The Last Samurai Standing Season 2: Will It Happen? Everything We Know So Far

Netflix just dropped all six episodes of Last Samurai Standing worldwide on November 13, 2025, and now we wait. No Season 2 announcement yet. The show had a splashy two-episode festival preview at Busan back on September 18, which felt like a head start, but the renewal decision is still in Netflix limbo. Director Michihito Fujii says he wants to keep going; whether he gets to will come down to the usual data dance.

Where the renewal stands

Fujii told ScreenRant he already has plans beyond the current run. Netflix, meanwhile, will track viewership, completion rates, and how the show performs outside Japan over the next few weeks. If the numbers cooperate, a yes-or-no could land by late 2025.

Season 1 leaves the door wide open

This is not a neat ending. It is a handoff to the next chapter, and the show is not hiding it.

• Shujiro Saga and Futaba Katsuki head to Tokyo to expose the Kodoku conspiracy after the Home Minister is killed.
• Police superintendent-general Toshiyoshi Kawaji’s push to wipe out the samurai class (and consolidate his own power) is unfinished business.
• Kyojin Tsuge’s turn suggests he is tangled in Kodoku deeper than Season 1 explains.
• Iroha Kinugasa and her siblings swear revenge against Gentosai Okabe, which is not exactly a plotline that wraps itself.

Fujii has been clear the story continues past this finale, and the way the show tees things up backs him. If Netflix renews, expect star Junichi Okada back — he also produced and designed the action — along with Yumia Fujisaki, Kaya Kiyohara, Masahiro Higashide, and Gaku Hamada.

What the show actually is

Last Samurai Standing adapts Shogo Imamura’s historical novel Ikusagami (Imamura is a Naoki Prize winner) and plants us in 1878, deep in the Meiji era. The hook: 292 samurai are forced into a government-run survival tournament with a 100 billion yen prize dangling overhead. Here is the part that made my eyebrows go up: every single one of those 292 fighters is a real actor or stunt performer. No digital crowds. That choice meant a lot of overnight shoots, including big sequences at Kyoto’s Tenryu-ji Temple. If you care about stunt craft, that is a flex.

The global swing (and the Squid Game yardstick)

Coverage keeps bringing up Squid Game, and you can see why: the deadly competition format, the clean hook, the big-tent ambitions. The Hollywood Reporter likened it to a fusion of Squid Game and Shogun, and The Daily Beast went all-in predicting it could outstrip Squid Game. Okada has said the whole point was to make a Japanese period piece that plays worldwide, not just domestically.

'My hidden goal was to create a new kind of period drama, one that’s also an action drama. Something made entirely in Japan, but made for the world.'

As for that benchmark: Variety pegs Squid Game’s reach at 330 million viewers and over 2.8 billion hours watched since 2021, and also cites Season 3 hitting 106.3 million people in 10 days with 60 million views in three days. For this show to lock in Season 2, it needs to pull a convincing global audience, even if Netflix keeps the fine-grain numbers close to the vest.

How critics are taking it (and what Netflix will weigh)

Reviews are strong. A critic at RogerEbert.com even called it one of the best action shows of the year, praising the tight storytelling and the historical texture beyond the bloodsport. The extra layers help: it is not just arena mayhem; there is political maneuvering and period detail baked in.

On the business side, Netflix has to balance that momentum against cost. This is bigger and pricier than a typical Japanese drama, and those massive set pieces do not come cheap. The upside: appetite for Japanese series is climbing after hits like Alice in Borderland and Shogun, which does help the argument for keeping this one going.

So, are we getting Season 2?

If you forced me to bet today, I would say it is built for continuation and Netflix will want the international engagement numbers before committing. If those look healthy, the cliffhangers speak for themselves.

Last Samurai Standing is streaming now on Netflix. After that finale, are you in for another round? Tell me what you think.