Between Netflix and Prime Video, war is declared over who can adapt the most cult video game franchises. If one focuses more on animated series like Tomb Raiderthe Amazon platform dares by flirting with the side of adaptation in live action (even if we expect a lot of Secret Level). A gamble for the moment paying off since Fallout was a real hit for the SVoD service and a season 2 is coming. A strategy that continues with the arrival of Like A Dragon : Yakuza.
Although in the West, the license Like A Dragon — first known only as Yakuza before returning to its original name in 2022 – does not benefit from a popularity comparable to titles like Fallout, it is one of SEGA’s most profitable sagas for almost twenty years and almost as many opuses. The title has been used on all consoles and has been able to differentiate its style of gameplay depending on the episodes or spin-offs. To the point where, from now on, his reputation even precedes him here.
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It is therefore not surprising to see Prime Video interested in it, especially since it is an entirely local production with a Japanese team, apart from screenwriter Sean Crouch. Broadly speaking, the series takes up the storyline of Yakuza first of the name (or Like A Dragon first of the name, it works too).
Plus Yakuza than Like A Dragon
The story takes place in the fictional district of Kamurocho (emblematic location of the license) over two eras: 1995 and 2005. In 1995, Kiryu (Ryoma Takeuchi), Nishikiyama (Kento Kaku), Yumi (Yumi Kawai), and Miho ( Hinano Nakayama), four orphans, plan the robbery of an arcade belonging to the Japanese mafia. Caught by the Dojima family, a branch of the Tojo clan, they will join the world of yakuza. In 2005, Kiryu is released from prison and returns to Kamurocho to help his former friends as the Tojo clan and the Omi clan are about to go to war.
A synopsis which will not surprise video game connoisseurs, but it nevertheless includes many changes, especially around the characters secondary, Yumi and Majima in the lead. Everyone will appreciate these modifications or not, but they are in no way surprising knowing that the very principle of adaptation opens up a field of freedom that the screenwriters like to borrow, willy-nilly. And this allows those who know the life of Kazuma Kiryu at the end of the joysticks to let themselves be carried away by new branches. We cannot therefore put these versions in opposition, because it will mainly depend on the affect you may have with the original model.
Regarding the one presented here, the feedback is particularly twofold, because the story of Like A Dragon : Yakuza can be guessed as easily as it carries us away in its rhythm. We doubt what’s next, but we remain impatient to see more, as if the path becomes more important than the destination. The six episodes are easy to watch due to the multiplicity of events, characters, and this constant change of temporality which energizes everything. Although not original, the series remains effective.
The strength of the franchise Like A Dragon : Yakuza has never been as much its representation of the world of the Japanese underworld, even if this part is pleasant to (re)discover on the screen, as by the atmosphere around its main protagonists. Heroes like Kiryu (central to the saga for six episodes) constantly divided between their allegiance to their yakuza family and the relationships formed over time. Friendship, love, betrayal, honor, duties…the story of the game is made of choices. A constant respected by the series which will shake up our protagonists in several directions and then make them face the consequences.
Referencing is not playing
The tensions that are embodied in a casting that has taken the measure of the evolution of time. With a slightly stereotypical overacting, but never disabling, the actors seem as uncomfortable in their roles in 1995 as their confidence makes you smile ten years later. And if Kento Kaku sometimes falls too much into the cliché of “dark Sasuke” (black is black, there is no more hope), Ryoma Takeuchi manages, little by little, to convince us that he makes a credible dragon. Overall, here too, we feel video game inspiration in the slew of colorful secondary characters that the series immediately characterizes as much by the look as by an attitude (even a nickname). There is an obvious desire to establish both the lore of the pixel model and the future of the series.
It is now appropriate to talk about a big part of video game gameplay, the fighting side. And this is where the series unfortunately shows itself to be very timid. Of too few altercations settled in the time it takes to blink, a more consistent final piece, but still frustrating… we feel the show chasing the need to bring its story to its conclusion and does not have enough time to devote to its more physical side, apart from passages required by the scenario. What if Like A Dragon : Yakuza wants to be stingy in action, needless to say that if the long-time player expects to find skits typically ” likeadragonesque » based on moments of pure relaxation – but which serve to build relationships, he risks being disappointed.
As it stands, it is true that the series obviously allows itself a few nods to its elder, but cannot really compare itself to him once the story is put aside. So we find ourselves in front of not a bad adaptation in itselfbecause the video game gives birth to a pleasant series which lays the foundations for a season 2. However, paradoxically, the series does not bother itself enough with the codes of video games to fully claim it. What makes it different Like A Dragon : Yakuza of any other show on the subject, if not for the personality of its license? So, what does she have left when she doesn’t seem any more attached to this same personality? Yakuza, Like A Anyone.
Like A Dragon: Yakuza is on Prime Video
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