“Shogun” makes record history with 18 Emmy wins

Effects Shogun extended its reign at the 2024 Emmys on Sunday night. Entering the evening, the hit samurai series already held the record for most wins by a show in a single year, after scooping up 14 trophies at the Creative Arts Emmys last week. But the show further cemented its reign in the Peacock Theater at the Prime Time Emmys, winning four more awards, including in the top categories of Best Drama Series, Best Actress in a Drama Series for Anna Sawai, Best Actor in a Drama Series for Hiroyuki Sanada and Best Drama Direction for Frederick EO Toye.

ShogunThe triumph of is significant for several reasons. The historic awards haul is a huge win for FX and parent company Disney for an expensive series that took nearly 10 years to make and once seemed like a very shaky bet. It's also an important moment for Asian representation and non-English language television. Shogun is the first-ever predominantly non-English language series to win in the Outstanding Drama Series category (Netflix's Korean sensation Squid Game was nominated in 2022 but lost to HBO's Consequence), and Sanada and Sawai are the first Japanese actors ever to win Emmys.

Speaking backstage at the Emmys, Sanada said that when he walked onstage to accept his Emmy, he “felt the significance of the moment and its historical significance.” Sanada is one of the few top Japanese actors to cross over to Hollywood in a big way. He began performing as a child actor in Tokyo nearly 60 years ago and trained under local film legend Sonny Chiba. He said his best actor win also made him think of “all my colleagues and teachers who have taught me since I was a child.”

“As for the next generation,” Sanada added, “I hope they attach great importance to our nominations and awards and simply understand that we have created a historical Japanese series that really connects with the world.”

Japanese film was recognized in Hollywood as early as 1951, when Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 24th Academy Awards. Miyoshi Umeki later won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1957 for Sayonara alongside Marlon Brando. But recognition for Japanese talent on the small screen came much later. So far, only Japanese actor Masi Oka, nominated as outstanding supporting actor for Heroines received a nomination for a drama series from the Television Academy in 2007.

Backstage at the Emmys, Sawai said she burst into tears as she accepted her award for best actress in a drama series, adding that it was probably the “12th time I cried today.”

“I just felt bad,” she added. “I think it's just mixed emotions and fear, I want everyone to win… Tomorrow I wake up and think it was all just a dream.”

ShogunHowever, Sunday night's march through Emmy history was not without some hard-fought losses. Billy Crudup was awarded Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for The morning show about the Japanese cult actor Tadanobu Asano, whose portrayal of the clever samurai Kashigi Yabushige is a Shogun Fan favorite. The FX series' Writers Room – which compressed James Clavell's 1,312-page bestselling 1975 novel into 10 one-hour TV episodes – also lost in the Drama Writing category to Apple TV+'s Slow horses.

Shogun may be FX's most-watched series of all time (based on hours streamed worldwide), but it is actually the second television adaptation of Clavell's massive book. A profoundly influential epic about duty, honor, and the struggle for power in feudal Japan. The novel was previously adapted by Paramount Television in 1980. It was shot on location in Japan with what was then the largest budget ever spent on a television series. The first Shogun became a pop culture sensation when it aired on NBC. The series received twelve Emmy nominations at the 1981 Emmys, winning for Outstanding Miniseries, Costume Design and Best Title Sequence.

The Paramount adaptation ended where the story of Clavell's popular book ends – just like the first season of the FX adaptation. Shogun does. Co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo delighted their fans in May by revealing that Disney had given the green light to two more seasons of the series. Sanada, the producer Shogun In addition to his role as Lord Toranaga, he has begun to voice ideas about what might be in store for us in the next chapters of the story. After the Emmy festivities end on Sunday evening, the Shogun The creative team certainly has its hands full trying to maintain Lord Toranaga's Emmy reign by adding two entirely original seasons to the saga.