‘Shōgun’ won four awards during the 2024 Emmys telecast, including drama series, lead drama actor and lead drama actress.
“Shōgun” had a historic 2024 Emmy night.
FX’s historical drama set in feudal Japan won the Emmy for drama series on Sunday. The win caps off a night that also saw series stars Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada awarded the prizes for lead actress and lead actor in a drama series, as well as an Emmy for director Frederick E.O. Toye. “Shōgun,” which featured mostly Japanese dialogue, is the second non-English-language series to be named the year’s top drama by the Television Academy after Netflix’s “Squid Game.”
In accepting “Shōgun’s” drama series award, showrunner and co-creator Justin Marks thanked the executives who “greenlit a very expensive, subtitled Japanese period piece whose central climax revolves around a poetry competition.”
“‘Shōgun’ is a show about translation,” said Marks, who created the series with Rachel Kondo. “Not what is lost but what is found when you do safety meetings in two languages and you learn not to walk onto tatami mats with your utility boots.”
When the show’s star and producer Sanada was handed the microphone, the Japanese actor used the occasion to express his gratitude in Japanese to everyone who has carried on the art of jidaigeki — samurai period dramas — over the years, including directors, crew members and other masters of the craft.
“The passions and dreams we have inherited from you have crossed oceans and borders,” Sanada continued in Japanese.
“Arigato gozaimasu,” added Marks in thanks after reading the translations of Sanada’s remarks.
Both Sanada’s and Sawai’s win were also historic. Sawai is the first actor of Asian descent to win her category, while Sanada is just the second Asian actor to win his.
