Last Samurai Standing’s Secret Origin: The Dark Legend History Tried to Bury
Netflix unleashes Last Samurai Standing on November 13, 2025 — a six-episode adaptation of Shogo Imamura’s Naoki Prize-winning Ikusagami that hurls 292 warriors into an 1878 Meiji-era death match at Tenryuji Temple for 100 billion yen.
Netflix is strapping a katana onto the battle-royale format this fall. 'Last Samurai Standing' lands November 13, 2025, and it is exactly what it sounds like: 292 warriors, one absurdly huge prize, and a whole lot of steel. It is set in 1878, but the kill-or-be-killed tournament is pure fiction, so no, you did not sleep through a secret chapter of Japanese history class.
What it is
The six-episode series adapts Shogo Imamura's Naoki Prize-winning novel 'Ikusagami.' We meet Shujiro Saga (Junichi Okada), a former assassin dragged into a lethal survival game to save his family. The competition kicks off at Tenryuji Temple and pushes the fighters toward Tokyo with one goal: outlive the others and walk away with 100 billion yen. Yes, that number is wild for 1878; this is a stylized survival story, not a ledger from the Meiji government.
'Shogun meets Squid Game.'
- Kaata Sakamoto, head of content, Netflix Japan
How the game works
Each participant starts with a wooden tag. The rules are simple and brutal: steal other warriors' tags while making your way to Tokyo, do whatever it takes to stay alive, and be the last person standing to claim the money. Think survival stakes you know from modern thrillers, but swapped into an old-school, blade-first setting.
Scale, look, and early buzz
Netflix is chasing prestige scale here: more than 1,000 cast and crew, period-accurate costumes and weaponry, and the kind of sweaty, layered battlefield chaos that tries to match the historical sweep people love in shows like 'Shogun.' The first two episodes screened at the 30th Busan International Film Festival on September 18, 2025, where early reactions zeroed in on the large melee sequences shot without digital enhancement. The vibe? Trade press has already pegged it as a death-match thriller with 'Squid Game' stakes and samurai-epic atmosphere.
The team bringing the blades
Junichi Okada is not just starring; he is producing and serving as action choreographer. He and director Michihito Fujii are reuniting after their 2023 crime thriller 'Hard Days,' and Okada is leaning on his fight-design chops from 'Baragaki: Unbroken Samurai' (2021) and the bruiser 'Hell Dogs' (2022). He reportedly drilled the cast on authentic samurai combat and coordinated fights involving hundreds of performers at Tenryuji Temple.
- Director: Michihito Fujii (Japan Academy Prize winner for 'Shoutai'/'Faceless')
- Lead actor/producer/action choreographer: Junichi Okada as Shujiro Saga
- Cast: Hiroshi Abe as Gentosai Okabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Riho Yoshioka, Kaya Kiyohara, Yumia Fujisak, Hiroshi Tamaki, Hideaki Ito
- Episodes: 6
- Release: November 13, 2025 on Netflix
- Source material: 'Ikusagami' by Shogo Imamura
- Production scale: 1,000+ cast and crew; period-accurate costumes and weapons
- Festival debut: First two episodes premiered September 18, 2025 at the 30th Busan International Film Festival
The book and the author
Shogo Imamura wrote 'Ikusagami' to be a globally accessible historical novel, and it worked: the Kyoto-based author, 41, picked up the Naoki Prize in 2022 for the series after already winning the Eiji Yoshikawa Literature Prize for New Writers and the Futaro Yamada Prize in 2020. Before he started publishing in 2017, he was a dance instructor, a musical composer, and even an archaeologist at the Moriyama Buried Cultural Properties Center. The books have since been adapted into a Kodansha manga.
Why 1878 matters (and why this battle is fiction)
The story is set one year after the Satsuma Rebellion ended at the Battle of Shiroyama on September 24, 1877, widely seen as the last true samurai uprising. By then, the Meiji government had already rewritten the rules: the 1873 Conscription Law created a national army, and the 1876 Sword Ban stripped samurai of their everyday sidearms and a lot of their status. Thousands of former warriors were suddenly adrift, which gives Imamura's death match real historical tension. But to be crystal clear: the tournament itself never happened. It is a what-if, not a covered-up chapter.
The bottom line
If you want a high-budget, blade-forward survival ride with actual historical texture under the hood, this looks like one to put on the calendar. 'Last Samurai Standing' starts streaming November 13, 2025 on Netflix.