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Shōgun Won the Attention War
When so much of the battle for TV viewership is getting audiences to watch a single screen, translation is Shōgun’s not-secret weapon.
In an era of series that thrive in the background, that do not require (or frankly, reward) excessive, careful attention, and that can coexist with multiple screens at once, Shōgun ’s majority-Japanese dialogue makes the show phoneproof — or, at the very least, actively pushes against the impulse to glance elsewhere in the middle of an episode. Shōgun exists in this lineage of admittedly violent, tragic shows (often about masculinity in crisis) that were more common a decade ago but have a harder time capturing broad public awareness now. Its premiere got over 9 million views within the first six days, making it Disney’s best worldwide debut for a non-Marvel or Star Wars show.It’s also part of the rise of a much broader category of entertainment for American viewers: non-English TV.
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