FX’s Shogun extended its reign at the 2024 Emmys on Sunday night. Going into the evening, the popular samurai series already held the record for most wins by a show in a single year, with 14 trophies at the Creative Arts Emmys a week ago. But the show further cemented its reign at the Peacock Theater at the Prime Time Emmys, winning four more awards, including the top categories of best drama series, best actress in a drama series for Anna Sawai, best actor in a drama series for Hiroyuki Sanada and best drama direction for Frederick E. O. Toye.

Shogun‘s triumph is momentous on several fronts. The historic awards haul represents a huge win for FX and parent company Disney for a costly series that took nearly a decade to come to fruition and once seemed like a very uncertain bet. It also marks a significant moment for Asian representation and non-English-language television. Shogun is the first-ever series with a majority of non-English language series to win the award in the Best Drama Series category (Netflix’s Korean sensation Squid game was nominated in 2022, but lost to HBO’s Succession), and Sanada and Sawai are the first Japanese actors ever to win an Emmy.

Speaking backstage at the Emmys, Sanada said that when he walked onstage to accept his Emmy, he “felt the weight of the moment and what it all means historically.” Sanada is one of the few top Japanese actors to have transitioned to Hollywood in a big way. He got his start performing nearly 60 years ago in Tokyo as a child star, where he apprenticed with legendary star Sonny Chiba. He said his best actor win also made him think about “all my colleagues and teachers who have taught me since I was a child.”

“As for the next generation,” Sanada added, “I hope they see a lot of meaning in our nominations and our wins and just understand that we’ve created a historic series that really connects with the world.”

Japanese cinema was recognized as early as 1951 when Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 24th Academy Awards. Miyoshi Umeki later won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1957 for Just say opposite Marlon Brando. But recognition for Japanese talent on the small screen came much later. Previously, only Japanese actor Masi Oka, nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Heroes In 2007, she received a nomination for Drama Series from the Television Academy.

Backstage at the Emmys, Sawai said that when she burst into tears while accepting her award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series, it was probably her “twelfth time today.”

“I’m just a mess,” she added. “I think it’s mixed emotions and fear, I want everyone to win… I think I’ll wake up tomorrow and think this was all a dream.”

Shogun‘s march through Emmys history Sunday night wasn’t without some hard-fought losses, however. Billy Crudup won Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for The morning show about the cult Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano, whose performance as the cunning samurai Kashigi Yabushige is a Shogun Fan favorite. The writers’ room for the FX series — which condensed James Clavell’s 1975 bestseller from 1,312 pages into 10 hour-long TV episodes — also lost in the drama writing category to Apple TV+ Slow horses.

Shogun may be FX’s most-watched series ever (based on hours streamed worldwide), but it’s actually the second TV adaptation of Clavell’s sprawling book. A hugely influential epic about duty, honor, and the struggle for power in feudal Japan, the novel was previously adapted by Paramount Television in 1980. Filmed on location in Japan with the largest budget ever spent on a TV series at the time, the first Shogun became a pop culture sensation when it aired on NBC. The series earned 12 Emmy nominations at the 1981 Emmys, winning for Outstanding Limited Series, Costume Design, and Best Title Sequence.

Paramount’s film adaptation ended where the story of Clavell’s beloved book ends, as did the first season of FX’s Shogun does. Co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo delighted fans in May with the revelation that Disney had greenlit two more seasons of the show. Sanada, who Shogun In addition to the role of Lord Toranaga, has begun teasing ideas about what lies ahead for the next chapters of the story. After Sunday night’s Emmys celebrations conclude, Shogun The creative team still has their work cut out for them as they attempt to retain Lord Toranaga’s Emmy award win by adding two completely original seasons to the saga.