“Oh ye of little faith” – that was me the last few days, and especially since the Creative Arts Emmys, where Shōgun picked 14 Emmy wins. The series came into the Emmys with a record 25 nominations and my worry was that the Television Academy will honour it with the “tech” categories but on the big night, the one for broadcast, it would end up getting disrespected because, well, you know how it works. Or how it used to work. Change is happening, but change takes its time. 

 

This time, however, belonged to Shōgun, Emmy winner for Outstanding Drama Series and, yes, setting a new record with 18 total wins. Appropriate for a show of this magnitude and scope – both literally and figuratively. It’s the crew, from both east and west; it’s the painstaking detail, from the production design to the historical elements to the language and translation; it’s the cast, each and every character making their mark on the story, no matter how small the part. 

 

Shōgun isn’t just the best television series of the year, it’s one of the all-time greats, period. And, as Matt Alt wrote in his guest essay for The New York Times this weekend, this show about feudal Japan is more relevant than ever for its portrayal of leadership and power, of sacrifice and integrity which is what made it even more fitting that it was the cast of The West Wing who presented their award for Outstanding Drama. 

 

Looking back now, The West Wing was a fantasy, an idealised portrait of those who work in government with the best intentions, serving at the pleasure of a complicated and principled president. The West Wing was a show for its time. Matt Alt posits that Shōgun is a show for these times, as he ends his piece with the following observation: 

“Shogun” is set in a time known as Sengoku Jidai — “the Warring States Era” — a historic period of civil wars that lasted over a century, leaving Japan a shattered nation. Rival warlords, playing a real-life “Game of Thrones,” built armies, forged alliances and waged ferocious battles for territory.

We Americans are living through a Sengoku Jidai of our own: not an era of warring states, but of warring cultures. [Hiroyuki] Sanada’s Toranaga is exactly the kind of figure lacking in our modern landscape: canny enough to navigate a polarized and fractured world and skillful enough to stitch it back together. Is it any wonder audiences have been so drawn to Sanada’s portrayal of Toranaga? The “Shogun” of 2024 is more than just compelling television. It’s national wish fulfillment.”

 

If Toranaga is the “head” of Shōgun, though, that still would not have been enough to make it soar. Because without Mariko, there would be no heart and no soul. Whether it’s warring states or warring cultures, there is a cost, a real human cost to division and conflict. Mariko is the character who illuminates what we all lose in the endless struggle for power or people. When Anna Sawai thanked her mother on stage for showing her “stoicism, and that’s how I was able to portray Mariko”, I felt that. And then when she dedicated her Emmy to “all the women who expect nothing and continue to be an example for everyone”… well… that translates in every language and in every era. 

 

Anna looked great in that red dress but for my taste, I preferred the dress she wore in her Vanity Fair Emmy portrait. She is breathtaking.

 

All four of the Shōgun Emmy acting nominees are breathtaking. 

And justice for Tadanobu Asano, our beloved Yabushige. No disrespect to Billy Crudup but, like, seriously? 

Let me end on a more positive note. It was Steven Yeun who presented the Best Drama Actor Emmy to Hiroyuki Sanada. A previous winner of Asian descent presenting to a new winner of Asian descent – not a familiar scene at western award shows. I’ve been watching award shows my whole life and I know you know how rare that is. I would like to have more faith that it will happen again, that there will come a time when it won’t be newsworthy. 

Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada won lead acting awards for "Shogun" at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Photo credits: Leon Bennett/ Gilbert Flores/ Frederic J. Brown/ Valerie Macon/ Kevin Mazur/ Gilbert Flores/ Getty Images

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