or your purse strings?”. Shōgun has been a smash hit, and wherever there’s money, there’s always someone who wants more of it.

Clavell’s novel was the third part of his Asian Saga, although none of the other books in the series directly follow on from the events in Shōgun (the next, chronologically, Tai-Pan, skips forward more than 200 years). There’s a chance one of the other books could be picked up for an adaptation, but it wouldn’t be about any of the same characters.

If the showrunners did want to carry on telling the same story though, they only need to look to history. Shōgun is actually based on real events, with Toranaga a fictional swap for Tokugawa Ieyasu – the daimyō who fought the Battle Of Sekigahara in 1600 and established a shogunate that lasted more than 250 years (turns out Yabushige was right after all…)

Blackthorne, too, was based on a real English sailor (William Adams) who washed up on Kyushu and eventually became a key military advisor to Tokugawa. There are plenty of real stories to be told about the historic figures the characters of Shōgun are based on, and plenty of scope for future seasons if there’s an appetite for it.

The legacy of Shōgun

Hopefully though, none of that will happen. The series was great for a lot of reasons – a rare gift of writing, acting, cinematography and atmosphere – but none more so than not outstaying its welcome. The comparisons to Game Of Thrones were inevitable as soon as the heads started flying, but Shōgun would surely be ruined by another seven seasons. Not every story needs sequels, and not every ending needs to feel like there’s more to come.

The first TV adaptation of Shõgun came out in 1980, and has since become a touchstone for other prestige small screen productions. Still cited as a classic, it was the reason the 2024 remake happened at all – even if the writers and producers did want to move a long way from that version’s slightly whitewashed script. Made far better and bolder, with a delicate sense of duty to both the novel and to real history, this generation’s Shōgun stands as something special – and there’s every chance it’ll keep standing for a long time to come.

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