The production team at Amazon stopped the stars of its Like a Dragon: Yakuza series from playing the games before filming.
Kento Kaku, who plays protagonist Kiryu Kazuma's best friend turned rival in the show, Akira Nishikiyama, told Games Radar that he wanted to play the games but was stopped by the production team who wanted him to approach the script without any prior influence.
"I know these games — everybody in the world knows these games — but I haven't played them," Kaku said. "I'd like to try them but they had to stop me because they wanted to, for the character in the script, explore from scratch. That's why I decided not to play."
The show is based on the first Like a Dragon/Yakuza game, telling the story of Kiryu as he navigates Tokyo's criminal underground before and after a long prison stint, so Kaku's comments don't imply no one at Amazon knows what happens in the game. The production team seemingly just wanted its cast to not imitate what the portrayals from the games.
"I definitely knew the property very well but I didn't realize the franchise was this globally big," Kaku added. "We decided we would make sure we would do our own version, relive the characters, take their spiritual elements, and embody them on our own. There was a clear line we wanted to draw but everything on the bottom was respect."
Like a Dragon: Yakuza was announced in June 2024 with a release date just a few months later. The first three episodes of the six episode series will premiere on Prime Video on October 25, while the latter three will premiere November 1.
Kiryu will be played by Ryoma Takeuchi, and fans got a first proper glimpse of him in the role in a teaser released at San Diego Comic-Con in July.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
