Who is Shogun actress Anna Sawai? Meet Lady Toda Mariko who fans can't stop raving about and the true story behind her character

Disney+'s 10-episode series Shogun has reached its conclusion and fans are calling for female lead Anna Sawai to be rewarded in the next awards season for a stellar performance.

As lead character Lady Toda Mariko, Sawai, 31, stars as 'a woman with invaluable skills but dishonourable family ties, who must prove her value and allegiance'.

Shogun is an adaptation of James Clavell's 1975 novel by the same name, which is a fictionalisation of real people and events from 17th century Japan.

As a result, Lady Makiro is actually based on a real person some 350 years ago.

So, who is Anna Sawai, and what is the true story of her character?

Disney+'s 10-episode series Shogun has reached its conclusion and fans are calling for female lead Anna Sawai (seen as Lady Toda Mariko) to be rewarded for a stellar performance

Sawai took a break from acting when she was 21 to join a Japanese girl group, but has had a very successful return to screens

Who is Anna Sawai?

Anna Sawai was born on June 11, 1992, in Wellington, New Zealand, but launched her acting career aged 11 after moving to Japan the previous year.

In 2004 she starred in a stage production in Tokyo, and five years later she made her film debut in martial arts film Ninja Assassin.

However, Sawai took a break from acting roles when she was 21 as a lead vocalist in girl group FAKY, which rose her stardom in Japan.

But she left the band after five years to go back to pursuing her acting career and landed a role in BBC crime series Giri/Hagi.

Her next big role saw her on the Hollywood silver screen in 2021's Fast & Furious 9 as Elle Lue.

Between then and being the female lead in Disney+ hit Shogun, Sawai has also featured in Apple TV's series Pachinko and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

Sawai took a break from acting roles when she was 21 as a lead vocalist in girl group FAKY. Seen centre-right with bandmates (L-R) Lil' Fang, Akina and Mikako

Returning from her musical hiatus, the actress (seen centre) landed a role on 2019 BBC crime series Giri/Hagi

Sawai made her Hollywood debut in Fast & Furious 9. She is seen in the film with Sung Kang

She also starred in Apple TV series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (pictured)

Is Lady Mariko in Shogun a real person?

The real woman behind Lady Toda Mariko is Akechi Tama, also known as Hosokawa Gracia - a 16th century Japanese aristocrat and the daughter of General Akechi Mitsuhide (Akechi Jinsai in Shogun), who served under the first unifier of Japan, Lord Oda Nobunaga (Shogun's Kuroda). 

Age 15, Tama married the eldest son of Fujitaka Hosokawa (Toda Hiromatsu in Shogun) - Tadaoki (Toda Buntaro in the series) - another powerful warlord of the time. 

Tadaoki was a highly educated military commander, and he and Tama had five children.

However, Tama was caught at the heart of a power struggle in 1582, when she was 19, when her father betrayed and assassinated Lord Nobunaga before being killed himself in battle a month later.

Tama's reputation suffered and she spent two years in exile after which she lived in Osaka. We see the tension her reputation brings in episode six between Mariko and Ochiba No Kata (Fumi Nikaido).

In Osaka, Tama converted to Catholicism and assumed her Christian name - Gracia - causing conflict with her husband according to documented history of the family. Christianity had been brought to Japan in the late 16th century by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries.

Legends speak of how 'once the time came to put on her armor and mount her horse to face the enemy, Tama was no less in valor than a man'.

When the Hosokawas joined forces with Tokugawa Ieyasu (Yoshii Toranaga in Shogun) in 1600, Tama remained in Osaka, but went on to play a pivotal role in the war to come.

One untruth in Shogun is Mariko's relationship with John Blackthorne - who is based on William Adams, the first English sailor to reach Japan in 1600. 

While Adams maintained a friendship with Tokugawa, he apparently never met Tama, who by this point was known as Lady Gracia, as she was never Tokugawa's translator.

While episode nine of Shogun overstates the real Lady Gracia's fight in her Osaka mansion, Ishida Mitsunari (Shogun's Ishido) did order for her and her children to be taken hostage.

Lady Gracia refused capture, instead preferring suicide. However, as her faith determined suicide to be a sin, she ordered a servant to kill her, which he did.

Though Ishida reportedly insisted he was not responsible for her death, the event shocked Osaka and principally her husband - who was fighting to the East.

In the months that followed, Hosokawa and Tokugawa came out victorious in the Battle of Sekigahara - the largest in the history of feudal Japan - paving the way for two-and-a-half centuries of the Tokugawa's military rule of the country. 

Lady Mariko is based on real 16th century Japanese warlord's daughter Akechi Tama, better known now as Lady Hosokawa Gracia 

One falsehood in Shogun is that Tama never really met English sailor William Adams, who is presented in the series by Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne (pictured)

Despite Shogun's success, its  co-creator has implied that it will not be back for a second season, as the 10 episodes reach the end of the book it is inspired by

Will there be a Shogun season 2?

The Tokugawa shogunate (military dictatorship) spelled the end of the volatile feudalist stage in Japan's history, and the epilogue of James Clavell's novel.

FX is yet to renew Shogun despite its huge success and co-creator Justin Marks told The Direct in February 2024: 'I think we tell the complete story of the book. And we get to the end.'

Marks also mentioned how much time - around five year - has gone into creating the 10-part series as reason to leave it be. 

The series has received an astonishing 99 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes amid global acclaim.