An amazing night at the Emmy's for Shogun

Having only recently finished watching FX's magnificent Shogun, it was great to see the show dominate Sunday night's Emmys. Having previously bagged a tremendous 14 trophies at last week's Creative Arts Emmys, it continued to dominate at the Primteime Emmys with an additional 4 awards including Best Drama Series, Best Actress in a Drama Series (Anna Sawai), Best Actor (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Best Drama Directing for Frederick E.O. Toye. 18 Emmys is an all time best achievement for any single TV program.

This is an amazing sweep for a subtitled series that's primarily in Japanese, but also took nearly 10 years to bring to the screen. It's a rare win for Disney at the moment, with most of their projects (including Disney Plus itself) being major losses for the troubled company. 

Having seen the series, I'm particularly pleased to see Sanada and Sawai pick up awards, the first Japanese actors to walk away with Emmys and richly deserved too. My wife was in tears watching Anna Sawai in the final episodes, which was gratifying for me as I've been trying to get her into world cinema for some time now, only managing to get her invested in Squid Game before now. 

It's not the first time that an adaptation of James Clavell's 1975 book has been honoured wither - Paramount created the most expensive TV series of its time back in 1981 and the series picked up 3 Emmys, including Outstanding Limited Series, a testament to the quality of the original work.

Two more seasons are slated for Shogun, which will be the first time that Clavell's original book will be added to with entirely original content. Let's hope the following seasons maintain the quality of the first, but for now let's appreciate the momentous win this represents for Japanese culture and all those involved in this fantastic TV series.