When it comes to developing the best games the industry can offer, Japan and the West are in relative parity. But when it comes to adapting those games into prestige TV series, the country of Nintendo, Sony and Sega is falling far off the pace.
At a press event in Meguro Ward’s swanky Hotel Gajoen on June 4, Amazon Prime Video announced a TV adaptation of the long-running Like a Dragon series (developed by Sega and known under the Yakuza title outside Japan). Starring Ryoma Takeuchi as protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and helmed by “The Naked Director” chief Masaharu Take, “Like a Dragon: Yakuza” will take viewers through the gritty streets of Kamurocho, based off the Kabukicho nightlife district in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward. Part hard-boiled crime drama and part collection of vignettes depicting the trials and tribulations of urban life in Japan, the six-episode TV adaptation will be split between 1995 and 2005 as Kiryu struggles to live by a personal code of honor amid the cutthroat world of the Japanese mafia.
Takeuchi certainly looked the part of Kiryu at the event. His hair slicked back, the 31-year-old actor wore a patterned black kimono with similarly patterned chukka boots. The full-length dragon back tattoo sported by the character, Takeuchi explained, took 2½ hours to apply during shooting — necessary tedium for the 185-centimeter-tall Takeuchi if he’s to convincingly portray a character who strides through a red-light district pummeling honor and justice into street thugs and loan sharks with nothing but his bare hands.