FX has detailed its plans for the second season of hit feudal Japan series Shogun, including a list of new cast members and several hints at its plot.
Pre-production on the second season has already begun, with shooting set to take place in Vancouver beginning in January 2026. As yet, there’s no word on when the new season will air.
Set a decade after the first season’s finale, the next run of episodes will continue the story of returning lead characters Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) and John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) as “two men from different worlds whose fates are inextricably entwined.”
Speaking to Variety, co-creator and executive producer Justin Marks said the next season would offer an “entirely unexpected love story” while also being “a story of war and the cost of war” — which all sounds familiar.
Still, Marks was keen to make clear how large an undertaking the new production would be — suggesting it would be impressive, though also take some time to make. “There are battle sequences that we’re putting together now in part two,” he teased. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen anything like this kind of scale, this kind of tragedy and this kind of humanity.
“This show is going to take us a little while to produce,” Marks continued, explaining that this had informed the decision to move its narrative forward in time. “It’s not coming out one year later, and there’s this thing that drives me crazy when you watch a show that ended three years ago, and you get into season two and it’s like five minutes later. We’re trying to use this jump as a way to come back to our characters again for the very first time, to see them, to see what’s changed in their lives over the course of the last 10 years, and to rediscover them.”
Alongside Sanada and Jarvis, other returning actors from season 1 include Fumi Nikaidô (Ochiba), Shinnosuke Abe (Buntaro), Hiroto Kanai (Omi), Yoriko Dôguchi (Kiri), Tommy Bastow (Alvito), Yuko Miyamoto (Gin), Eita Okuno (Saeki) and Yuka Kouri (Kiku).
New cast members include Asami Mizukawa (Aya), Masataka Kubota (Hyūga), Sho Kaneta (Hidenobu), Takaaki Enoki (Lord Ito) and Jun Kunimura (Gōda).
“We killed a lot of people,” in the first season, Marks continued. “We have some really exciting characters this season, characters that I want to tell you everything about, but cannot. These faces really popped for us, so we’re just so excited to bring our own family together with these new faces and watch them become part of this world.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
