Emmys for FX’s “Shogun” Opens U.S.’s Eyes to Japan

During the winter, something about the promos for “Shogun” on Hulu convinced me to create an account so I could check it out. I faintly remember the 1980 mini-series “Shogun”; I was a school boy then. 

I’ve been curious about the simpleness of Samurai (bushido) culture, stoicism, and Japan’s different take on being a warrior. I knew and liked Hiroyuki Sanada from “The Last Samurai” and “Twilight Samurai”. Upon watching “Shogun” the fully-drawn characters, smart and well-written Shakespeare-quality stories had me. I got used to the subtitles. 

It is and was rare to see substance and vibrant production design and quality. And to consider the culture from a Japanese point of view instead of American.

Some months later, after I had watched the season end, It’d forgotten about my pleasure with “Shogun” and its production splendor. Not following TV culture, having only over-the-air TV and trying to avoid wasting my finite energy and time rhe Emmys broadcast came out of nowhere. I knew of and watched few of the shows which were nominated for Emmys. That “Shogun” was an Emmy favorite were news to me. 

Telling “Entertainment Tonight” after the awards,the lead actor, and producer Hiroyuki Sanada confessed to the splendid surprise of “Shogun’s” popularity  “Especially with 70% Japanese subtitles, how will we get the world?”

The AP News reported the signficance well.

According to Reddit link from March, which cites a “Forbes” story from April 2024: “How good is Shogun? Good enough to crush Netflix in back-to-back weeks on the streaming charts, something we rarely see, and certainly not from somewhere like Hulu. The samurai series has now claimed the top spot on Samba TV’s tracking list, which includes both shows and movies.

“Here is the list for this week, where last week Shogun also topped the list. Though next week, I’m not so sure for reasons I’ll go into.

• Shogun (Hulu),
• Love is Blind season 6 (Netflix), 
• Damsel (Netflix),
• Wonka (Max),
• The Gentlemen season 1 (Netflix), 
• The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping (Netflix),
• Avatar: The Last Airbender season 1 (Netflix),
• Spaceman (Netflix),
• Ricky Stanicky (Amazon Prime),
• Masters of the Air (Apple TV+)”

I’m neither an Asia-phile nor Japanophile. I like not being the common ugly American; I like the pleasure of understanding cultures beyond the shallowness and ignorance, which oft connotes “American” !

We cerebral viewers, a cultural minority, who are bored with common U.S.-produced shows, got something from the FX production! It sated high standards for story and character development. 

Yes; the story again recounts Samurai, which some may find to be trope-y. But As opposed to the 1980 adaptation, this includes a Japanese point of view and verisimilitude.