If you’re a long-time Yakuza fan like this author, it’s worth remembering just how far the series now known as Like a Dragon has come. SEGA once axed the series outside Japan, leaving Sony with localization duties for Yakuza 5. Just under a decade later, the film became the subject of a high-profile Amazon Prime show, and while there have been films in the past – such as Takashi Miike’s infamous 2007 adaptation – it clearly has this aiming to gain global appeal. It’s just a pity that it’s not very good.
While the first three episodes are available now, we received early access to all six and don’t feel like it does the series justice. Of course, straddling the line between brand melodrama and outright stupidity has never been basic, and this series, which stars Ryōma Takeuchi as stoic hero Kazuma Kiryu, doesn’t even try – it’s a typical, expressive-faced Japanese crime drama that largely plays things sheltered from start to finish. It also gets bogged down in its own story, teasing out plot threads and then leaving them hanging as it quickly moves on to the next topic or theme.

Takeuchi fails to capture the nuances of SEGA’s Kiryu, lacking the video game character’s charisma and broad shoulders. The plot follows the events of the Yakuza 0 prequel and the PS2 original – or Yakuza Kiwami, for those who played the remake – but is very different from it, making it largely unrecognizable to game fans. Of course, it didn’t have to be a beat-by-beat story, but we don’t think it captured the essence I don’t know what source material, which is a pity.
This is perhaps best reflected in the underutilization of Goro Majima, played by Munetaka Aoki. His performance is there Thin as a notoriously crazy person, but it seems like the writers didn’t really know what to do with him; like he was just there to check a box. To be fair, Kento Kaku as Akira Nishikiyama shows tremendous range as the story jumps between the two time periods, showing his transformation from a mild-mannered newborn man to a dead-eyed gangster overlord.
We’ll also note that the attention to detail in some of the sets is astounding, right down to era-appropriate 1995 movie posters and even the odd Easter egg, such as placing some Virtua Fighter 2.1 banners outside the arcade. There’s very little of Kamurocho himself evident, and it looks like some shots of the real Kabukicho were recreated using CGI, but at least he captures the time period quite well, and it all feels seedy and seedy in the way it looks. one would expect this.

But the story drags, and even episodes averaging under 50 minutes always feel like they’re a little too long. There’s a lot to cover here, with plenty of subplots leading to a lack of overall coherence, and we suspect casual viewers may quickly become disconnected. In fact, fans of the franchise will likely struggle as well, as the series lacks the lightness and silliness of the games to counteract the violence and misery. It all gets a bit dreary at times and offers very little respite.
But perhaps the biggest crime is that we can’t imagine anyone paying so much attention to it without being connected to a video game. We like the additional exploration of Yumi, an underexplored character in the source material – but that’s not enough of a reason to tune in. What remains is a typical mid-range Japanese drama that fails to stand out from its peers – or capture any semblance of the spirit of the series it is inspired by. And after a series of victories in video games and movies, the failures of that series become even more pronounced.
Have you watched Like a Dragon: Yakuza? What did you think of the first three episodes and will you appear in the second half of the series? Get your ink in the comments section below.