FX/Hulu’s Shōgun landed an impressive 25 nominations for the upcoming Primetime Emmy Awards, becoming the first Japanese-language series to be nominated for Outstanding Drama Series. Editors Maria Gonzales and Aika Miyake, who worked on three episodes individually before collaborating on the finale, ensured that non-Japanese-speaking audiences would be engaged with the story told mostly through subtitles.
The series is based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel and was originally planned as a limited series. However, following substantial critical success, the 10-episode historical epic received a two-season renewal. The series’ craft has been largely praised for its historical authenticity and stunning visual effects, and Gonzales and Miyaki experimented with the edit of the finale to ensure an expressive ending.
Episode 10 – ‘A Dream of a Dream,’ directed by Frederick E.O. Toye, immediately follows the apparent death of Lady Mariko in the previous episode and weaves together the culmination of various character arcs. The characters’ true motives and loyalties are revealed, setting the stage for a compelling conclusion to the season, originally intended to be the series finale. Gonzales and Miyake had to maintain the series’ momentum through a series of scenes that are heavier in dialogue than action.
Miyake adds, “At this point, everyone expected big war and battle scenes in episode ten, but we did something completely different by visiting Blackthorne’s future in a dream. Mariko is gone, and though she is not present in the story, we carry on her emotions. We spent a lot of time curating and carrying her emotions to the very end. I really believe episode ten really does justice to these elements.”
Gonzales and Miyake spoke to Awards Focus about the moment they each learned about the Emmy nomination, their approach to incorporating subtitles without disrupting the beautiful natural flow of feudal-era Japanese language and their favorite scenes from the series.
AF: Congratulations to the both of you on your Emmy Awards nomination. How did you both react when you first heard about the nomination?
Maria: I was really shocked. I basically lost track of the days because I’ve been working a lot. It was my mentor, Dana Glauberman, an editor I assisted for many years, who texted me about the drama nominations for editing. At first, I opened the text and thought, “What is this? I don’t even know what this is.” Then she told me to keep scrolling. It was a huge surprise. I just love editing, and it’s one of those things you don’t get into because you’re chasing awards. But when it happens, it’s wonderful for your work to be recognized.
Aika: For me, it’s surreal as well. ‘Shōgun’ is my first narrative TV show, and it’s an honor to be nominated alongside so many other Japanese people in various categories. I’m just blown away and couldn’t believe it. I told my friend in Japan, and she was excited because she saw my name on Japanese morning TV shows. She said, “I saw your name!”
AF: What different approaches did you take when it came to editing for this show, given that much of it was in Japanese and that the majority of Western viewers would be reading subtitles?
Maria: There’s so much to consider, and we were trying to showcase a lot. We had wonderful cast members, amazing writing, and intricate characters that we wanted to highlight. At the same time, we wanted to showcase the grandeur and scope envisioned for the show, as well as the tiny details of everyday mundane life. It was about keeping everything engaging throughout the duration of ten episodes.
For myself, Japanese [language] was an obstacle, but we had incredible support from our assisting team, who subtitled all the dailies. There was a lot of consideration with these subtitles—they were like a living thing in the cutting room because they constantly kept changing. But once we locked the episodes, hours and hours were spent crafting the subtitles. We made a conscious effort not to have more than one row of subtitles, ensuring they were accurate and tonally reflective of the poetic nature of the dialogue that was created on the page. It was quite a challenge. Also, we were aware the landscape had changed. With streaming, there’s been a lot of subtitled shows that have done pretty well, but still there was some nervousness about it. We put in a lot of time getting those subtitles right where they needed to be.
Aika: I grew up watching subtitles in Japanese since I didn’t speak English until I was about 20. I watched many Hollywood movies with subtitles. Throughout the years, I’ve seen people start watching streaming shows with subtitles, so I was faithful the audience would be able to catch up. Also, I wanted to see something like this, and I was the number one audience member from the beginning. I wanted to see a show that was challenging to understand the politics but also emotionally intriguing. I really believed in the way it was shot, the choice of music, and every decision that the showrunner, Justin [Marks], wanted to make felt right from the beginning, and I thought I would be ecstatic to see this show as an audience member. I was really excited from the very beginning and also talking about language, I was the only one in the cutting room who spoke both languages, so I understood what was being said in English and Japanese. I wanted to introduce the translation bit as best as possible so that happens in episode two, which I edited. We really took time to fade out who was talking and who was translating, engineering it to feel as smooth as possible.
Maria: That was definitely one of the departures from the original show (1980). They didn’t do any subtitles; everything was done through translation, so you heard the same thing twice. As Aika said, she really spearheaded it in episode two. It was a real intricate technique we were using to bypass that and avoid playing everything twice in every scene.
AF: Can you describe working with each other and how you came together to jointly edit the season finale?
Maria: Officially, we only collaborated on episode ten on paper, but Aika and I were paired up from the very first shooting block. I was cutting episode one, and she was cutting episode two, which were shot concurrently. The same happened with episodes four and five, which were also shot concurrently. These were our episodes. From the beginning, we developed a rapport, checking in with each other on dailies, watching each other’s cuts, and offering support throughout the process.
By the time we got to episode ten, initially my episode, I was too busy with other episodes, so it was a good time for Aika to jump in. It was a natural flow of things. I did the editor’s cut mostly, and she did the director’s cut. When we started working with Justin, we really joined forces. It wasn’t about dividing the scenes; we both tackled everything, whoever was available or wanted to take a pass. We kept an open dialogue, making it a true collaboration.
Aika: I just want to add that I loved working with Maria. I have admired her editing from the very beginning. I always followed in her footsteps throughout the whole process of ‘Shōgun,’ – she was editing episode one, and I was editing episode two. I was so happy to collaborate, help each other, and learn. We would talk about the characters, and one of the fun moments every day was calling her from the car on the way home to discuss characters and stories, trying out different ideas. That was a really fun memory for me.
AF: It is your work for episode ten that received recognition for an Emmy nomination. What aspects of the finale episode reflect the outstanding editing throughout the series?
Maria: Episode ten is the culmination of the whole story. It may not be the most exciting episode because there’s not a ton of action, but it has a lot of back-to-back dialogue scenes. For me, these are often the most challenging, especially crafting the final part of Blackthorne’s story, Yabushige’s story, and Toranaga’s reveal. We aimed to bring the episode to a good close while maintaining the momentum of the series but focusing in on this one final part. There were many challenges in this regard. There are often flashier opportunities in big action sequences, but I find dialogue scenes always the toughest to craft. Keeping a 4-5 minute dialogue scene properly paced and pulling out all the right emotions and tensions is where editing is really the most fun for me.
Aika: I also want to add that at this point, everyone expected big war and battle scenes in episode ten, but we did something completely different by visiting Blackthorne’s future in a dream. It’s really difficult to convey that type of concept on screen and it was refreshing to work on something very emotional. Mariko is gone, and though she is not present in the story, we carry on her emotions. We spent a lot of time curating and carrying her emotions to the very end. I really believe episode ten really does justice to these elements.
AF: Yabushige, played by Tadanobu Asado, is a very fun character throughout the series. In this episode, there are a few scenes where he is perhaps at his emotional low point, dealing with the guilt of his betrayal that led to Mariko’s death, as well as his own seppuku scene. How do you balance editing these scenes to maintain his natural charisma and humor while not losing the gravity of the moments and the underlying message you’re trying to convey to the viewer?
Maria: The one thing about Tadanobu Asano is that the moment we started getting his dailies, we all fell in love with him because he’s so dynamic on screen. He added so much, and I learned from Aika that he was given a lot of license to ad-lib because he wasn’t fully sticking to the script. We fully embraced that. When it came to episode ten, we basically followed his lead. We spent quite a bit of time crafting his arc because, at one point, post-explosion, he goes through a traumatic moment and there were times when we leaned too heavily on his performance and had to tone it down because of the sharp shift between his travel back to Ajiro, his sentencing by Toranaga, and then leading into his final scene. One of the great things about Yabushige is that he is a multifaceted character who can hand somebody his will and still make you crack up.
Aika: I feel exactly the same way. Tadanobu Asano did an amazing job portraying him. I remember the scene where Blackthorne and Yabushige are coming back to Ajiro on the ship, and he’s going manic. In that scene, we had a lot more manic acting, and we could have gone further to portray his mental state, but we also pulled back a bit. We needed to transition him to the scene facing Toranaga. We did a lot of dialing up and down to manage his mental and emotional state throughout the episode.
AF: Of the scenes you worked on, which were your favorites and which ones were you most proud of after seeing the final edit?
Aika: I have so many scenes that I love. Oh boy. I always talk about the scene in episode eight with Hiromatsu and Toranaga’s seppuku. It’s probably one of the most intense scenes. I remember writing down notes to myself, feeling like I had cut a masterpiece that day. [Laughs] It felt like my life as an editor had come full circle. I’ve been editing for 15 years, and in the beginning, I didn’t even know offline editing existed. I was doing online editing, and it took me so long to get here. But here I am, editing this amazing performance and scene. I’m so proud of how it came out and how people are reacting to it.
I also had the chance to portray Buntaro’s character, showing that he is not one-sided. I love the moment where Mariko, in the beginning, says that people’s hearts are not one-sided; people have more than one heart. Throughout the whole story, we could show multifaceted characters who are not simply bad or good. They are complicated, and we navigated through their arcs and sides without forcing it. A lot of work was put into those episodes, and I am really proud.
Maria: It’s really hard to choose because we worked on the show for so long. I was on the show for 18 months.
You really get to fall in love with the characters and a lot of the dialogue. And we had some beautiful dialogue. I have favorites in every single episode. I’m particularly fond of episode seven because I worked with an amazing director, Takeshi (Fukunaga), who did a wonderful job and represented the theme of the season, the misty nature of the season.
But it’s hard not to bring up episode one. Pilots are always difficult, setting up the whole show. I had the pleasure of cutting it. I love the introductory scene to Mariko where she comes to Fuji’s rescue. In the scene, Fuji’s husband had a misstep in the big opener for Toranaga and needed to commit seppuku to end his bloodline. Fuji is there protecting her baby, and Mariko walks in to calm the situation. It’s a very short, simple scene, but a scene in which two really powerful female characters come face to face and end up being pivotal characters in the entire series. I just loved being able to craft that and there are many little examples like that throughout the show.