The best replacement for shamisen is taiko.

The best alternatives to shamisen are rated as following:
★★★★★  taiko
★★★★  sanshin
★★★★  shamisen
★  sanxian
★  samisen

Your alternative for shamisen is not listed? Suggest!
Speaking about shamisen, one probably shouldn't forget about geisha.

Other search terms related to shamisen and their ratings are:
★★★★★ geisha
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Google Trends

Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of shamisen in all years. Click on graph for more.
shamisen
taiko
sanshin