Trivia / Shōgun (2024)

• California Doubling: Parts of the series were filmed in Canada (British Columbia) and in the UK.
• Casting Gag:
  • The armor of Ishido seems to have been given the Real Life mon (crest) of Takeda Shingen (four diamonds stacked together). Apart from Shingen being the one who dealt Ieyasu his worst defeat at Mikatagahara historically, Takehiro Hira (Ishido's actor) also happened to portray Shingen's Inadequate Inheritor Takeda Katsuyori in the 2016 Taiga Drama Sanadamaru—with both these two aspects neatly echoed in Ishido's character and motivations.
  • In this series, Shinnosuke Abe portrays the martially-strong but emotionally-volatile Buntaro, who sides with Toranaga as his retainer. In the 2014 Taiga Drama Gunshi Kanbei, he also portrayed a similar (albeit more emotionally-stable and honorable) historical character in the Eastern Army commander Kato Kiyomasa.
• Dueling Dubs: Along with the default bilingual Japanese / English version, Hulu offers an alternative dub of the series which replaces all of the Japanese dialogue with English.
• Fake Nationality: While most of the plot-important Portuguese and Spanish characters are indeed played by actors of Iberian descent, Tommy Bastow, who plays Father Alvito, is English.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Testament to his long time in period dramas, Hiroyuki Sanada previously was cast as Ishida Mitsunari in the 1988 TBS drama Tokugawa Ieyasu and the 1996 Taiga Drama Hideyoshi. Here he plays the character based on Mitsunari's nemesis.
  • Toranaga's Old Retainer Hiromatsu (who is pretty much defined by his Undying Loyalty and being No Hero to His Valet), is portrayed by veteran actor Tokuma Nishioka. He once was part of the cast of Long Runner Jidaigeki drama Abarenbo Shogun as Tokugawa Muneharu, the treacherous Big Bad and Arch-Enemy of The Hero Shogun Yoshimune—not to mention both of them being competing descendants of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Toranaga's basis.
  • Veteran Japanese-Canadian actor Hiro Kanagawa once portrayed Ishida Mitsunari in the "Shogun" episode of the 2007 BBC docu-drama Heroes and Villains—which covered the Real Life Japanese history that inspired the show. Here, he plays Yabushige's Number Two Igarashi who ends up executed under the orders of Ishido (Mitsunari's fictional Expy).
• Produced by Cast Member: Hiroyuki Sanada is a producer in the show. He said in interviews that it allows him to ensure that the show's portrayal of Japan's Edo period is authentic.
• Promoted Fanboy: Hiroyuki Sanada is fascinated by Toranaga (and indeed, Tokugawa Ieyasu himself) since his childhood, and got to play him.
• Role Reprise: In a sense, as a number of the main Japanese cast have served time in Japanese period dramas beforehand.
  • Hiroyuki Sanada himself played a young Tokugawa Ieyasu in a 1989 TBS television film about Oda Nobunaga (who was then portrayed by Ken Watanabe). Sanada refers to this, as well as his Promoted Fanboy status above, as his notes for the role.
  • Takehiro Hira (Ishido) previously portrayed Shima Sakon, one of the Western Army's leaders in the 2017 film Sekigahara who has a chip on his soldier against the higher-ups of the day. Here, he's playing the stand-in to Sakon's leader, Ishida Mitsunari himself.
  • Fumi Nikaido, who portrays Lady Ochiba, already played her real-life counterpart, Chacha/Lady Yodo, in the 2014 Taiga Drama Gunshi Kanbei. Her level of contempt, political ambition and haughtiness is consistent across both, albeit Gunshi Kanbei portrays her largely as a Broken Bird who chooses Then Let Me Be Evil.
• Those Two Actors:
  • Hiroyuki Sanada (Toranaga) and Tadanobu Asano (Yabushige) had worked together in many films and series, including in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Mortal Kombat (2021), to mention some of them. The much-panned 47 Ronin also counts here (as Sanada and Asano played nemeses Oishi and Lord Kira, respectively), whereas they play uneasy-allied lord and vassal here.
  • Tadanobu Asano also reunites with fellow Japanese actors Hiro Kanagawa (Igarashi), Hiromoto Ida (Regent Kiyama) and Nobuya Shimamoto (Nebara Jozen), who were featured characters from the Imperial Japan side of Midway (2019).
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Cristina Hernández (Lady Mariko), Enrique Cervantes (Father Dell'Aqua) and Sergio Gutiérrez Coto (Father Ferreira) had also worked together in dubs, including The Powerpuff Girls (1998) (as Blossom, Mojo Jojo and the Narrator respectively) and Saber Marionette J (as Lime, Yang Ming (plus other roles) and also the Narrator respectively).
• Troubled Production:
  • Principal photography for the series was scheduled to commence in March 2019 in Japan and the UK but was delayed because FX executives felt that the production wasn't in good enough shape and that they wanted to aim higher. Hiroyuki Sanada did a single day of filming in 2019 in order for FX to retain the rights to the property as the series was being retooled.
  • In January 2020, it was revealed that after original writer Ronan Bennett was no longer available to keep working on scripts, they started over from scratch with new writer and executive producer Justin Marks, working alongside his wife, supervising producer Rachel Kondo. Principal photography finally began on September 22, 2021 in Vancouver, the UK and Japan.

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