Will There Be a ‘Shōgun’ Season 2? Hiroyuki Sanada Weighs In

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Shōgun Episode 10, “A Dream of a Dream.”]

Everyone who watched FX‘s fantastic Shōgun agrees: we’re sad to see this show go. The limited series debuted its Episode 10 finale on Tuesday, April 23 on FX and Hulu, revealing what Lord Toranaga planned all along. Every death, every sacrifice was worth it, as it ushered in a new era of peace in Japan. Will we ever see a second season depicting that peaceful period? Hiroyuki Sanada, Toranaga himself, tells TV Insider about the chances of a Shōgun Season 2.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem likely that there will be a second season. “I have no idea,” Sanada says with a kind laugh. “But the novel is done.”

Indeed, Shōgun Season 1 covers the plot of James Clavell’s novel of the same name in full. There are some pieces of the narrative that didn’t make it into the series, as with any book-to-screen adaptation, but the core essence of the book is in Season 1’s 10 episodes. Sanada both starred in and produced the series for FX, so if he has “no idea” if there will be more story to tell, it seems pretty unlikely that we’ll ever see a second season (*insert John Blackthorne angry expletives here*).

Anna Sawai, who played Mariko, tells TV Insider about her history with Clavell’s book and the original Shogun adaptation from 1980. Sawai read the novel once she signed on for the series. Having read the book and starred in the new series, she feels they did it “justice.”

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“It’s so beautifully written, and I was really interested on how they were going to choose which parts to include it in our series, because we only have so much time to cover the whole book,” she says. “But I’m really happy with what they went with, and I think we really got those key moments and gave it justice.”

She nearly watched the 1980 series when she booked the role of Mariko (a performance that’s surely going to win her an Emmy later this year), but decided against it.

“I was about to [watch it], but then I was told, ‘You should probably not, because we want you to have a fresh take on it. We don’t want you to try to copy anything,'” Sawai shares. “And so I haven’t seen it. I’ve only seen short clips on YouTube … Once [Episode] 10 is out, I think I am going to go into it.”

If there won’t be a Shōgun Season 2, at least there’s more to see in this universe.