'Shogun' Is The Samurai Show I've Been Waiting For

Sure, the FX series stars a white man, but it finds captivating ways to avoid the same pitfalls as other Hollywood samurai stories.

TOKYO — FX’s “Shōgun” captivated a broad audience when it premiered this spring, including viewers in Japan, like myself.

On Wednesday, the FX series proved that it had captured the attention of the Television Academy as well, with 25 Emmy nominations, including for Outstanding Drama Series, Lead Actor and Lead Actress. The Emmy frontrunner had submitted for 40 nominations across the drama categories and made history as only the second non-English TV series to be recognized in the top drama category.

To be frank, I was surprised that I fell in love with “Shōgun.” I have a love-hate relationship with Western films and TV shows set in Japan. It’s nice that Hollywood takes such great interest in a foreign culture, with budgets hefty enough to attract A-list actors. However, what’s with this obsession of throwing white characters into samurai stories? Think legendary action star Tom Cruise in “The Last Samurai,” which includes a very obvious “white savior” plot. I’d argue “47 Ronin” is not far off, either: To make a film about a real-life group of lordless samurai in the 18th century, Hollywood added a fictional character that is half-white to accommodate blockbuster star Keanu Reeves.

I quickly realized that these films were my initial reason for hesitating to watch “Shōgun.” Just as I was about to ignore the show, though, the trailers and social media videos convinced me to watch. The promos emphasized how different the series would be from previous Hollywood productions set in Asia.

The series has done a stellar job avoiding those pitfalls — and its efforts to show complexity is what makes it so good. It critically approaches the typical plot of “clash of two cultures” by transcending the simplistic binary of the “self” versus the “other.” This dynamic makes the show a lot more exciting.