By Andrew Whalen
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In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy described Shogun World, an unseen theme park revealed during Westworld 's Season 1 finale. True to its name, Shogun World is set in feudal Japan, particularly a 300-year span roughly approximating the Edo Period from 1603 to 1867, an era of strict castes and cultural flourishing that followed the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate in 1600. Much of what Joy and Nolan describe isn't exactly surprising—would you believe they were inspired by Akira Kurosawa movies?—but the Westworld showrunners also revealed a full episode would be set in Shogun World, primarily in Japanese.
Nolan and Joy cited Kurosawa (Nolan described The Seven Samurai as "the greatest film ever"), Sonny Chiba, Shaw Brothers adaptations of Journey to the West and Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy—particularly the final sword fight in Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island between famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro—as inspiration for the Shogun World portions of Westworld Season 2. But how much of the season will take us out of Westworld?
"We wanted to feel like our story dropped into a totally different world," Nolan said. "Basically, we have a whole episode in Japanese."
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The Shogun World episode of Westworld will introduce us to new characters played by Hiroyuki Sanada (The Twilight Samurai, Sunshine) and Rinko Kikuchi (Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, Pacific Rim).
Expect Shogun World to be introduced immersively, with the fully Japanese episode, then become more of a space for one or two subplots, like cutting away from Westeros to Daenerys' adventures in Meereen in Game of Thrones. "We want to try and gently temper expectations," Nolan told EW. "Most of our season is spent in Westworld—the eponymous Westworld. But we do get a chance to glimpse some of the other worlds. And we have a couple of episodes that are spent in Shogun World with one of our storylines."
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Beyond the storyline set in Shogun World, notice Nolan's mention of "other worlds." Back in February, an HBO promotional site for an in-universe vacation vendor, Delos Destinations, revealed there are six different theme parks. It now sounds like Westworld Season 2 will show us more than Westworld and Shogun World, if just briefly.
Westworld Season 2 premieres April 22 on HBO.
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