16 Shows Like ‘Shōgun’ to Watch Next
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Blood, blades, and brutality – such is the way of FX and Hulu’s biggest hit of 2024, Shōgun.
Created by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, and an adaptation of James Clavell’s best-selling 1975 novel, the newest show to get your social feeds buzzing follows a 17th century English sailor named John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) who winds up in Japan and in service to the shrewd samurai lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada). Anna Sawai co-stars as Lady Toda Mariko, an intelligent noblewoman haunted by her disreputable family ties, whose work as a translator for Blackthorne brings her closer to him.
All the while, in this place that Blackthorne amusingly calls “the Japans,” four other powerful daimyo hatch a plan to consolidate power and claim the ultimate title: Shōgun.
In addition to its riveting storytelling, sinewy filmmaking, and outstanding performances from an international cast, the acclaimed drama is also drawing attention for its handsome presentation. Not since Game of Thrones has there been such an ornate political thriller that also excels in aesthetics and worldbuilding. While there aren’t any dragons in Shōgun, the show has more than enough incendiary tensions to light our televisions ablaze.
Shōgun was once a decorated miniseries in 1980, but now it’s back and better than ever in 2024. In preparation for this remake’s imminent conclusion, here are 15 other binge-worthy TV shows (all available on streaming) that might help satisfy your lasting Shōgun cravings. Need more badass dudes with swords? More searing dramas about political power? More period history we forgot to read about in high school? Men’s Health has you covered like a kimono.
Into the Badlands (2015-2019)
Let’s talk about vibes for a second. If Shōgun feels like thumbing through a dense novel, then Into the Badlands is like diving into a stylish comic book. Broadcast on AMC from 2015 to 2019, this high-octane action serial starred Hong Kong star Daniel Wu as ruthless warrior “Sunny” (a fusion of Miyamoto Musashi and Sun Wukong from Journey to the West) who meets an amnesiac young man (Aramis Knight). Their encounter kicks off an adventure to find a mythical city that lies beyond their borders. Not unlike Shōgun’s Japan, Into the Badlands’s ravaged post-apocalyptic future is ruled by affluent “Barons” who control trade goods and armies of loyal swordsmen. It’s not as finely composed as Shōgun, but Into the Badlands makes up for its shortcomings with breathtaking choreography modeled in the tradition of Chinese wuxia. It also features some of the most picturesque vistas of New Orleans and Ireland, where filming took place. Shōgun fans will find a lot to love in Into the Badlands, which is still one of the best yet criminally overlooked shows in the Peak TV era.
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Giri/Haji (2019)
Practically the inverse to Shōgun, Giri/Haji (translation: “Duty/Shame”) is a spellbinding modern crime drama about a Tokyo detective (Takehiro Hira) who relocates to London in search of his brother, presumed to be in hiding for the murder of a yakuza member. During the detective’s stay, he grows close to a local detective constable (Kelly Macdonald) and a half-Japanese sex worker (Will Sharpe) with intel on the underworld. Although it ran for just one season, Giri/Haji earned widespread critical acclaim as a smart, hot, and suspenseful series with unexpected undercurrents of Wong Kar-wai in its themes of loneliness and yearning. Shōgun’s Anna Sawai plays a crucial role as the daughter of a yakuza figurehead.
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Deadwood (2004-2006)
In the history of cinema, Westerns have been a genre counterpart to Japanese chanbara. Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai was famously remade into The Magnificent Seven, while Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven was remade by Japanese director Lee Sang-il in 2013. So if Shōgun has you jonesing for another immersive historical epic characterized by the allure of power and territorial control, let HBO’s Emmy-winning Deadwood take you in. Made up of three captivating seasons and a 2019 film, the binge-able Deadwood boasts a vast collection of characters who pass through historical Deadwood, South Dakota circa 1870s. Just as Shōgun uses history as a backdrop for its theatrics, so too does Deadwood make use of real-life figures like Seth Bullock, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hickok. Timothy Olypant and Ian McShane take center stage in its expansive ensemble.
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Warrior (2019-2023)
Before his light went out too soon, kung fu movie legend Bruce Lee pitched to Hollywood TV networks his own show titled The Warrior, about a kung fu master traveling across the Old West. As the story goes, executives passed on Lee’s pitch on the basis that mainstream audiences would not tune in to watch a foreign leading man. (Never mind Bruce Lee was American.)
Decades later, Lee’s vision was realized in the pulpy, propulsive, and provocative Warrior. The series stars Andrew Koji as “Ah Sahm,” a Chinese man who traverses 19th century San Francisco in search of his lost sister. Standing in his way are rival gangsters, resentful Irish laborers, cutthroat politicians, and overwhelmed beat cops desperate to keep the peace. Set a few years prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Warrior puts an all-too-important spotlight on a chapter of American history that textbooks often gloss over. In its tale about outsiders adapting to strange environments, Shōgun and Warrior have plenty in common, despite nearly 200 years and thousands of miles separating its stories. Following its premiere on Cinemax in 2019, Warrior went to the then-titled HBO Max in 2020 before streaming on Netflix in early 2024.
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Black Sails (2014-2017)
Shōgun’s John Blackthorne may not be a pirate in the stereotypical “Ahoy, mateys!” way. But his background as a maritime navigator and privateer makes Black Sails a relevant recommendation. A Starz hit that aired between 2014 until 2017, Black Sails is a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island that charts the origins of Captain Flint (played by Toby Stephens) and Long John Silver (Luke Arnold). Their time as up-and-comers on the high seas syncs with the Golden Age of Piracy, when all nations declared pirates wanted criminals. While Black Sails never reached the same critical mass as Game of Thrones, it was still made for audiences who relished in its flavors of graphic violence and gratuitous nudity in far away and/or fantastical settings. Created by Jericho’s Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine counting powerhouses like Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, and Brian Fuller as executive producers, Black Sails is simply an entertaining adventure that Shōgun fans can easily sink into.
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Tokyo Vice (2022- )
If Shōgun took place in the late 1990s, it might look like Tokyo Vice. Based on a 2009 memoir by journalist Jake Adelstein–the first non-Japanese staff writer at the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun–Tokyo Vice follows a fictionalized Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) who moves from Missouri to Tokyo and works his way up the newsroom by reporting on the yakuza underworld. While many of Tokyo Vice’s characters, played by actors like Ken Watanabe and Rinko Kikuchi, are fictionalized amalgamations, the show is still rooted in real and recent history. We know very well it isn’t appropriate to exoticize Japan. But Shōgun and Tokyo Vice bear striking similarities in depicting how its characters explore the historically isolationist nation, and how it still draws in outsiders while keeping them at arm’s length.
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Kingdom (2019-2020)
It feels reductive to describe Kingdom as “Korean Game of Thrones,” even if it’s somewhat precise. Created by Kim Eun-hee and adapted from her webcomic, Kingdom is a handsome and enthralling period horror about a zombie virus that rips through medieval Korea. But beyond relishing in undead violence fought with Joseon Dynasty weaponry (which is cool as hell, we’ll admit), Kingdom is a political thriller at heart; the crisis prompts the presumptive heir prince Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon) to unearth a conspiracy to usurp his claim to the throne. With zombies biting their way through 17th century Korea, Kim Eun-hee explores themes like power and control, misinformation, and the fall of kingships–themes Shōgun viewers know all too well. Kingdom is made up of two seasons at six episodes apiece, plus one standalone film released in 2021.
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Samurai Jack (2001-2004, 2017)
If Shōgun fans crave stylish sword slicing, they should look no further than Samurai Jack. From iconoclast auteur Genndy Tartakovsky, Samurai Jack is a genre-bending darling about a nameless prince from feudal Japan who is flung far into the future by his sworn enemy Aku (voiced by the late Mako, replaced by Greg Baldwin in Season 5). Thus begins a most challenging journey for “Jack” (Phil LaMarr) who navigates his literally alien surroundings and fights off Aku’s minions while looking for a way home. Under direction from Tartakovsky, who cites influences like the 1972 series Kung Fu and Frank Miller’s Ronin, Samurai Jack defies expectations to present itself like a transgressive graphic novel with unusual pacing, minimalist dialogue, and tons of attitude. Samurai Jack is a cult favorite of millennials who tuned into Cartoon Network way too late on weekend nights; originally airing from 2001 to 2004, it returned over a decade later for an incredibly dark fifth and final season in 2017.
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Frontier (2016-2018)
While TV enthusiasts may sooner suggest the other Jason Momoa-led streaming series, See on Apple TV+, allow us to make a case for Frontier. Set some one hundred years after Shōgun, Frontier chronicles the North American fur trade in colonial Canada; Momoa plays the imposing Declan Harp, a half-Cree, half-Irish outlaw who stands alone against the Hudson Bay Company and its exploitation of his people’s lands. While Frontier isn’t as intricately designed as Shōgun, it still sports Momoa as an unstoppable lead who is totally believable as a one-man army up against ruthless capitalists. There is a great distance between Declan Harp and Yoshii Toranaga, but imagine a meeting between them. They might find a lot in common as fiercely principled men who care a lot about the future and preservation of the ground they walk upon.
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Samurai Champloo (2004-2005)
A few years after giving the world the groundbreaking Cowboy Bebop, creator Shinichirō Watanabe came up with its conceptual cousin series Samurai Champloo. An Edo period adventure with an anachronistic hip hop soundtrack, Samurai Champloo tells of two swordsmen, brash Mugen (Kazuya Nakai in the original Japanese language track, and Steve Blum in the English dub) and composed ronin Jin (Ginpei Sato and Kirk Thorton), who join a beautiful teahouse waitress named Fuu (Ayako Kawasumi and Kari Wahlgren) on the road to find a samurai who smells of sunflowers. A cult hit of the mid-aughts, Samurai Champloo is beloved years later for its confident and emotional storytelling revolving around themes of death and identity. As a contrast to Shōgun, Watanabe’s vision rebukes Japan’s preoccupation with conformity and isolationism to champion inclusion of minorities and foreigners.
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The Last Kingdom (2015-2022)
Like Shōgun, this well-reviewed BBC/Netflix drama adapts a popular historical novel series, in this case Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories. The Last Kingdom is the story of Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon), a Christian and Anglo-Saxon prince who is enslaved and raised by Vikings. After growing up, Uhtred seeks to reclaim his home of Bebbanburg, which ultimately decides the future of England. At first blush, The Last Kingdom may come off as yet another Game of Thrones imitator. But through stirring performances and its textured renditions of the European Dark Ages, The Last Kingdom stands tall as a rollicking historical drama tinged with personal vengeance. The Last Kingdom takes place long before John Blackthorne washes up on the shores of Japan, but both sagas share anxieties about seismic changes and foreign invasion.
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Outsiders (2016-2017)
Swap out Sengoku Japan for contemporary Appalachia, and you’ll get a show like Outsiders. Broadcast on WGN America for two seasons (from 2016 to 2017), Outsiders tells of the Farrell family, a tight-knit community of mountain folk who live a spartan existence deep in the Kentucky woods. As local police try to evict the Farrells–at the behest of rich mining companies who seek the valuable coal deposits they live atop of–the Farrells deal with their own problems after a regime change coincides with the homecoming of Asa (Joe Anderson), a “traitor” who left them all behind. Like Shōgun, Outsiders is all about worlds within worlds, about a community guarding itself from greedy interlopers, with the Farrells utilizing violence to keep everyone else from closing in.
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Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
Game of Thrones needs no introduction. It is one of, if not the most popular cable hits of all time that set a new standard for primetime entertainment. Based on George R.R. Martin’s still-unfinished book series, Game of Thrones takes place in Westeros, home to the Seven Kingdoms ruled by oligarchies each seeking control via the Iron Throne. While all men (and women) find some way to amass power, the icy threat of the White Walkers marches towards them. Revered for its mix of fantasy with mature realism, cynicism, and dense political machinations, Game of Thrones had millions tuning in for eight rollercoaster seasons–only to leave everyone livid over its divisive ending. The launch of Shōgun is an obvious ploy by Disney-owned FX and Hulu to seize subscribers in its wake; time will tell if Shōgun rightfully earns the title as the new supreme ruler, or if it’s just another failed dynasty.
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House of the Dragon (2022-)
In case you’ve binged all of Game of Thrones and still hunger for more, there is House of the Dragon. An equally lavish prequel set 200 years prior to Thrones, House of the Dragon traces the Targaryens at the apex of power before their collapse from civil war, in a coming event called the “Dance of the Dragons.” Effectively more of all the same things that made Game of Thrones appealing, including epic violence, palace intrigue and vomit-inducing incest, House of the Dragon is enough to inspire hope that maybe this time, things will end just fine. As of this writing in April 2024, House of the Dragon is still in production with a second season slated to start airing in June. Shōgun, also an engaging political epic, is a welcome excursion, but House of the Dragon will soon beckon us back to the Realm.
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House of Ninjas (2024-)
In the same month Shōgun shook up streaming TV, House of Ninjas was deployed on Netflix. A Japanese-language, Japanese-produced series from actor Kento Kaku, House of Ninjas is effectively a ninja spin on True Lies. It revolves around the Tawaras, a family of shinobi who try to live a normal everyday life until they’re forced to resume their ancient trade in the 21st century. A hybrid of pulp action and family soap opera dramatics, House of Ninjas has, quite fittingly, stuck to the shadows with extremely little press and attention directed its way. In medieval Japan, the samurai hired ninja to carry out secret missions (including political assassinations). Even now in the streaming era, you can find ninja trailing not far from samurai.
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Shōgun (1980)
In a bygone age of TV, James Clavell’s Shōgun was a pop culture phenomenon as an acclaimed miniseries smash on NBC in September 1980. Directed by Jerry London and starring Richard Chamberlain and film legend Toshiro Mifune, Shōgun is effectively the same tale–only on a scale that was possible during the Carter administration. In addition to its prestigious Peabody Award, Shōgun also racked up trophies from the Golden Globes, the People’s Choice Awards, and even an Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series. Here’s a catch: Due to Byzantine distribution rights, Shōgun (1980) is not on any streaming platform. However, it is accessible on the Internet Archive, as well as on DVDs you can rent at your local libraries. Who knew that you had to be around books to enjoy Shōgun? (You can also try buying the DVD below, but the stock tends to go in and out. Try your luck!)
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