Sega and Prime Video Like a dragon: Yakuza is far from a 2005 individual adaptation yakuzathe game it is loosely based on. Like Takashi Miike's 2007 Yakuza: like a dragon, the other previous live action attempt yakuza Before, the show takes certain key elements of an existing compelling narrative foundation and reinterprets them in its own new image, focusing on certain elements of the source material and discarding others. The game's most immediately evident change is its overall darker and more serious tone; Unlike the game's surreal mix of melodramatic twisted crime drama and wacky, wacky side stories, the show swings the pendulum fully toward the former. It's a big change, considering how strongly associated these quirky elements are with the Like a Dragon brand as a whole. But an outing like this raises the inevitable question of adaptation: Does the world of Like a Dragon, the murky, crime-ridden red-light district of Kamurocho, work without the games' trademark silliness to sometimes illuminate that darkness?
Contrary to popular misinformation among fans and subsequent protests, the show's divergences from the games' story, tone, and characters are a feature, not a bug, of the adaptation. Speaking about Ryoma Takeuchi's Kiryu in an interview with Polygon, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama clarified: “It's not a knockoff or imitation of the game character. It is more about embodying his spirit and making him live again as a new character. So there is no comparison. “It’s just something completely different and it’s great.” When The Gamer specifically asked about the presence of side stories within the show, Amazon's own Dragon, Takeuchi, stated: “We don't have that many in this iteration. I think we're delving into the human emotions and emotional elements of the characters in this iteration. In a positive way, we finished the game at the end of the day.”
To be clear, the tone of the narrative itself aligns well with the tone of the actual main plots of the Like a Dragon games. A serial killer hiding his identity, referred to only by a code name based on the sadistic calling cards of the wounds left on his victims; is the Devil of Shinjuku in this show, but he could just as easily be describing the Mole in Judgment. There are gripping, twisted mysteries and betrayal plots within yakuza clans, sacrificing everything for your loved ones, and the lasting consequences of split-second decisions. This kind of dark melodrama is the soul of the games' core narratives; What makes this show feel different is the absence of the levity usually found in side stories, mini-games, and non-playable characters. But the Like a Dragon series, even after its explosion of popularity in recent years, is primarily known to a wider audience for its moments of surreal humor, such as Yakuza Kiwami 2The infamous scene of Kiryu mistakenly walking into a yakuza group dressed in adult diapers.
Image: Prime Video
In games, side stories like these are included as breaks from the tense and often heartbreaking main story. You may have seen a side character you love get shot in the chest, but don't worry, you can ignore the story for a few minutes and laugh while you watch Kiryu kindly trust a very sketchy palm reader and lose. thousands of yen. Since the games' main stories often take a minimum of 20 hours to complete, these light-hearted distractions are important to prevent twisted criminal conspiracies and heavy, gory conversations from overwhelming the player. This isn't to say that substories can't also have their own moments of surprisingly moving sincerity. Like a dragon: infinite wealthThe yakuza in diapers return to grant a dying woman's last wish to see snow in Hawai'i (it's shaved ice), but their intent is humor first, emotional impact second.
There is almost nothing like it on Prime Video like a dragonand it's for the better. There are certainly reflections of the games' more subtle moments of deadpan humor – Kiryu exaggerates the terrible Japanese to imitate an ignorant foreigner, a self-proclaimed master thief who uses the pseudonym “Indy” only for wearing a cowboy hat – but they are scattered . fleeting and discreet. There is lightness, but nothing too intense to take you out of the story. Leaving the narrative flow is much more acceptable in a game, where you can pause the story and play Kamurocho at any time, than in a show, where you should be immersed for the entire runtime. It's a type of humor closer to the sardonic smiles of Takeshi Kitano's yakuza traits than to the absurdity of the games' substories; Kitano's 1993 classic sonatine similarly channels occasional little moments of warmth and levity between a dark yakuza drama, and like a dragon: yakuza balances this just as well.
The best contrast case for this difference in tone can be found in Majima's ever-changing character in all three versions of this story. in the original yakuzaMajima is an unpredictable, menacing, and (most importantly) awkward presence, appearing only a few times to kidnap Haruka or bring a knife to a fistfight, all to the sound of his unforgettable deranged laugh. But thanks to his popularity throughout the series, Majima's greatly expanded appearance in his new version, yakuza kiwamiIt becomes a parody of itself. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio began creating increasingly ridiculous situations for Majima to fight Kiryu: hiding in oversized traffic cones, dressing up in various costumes, even trying to convince the Dragon that he's actually a zombie at one point. , all while cracking jokes like him. It's not enough to stab Kiryu 13 times during combat. Although ludonarrative dissonance is a fact in this medium, all kiwamiThe added silliness has the side effect of making his existing appearances in the original's story seem almost out of place; Why is the funny guy with the eyepatch now holding an innocent woman at knifepoint?
Image: Main video
Like a dragon: YakuzaInstead, the Majima adaptation strips away any pretense of madness and focuses on what initially made Majima so memorable. In his first action sequence, Majima rather nonchalantly begins a shootout in the busy Theater Plaza, unconcerned about the possibility of catching Kiryu, Nishiki, and other innocent people in the crossfire as he takes aim at his target. The brothers are appropriately terrified and the audience should be too; This Majima is someone who will smile at your corpse. While he has his comedic moments amidst the bloodshed, they are included to demonstrate his perspective that even life and death are something of a joke to him, rather than making a joke about the man himself.
Conceptually, the Yakuza series seems almost impossible to adapt: transferring everything from a series so tied to its successful tonal dissonance between story and gameplay to a non-playable medium seems like a Sisyphean task. Really, the answer is to not try to present everything, just what the adaptation needs for its own story. Takashi Miike Yakuza: like a dragon departed almost completely from the source material in its story, adding an entire unrelated bank robbery subplot, cutting out almost all of Nishiki's screen time before the final showdown, and turning it into a strange black comedy close to the other yakuza films. by Miike. But still, Miike chose to include the silliest elements of the games unchanged; Kiryu visibly uses his fiery, supernatural “Heat” power during fights, and pauses while fighting Nishiki to drink a Staminan energy drink and restore his health.
The team behind Like a dragon: Yakuza He knew these outlandish aspects weren't appropriate for the story they wanted to tell, and instead stuck closer to the original's heartfelt core of brotherly betrayal, unbreakable bonds despite hardship, and visceral, believable street fights. The powerful emotional resonance and connection between (and with) the characters arising from these vital principles is evidently what they wanted the show to present from the game, as Takeuchi mentioned. The fantasy and humor granted by side content and side stories are undeniably important to the games' identity, but the Like a Dragon series, regardless of its adaptation or original, lives and dies on the strength of its story and characters. , smiling at Kiryu's antics. Kamurocho cannot hit the same without first building a strong connection with the Dragon.
Even with its changes and additions to the story, the show is recognizably a reverent adaptation of the game; it's just that having a different team of creatives behind an adaptation will inevitably result in a slightly different vision. That's what adaptations are for! It is a testament to how carefully the original yakuza balances its tone that both live-action adaptations still feel as yakuza in their own way, even though neither of them are close to a one-to-one adaptation. After all, what makes the Like a Dragon games so special isn't just the comedy on the surface. It is the pain, strength and hope that always lurks just below; The team clearly understands this and it shows in their art.
Additionally, there's still a clip of Takeuchi straight from the games: a karaoke performance of “Baka Mitai,” Kiryu's most famous song and arguably the best-known part of the games as a whole. Wisely, it's not included in the actual series, but being released separately still shows some love for Like a Dragon's more eccentric side without harming the tone of the show. It also doesn't hurt that Takeuchi, while not Takaya Kuroda, is a solid singer.
Like a dragon: Yakuza Season 1 is now streaming in full on Prime Video.