Will There Be A ‘Shogun’ Season 2? Maybe, But Not In The Way You’d Hope

Shogun is now at an end, the ten episode series concluding with its finale, live today. Even if it’s April, it will no doubt go down as one of the best shows of the year, and earn its cast and crew a slew of Emmy nominations (Anna Sawai should win, no question).

But if you liked Shogun do you want to see…more Shogun? Well there’s some good, but mostly bad news there.

If you’ve watched the finale you know that there is a pretty conclusive end to this story. This is the entirety of the Shogun book, written by James Clavell in 1975, so any future continuation of that would have to be invented from scratch. That is almost certainly not going to happen.

However, a “season 2” of Shogun could instead use the rest of Clavell’s books, which are not a linear series, but instead something of an anthology. His “Asian Saga” spans six books, including Shogun, where the other five are set in Japan, Hong Kong or Iran, each book taking place in different decades or centuries from the last.

If FX was to make a second season of Shogun, it would have to be an entirely different show, just in the same saga and adapting something else also written by Clavell. The second book in the series chronologically is Tai-Pan, set in 1841 Hong Kong. That story follows event after the end of the Opium War in the region. Unlike Shogun, most of its leads are white characters.

If Tai-Pan or another Clavell Asian Saga book were to be adapted, it is unlikely it would be from the same Shogun team, who have spent close to a decade trying to make the show and get it to air. This is not a group who will just launch into another anthology sequel and we’ll be seeing the next chapter in the saga in 2026.

Given the success of Shogun, I would not be surprised to see Tai-Pan or another Clavell Asian Saga novel be adapted. By someone. At some time. But no, there will not be a direct season 2 of Shogun with the same characters, as absolutely no one is going to try to invent another from-scratch story with this cast. The best we can hope for are similar stories from the same author, but even that would probably be from a new team, and clearly with an all-new cast.

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