When Prime Video’s 6-episode live-action adaptation of Like a Dragon was announced, there was widely expressed concern over how it would capture the unique tone of Sega’s long-running and beloved game series set in the world of Japanese organized crime. You may have heard there are no karaoke scenes, for instance, which made some fans think the creators didn’t truly understand the appeal of the games formerly known as Yakuza. Unfortunately, it also lacks any other moments of levity. This Like a Dragon is an overly long, meandering, dreary melodrama that would be ignored if not for the name attached.
Admittedly the games are no strangers to melodrama. Their charm lies in finding the proper amount of camp absurdity to balance out the mob-saga histrionics. Protagonist Kazuma Kiryu (played here by Ryōma Takeuchi) is a straight-laced man who constantly finds himself in absurd situations, and the self-seriousness of each game's main plot is the foundation that allows the ridiculous events to become even more absurd in contrast.
Instead of emulating any of the fun of playing Like a Dragon and its myriad follow-ups, these six episodestell a non-chronological, split-timeline story of Kiryu and friends Nishikiyama, Yumi, Miho and Aiko, as they go from living in an orphanage to being embroiled in an illegal combat sports betting league managed by the Yakuza – then live through the fallout 10 years later.
There’s a floaty and dreamlike quality where events often seem to pass by without adequate resolution. Story threads are introduced, then leave without much further thought (How does the sister of the Vacant Lot’s owner feel about his murder and her being shot in the foot? Does she have any response to her necklace being stolen? More elegant writing would find a way for this, and many other choices, to crop back up in the future and form part of the ending, rather than being discarded after it’s no longer necessary for the continuation of the plot).
The series is lightly inspired by the events of both Yakuza 0 and Yakuza, which diverges in some major directions – mostly oversimplifying. The original game’s plot is reduced down to a rote tale of theft and revenge – I’ll save spoiling the specifics, but it’s both an unsatisfying setup and conclusion. And in shifting up the events of Yakuza 0 to 1995 from 1988, there’s now no commentary on the absurdity of bubble-era Tokyo real-estate economics. It’s actually strange how much money is now flowing around at a time, when in real-world Japan, it categorically wasn’t.
That's not to say the world of Yakuza isn't rendered well in other ways. The detailed set of Kamurochō is delightful. The show is most enjoyable when you take in all the additional details of its worldbuilding – I especially enjoy the cinema showing posters of period-accurate film listings (even acknowledging the huge splash Forrest Gump made in Japan after it was released there in 1995). The final scenes here throw a ridiculous amount of the show's budget on extras, and it makes the place feel genuinely alive and breathing.
As Nishikiyama, Kento Kaku has a severe cat-like look in his 2005 scenes – like you can't read his motivations at all, but you know not to cross him. He plays an unrecognizable version of the same character in the 1995 scenes in a way that expresses some real range, even if the actual onscreen events aren’t at all interesting. Munetaka Aoki is cast brilliantly as Majima, though the show has no idea what to do with him. He's sparingly used in early episodes and disappointingly under-featured in its final episode. For fans of the series, he hits the all-important “Kiryu-chan!” at least once in the final episode, but it oddly happens while he’s off-screen – just another sign that Majima isn’t as big a component of Like a Dragon as he should be.
All of the positives of this adaptation can’t add up to something I’d recommend watching. Like a Dragon: Yakuza feels very “second screen” – you’d never miss the specifics by looking away, but there’s never enough actually going on to actually capture your attention. If you're unable to understand fluent Japanese and are locked into reading the subtitles instead of checking your phone, you’re likely to find this very boring.
(Editor’s note: The author of this review briefly worked for Sega’s UK QA team in 2012)
