Amazon’s Yakuza TV adaptation loses the games’ humor. Is this necessary?

Sega and Prime Video Like a Dragon: Yakuza far from the 2005 individual adaptation. Yakuzathe game it’s based on. Like Takashi Miike, 2007. Yakuza: Like a Dragon, another previous live action attempt Yakuza before that, the show takes certain key elements from the existing compelling narrative framework and reimagines them in its new image, focusing on certain elements of the source material and discarding others. The most obvious change in the game is its overall darker and more serious tone – as opposed to the surreal mixture of melodramatic twisted crime drama and offbeat silly plots, the series swings the pendulum completely towards the former. That’s a big deal considering how much these wacky elements tie into the Like a Dragon brand as a whole. But such a departure raises an inevitable adaptation question: Does the world of Like a Dragon, Kamurocho’s grim, crime-riddled red-light district, work without the games’ signature silliness to occasionally brighten up that darkness?

Contrary to popular misinformation among fans and subsequent protests, the series’ discrepancies with the games’ plot, 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 head Masayoshi Yokoyama explained: “This is not an imitation or imitation of the game character. This embodies his spirit more and makes him live as a new character again. So no comparison. It’s just something completely different – and that’s cool.” When Gamer When asked about the presence of additional stories in the series, the Amazon Dragon himself, Takeuchi, replied: “We don’t have many stories in this version. I think we’re digging into the human emotions and emotional elements of the characters in this version. In a positive sense, we come out of the game at the end of the day.”

To be clear, the tone of the narrative itself fits well with the tone of the actual main plots of the Like a Dragon games. A serial killer who hides his identity, referred to only by a code name based on the sadistic calling cards of wounds they leave on his victims – in this series it’s the Devil of Shinjuku, but I might as well describe the Mole in Solution. Expect thrilling, twisting secrets and plots of betrayal within yakuza clans, sacrificing everything for those you love, and the long-term consequences of split-second decisions. This type of dark melodrama is the lifeblood of the games’ core narratives. What sets this show apart from others is the lack of levity that is usually found in side stories, mini-games, and NPCs. But Like a Dragon, even after its explosive popularity in the last few years, is known primarily to a wider audience for its moments of surreal humor, such as Yakuza Kiwami 2The infamous scene where Kiryu mistakenly joins a Yakuza group while wearing adult diapers.

In games, these side stories are included as a break from the intense and often harrowing main plot. You may have just watched a side character you adore get shot in the chest – but don’t worry, you can ignore the story for a few minutes and giggle as you watch Kiryu kindly trust a very sketchy palmist and lose. thousand yen. Since the games’ main stories often take around 20 hours to complete, these light-hearted distractions are important to keep the twisty criminal conspiracies and heavy, heartbreaking conversations from overwhelming the player. That’s not to say the side stories don’t have their moments of surprisingly touching sincerity. Like a Dragon: Infinite WealthThe diapered yakuza return to fulfill a dying woman’s last wish – to see snow in Hawaii (that’s shaved ice) – but their aim is humor first, emotional impact second.

There is almost nothing like this in Prime Video. Like a dragonand this is for the better. Of course, there are reflections of the games’ more subtle moments of deadpan humor—Kiryu exaggerating the terrible Japanese to imitate a clueless foreigner, a self-proclaimed master thief using the alias “Indy” just to wear a cowboy hat—but they’re scattered, fleeting and underappreciated. There is some levity here, but nothing too intense that will distract you from the story. Being pulled out of the narrative flow is much more acceptable in a game where you can pause the story at any time and fiddle with Kamurocho than in a series where you have to be immersed in the game for the entire time you watch it. It’s a type of humor closer to the sardonic smiles of Takeshi Kitano’s yakuza traits than to the absurdity of the games’ plots; Kitano’s 1993 classic. Sonatina similarly conveys the occasional small moments of warmth and levity in the dark yakuza drama, and Like a dragon: Yakuza it also balances.

The best contrasting example of this difference in tone can be found in Majima’s ever-changing character in all three versions of the story. In the original YakuzaMajima is an unpredictable, menacing and (importantly) rare creature, appearing only a few times to either kidnap Haruka or bring a knife to a fight, all to the sound of his unforgettable, manic cackle. But thanks to his popularity throughout the series, Majima’s appearance was greatly expanded in its remake. Yakuza Kiwamibecomes a parody of itself. Studio Ryu Ga Gotoku began creating increasingly ridiculous situations for Majima to fight Kiryu – hiding in huge traffic cones, dressing up in various disguises, at one point even trying to convince the Dragon that he is, in fact, a real zombie – all this while joking the way he did. Don’t just stab Kiryu 13 times during a fight. Although ludonarrative dissonance is a given in this environment, all KiwamiThe added silliness has the side effect of making his existing appearances in the story from the original seem almost out of character; Why is the funny guy with the eyepatch now holding an innocent woman at knifepoint?

Like a Dragon: YakuzaInstead, Majima’s adaptation strips away any pretense of wackiness and focuses on what made Majima so memorable in the first place. In his first battle sequence, Majima completely nonchalantly begins a firefight in a crowded Theater Square, unfazed by the possibility of catching Kiryu, Nishiki, and other innocents in the crossfire as he races toward his goal. The brothers are suitably scared, and the audience should be too; this Majima will grin at your corpse. While he does have comedic moments amidst the bloodshed, they are included to demonstrate his point of view that even life and death are something of a joke to him, rather than a joke on the individual himself.

Conceptually, the Yakuza series seems almost impossible to adapt: ​​bringing everything from a series so tied to its successful tonal dissonance between story and gameplay into a non-game environment seems like a Sisyphean task. In truth, the answer is to not try to highlight everything – just what the adaptation needs for its own story. Takashi Miike Yakuza: Like a Dragon deviated almost entirely from its source material in its plot by adding a completely unrelated subplot about bank robbers, cutting almost all of Nishiki’s screen time before the final showdown, and making it a quirky black comedy closer to Miike’s other yakuza films. Even so, Miike decided to include the silliest elements of the game unchanged; Kiryu clearly uses his fiery, supernatural “Heat” power during fights and pauses during his fight with Nishiki to drink the energy drink Staminan and restore his health.

Team behind Like a Dragon: Yakuza knew that these goofy aspects didn’t fit the story they wanted to tell, and instead stuck to the heartfelt essence of the original: brotherly betrayal, unbreakable bonds despite the odds, and visceral, believable street fighting. The powerful emotional resonance and connection between and with the characters born from these vital principles is obviously something they wanted the series to bring out, as Takeuchi mentioned. The quirks and humor created by side content and side stories are undoubtedly important to the games’ identity, but the Like a Dragon series, regardless of adaptation or original, lives and dies by the strength of its plot and characters, smiling at Kiryu’s jokes. Kamurocho will not be able to achieve the same without first establishing a strong connection with the Dragon.

Even with the changes and additions to the story, the series is undoubtedly a faithful adaptation of the game – just having a different creative team behind the adaptation will inevitably result in a slightly different vision. That’s what adaptations are for! This is a testament to how carefully the original Yakuza balances the tone that both of these adaptations are still feel like Yakuza in their own way, despite the fact that none of them are close to individual adaptation. After all, it’s not just the apparent comedy that makes the Like a Dragon games so special. It is pain, strength and hope, always lurking below; the team clearly understands this, and it shows in their creativity.

Additionally, there is another clip of Takeuchi straight from the games: karaoke performance “Baka Mitai”, Kiryu’s most famous song and perhaps the most famous part of the game as a whole. It’s wise not to include it in the series itself, but by releasing it separately it still shows some love for the more eccentric side of Like a Dragon without harming the tone of the show. It also doesn’t hurt that Takeuchi, while no Takaya Kuroda, is a solid singer himself.

Like a Dragon: Yakuza Season 1 is now streaming in its entirety on Prime Video.