"Think Shōgun meets Squid Game": Last Samurai Standing is about Samurai battle royale set in the Edo period

Last Samurai Standing is an upcoming Japanese battle royale drama set in the Edo period. It is ready to premiere in November 2025 with Netflix teasing its fans releasing the first look. The show follows 300 samurai warriors in a brutal fight for survival with the last warrior to win a whopping amount of 100 billion yen. Every contestant is expected to reach Tokyo while eliminating as many contestants as they can on the way.

The show features an amazing cast that includes Junichi Okada, Masahiro Higashide, Shota Sometani, Hiroshi Tamaki, Takayuki Yamada, Jyo Kairi, Wataru Ichinose, Hideaki Ito, and Yasushi Fuchigami. The show's content head, Kaata Sakamoto, compares the theme of the series with Shogun and Squid Games, which also showcased common people fighting violent battles in extreme life-and-death situations.

---

Last Samurai Standing is like Shogun meeting Squid games, says the makes of the show

Last Samurai Standing is set in Edo-period Japan, with a strong focus on samurai culture, politics, and warfare, similar to Shōgun's setting and themes of power struggles.

Last Samurai Standing is also a battle royale-style survival game in which samurais fight to be the last one standing for a massive reward. It mirrors the Squid Game, where contestants compete in deadly games for a life-changing prize. Like Squid Games, Last Samurai Standing also aims to feature themes like betrayal and moral ambiguity.

Sakamoto further commented that whenever people think of Samurai, they only think of their glamorous past and romanticize it. However, there was also a time when they were losing their glamour, and Last Samurai Standing depicts this.

When most people think about samurai, they think about this very glamorous period in Japanese history,” says Sakamoto. “But what a lot of people don’t realize is that, towards the end of the Edo period, the samurai lost a lot of their glamour and their power.

‘Last Samurai Standing’ is about what would happen if these warriors — the toughest and best in Japan — all of a sudden became common people and had to fight for their lives. Think ‘Shōgun’ meets ‘Squid Game.'”

Junichi Okada has expressed enthusiasm for the project, calling it a perfect blend of action, drama, and social commentary. The series draws inspiration from a manga by Imamura, which aimed to modernize samurai stories for global audiences

The official synopsis of the show as per Netflix states,

“Set in the late 19th century during the Meiji period, Last Samurai Standing takes place at the Tenryuji Temple in Kyoto. Come nightfall, 292 skilled warriors gather, lured by the promise of a grand prize of 100 billion yen. Among them is our protagonist, Shujiro Saga (Junichi Okada), who enters this dangerous game with one goal: to save his ailing wife and child.”

---

Netflix is indeed expanding its slate to include more Japanese shows with Last Standing Samurai. The company plans to gain a global viewership by offering shows and films in multiple languages, especially after the success of Squid Game.

This year's slate of Netflix also includes Alice in Borderland Season 3 to premiere in September 2025. The new season will expand beyond Haro Aso’s original manga and Shinji Higuchi's upcoming film Bullet Train Explosion to be released in April this year.