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Hulu's incredibly successful series Shogun probably won't return for a second season

By Matthew Liebl

“SHOGUN” -- "The Eightfold Fence" -- Episode 4 (Airs March 12) Pictured:Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne, Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, Tadanobu Asano as Kashigi Yabushige, Hiroto Kanai as Kashigi Omi. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” -- "The Eightfold Fence" -- Episode 4 (Airs March 12) Pictured:Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne, Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, Tadanobu Asano as Kashigi Yabushige, Hiroto Kanai as Kashigi Omi. CR: Katie Yu/FX /
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Shogun is one of television's most popular shows right now. The series, which debuted in February on FX and Hulu, has received critical acclaim worldwide and currently sits at a near-perfect 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Perhaps more impressively is that general audiences agree. The average audience score sits at 93%.

Normally when a series is as successful as Shogun, producers and networks jump at the opportunity to milk it for all its worth. But that may not be the case for Shogun, no matter its popularity.

Will there be a Shogun Season 2?

In a lengthy interview with The Hollywood Reporter, series showrunners Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo were asked about the possibility of a second season. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like there are plans to continue the series.

Here's what Justin Marks said when asked if they'd like to build upon the world of Shogun with a second season:

"We took the story to the end of the book and put a period at the end of that sentence. We love how the book ends; it was one of the reasons why we both knew we wanted to do it — and we ended in exactly that place. And I’ve been party to this in the past with shows like this, where you build a whole factory, and it only pumps out 10 cars and closes up shop. It’s a bummer."

That sounds like a definitive no, but Marks did leave the possibility open.

"Oh, that’s just our bodies talking. Like, do you want to have another kid right now? You know, we also made this show so long ago, because of the long tail of postproduction on it. It’s not like a normal TV series, where if we were in a situation like this promoting it, we wouldn’t just be in the writers room already, we’d be on set shooting season two by now."

So, you're telling me there's a chance!

Shogun is a historical drama based on the 1975 novel of the same name by James Clavell. Given that the source material has been exhausted in this first season, it might be best to leave it as is. We all saw what happened with Game of Thrones when they moved ahead of the books.

That said, there is the opportunity for other stories from James Clavell to be adapted. Shogun is just one book from Clavell, but he's got five more that span different regions in Asia and the Middle-East, including Hong Kong and Japan, although they are set in different time periods.

Shogun is currently streaming on Hulu. The first four episodes are out now and available to watch on the service with new episodes dropping weekly every Tuesday.

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