Like a Dragon: Yakuza has me curious

 

The great conversion of video game properties to TV video has left many an interesting project in it's wake, arguably none more so than those that try to take something entirely stringent on it's interactive elements and create essentially new media with it. Borderlands is a first person shooter that briefly deluded itself into thinking it was a comedy franchise- but with more entries being tiresome exercises in humourlessness- that label is becoming harder to ratify with each passing day. Thus the movie really had hardly anything to work off at all- does that justify how boring the final product was? No. But I guess I can understand why Eli Roth got the project and went- yeah, I've got nothing to work with might as well half ass literally everything. People already don't respect the gaming space- giving out licences to Borderlands wasn't going to change that.

But what about 'Like a Dragon'? Well, that is honestly a franchise that has been very cinematic in it's long years, covering many of the tropes of romanticised crime fiction and imbuing a high octane bipolar attitude that can have you contemplating the erasure of the forgotten class by a supposedly confrontationally justice-centred society to a straight slug-match with a shark. Sometime ago this franchise might have made a decent movie, but by now it's transcended that medium entirely and has become as much about the video game exclusive diatribes into distracting minigames as it has been about the serious drama that rocks the narrative. To say that the new Like a Dragon series has me slightly on edge about what they propose to do to my favourite property is a bit of an understatement.

Of course there was a movie based on Like a Dragon years ago by a studio who seemed wholly invested in capturing the insanity of being a video game movie. With nonsensical shifts in pace, taking healing item breaks and presenting Majima as a megalomaniacal mass murderer- which was a very easy conceptual mistake to make before Yakuza 0 reframed him so masterfully. What we have today doesn't really feel all that interested in celebrating the medium as the franchise itself, which is fine on paper- but I wonder how much of the Like a Dragon property is infused with it's identity as a game- and consequentially- how much we can really get out of an adaptation that wantonly shirks those ties.

Now, we have ourselves a full trailer giving us what to expect with the full launch later this month and I'm not going to pretend that I'm fully impressed with everything I saw. On a production level the show appears to be decently budgeted- and solid enough with the gun-toting violence that I think we won't suffer 'violence withdrawals' as some feared. But does it feel like Yakuza? Not yet. There's a drab blue/green-wash tint over the footage that seems to share more in common with a melodramatic crime story than the colourful, seedy world of the franchise- wherein every square inch of land is secretly hiding some kind of lush underground wonderland of illegal activity. Kamaroucho alone should be home to a prostitution/fighting metropolis underneath the homeless-run park- do you get that impression from glimpsing this world?

And maybe that's the point they're going for right now. Like a Dragon is renowned for their intentionally bizarre balance between the ridiculous and the series that springs back and forth so suddenly the whiplash alone keeps your blood pumping. Maybe what this show wants to do is capture the essence of the realistic drama so acutely that when Majima goes careening into a soaphouse with a truck it blares out as even more insane and over the top- but I guess we'll not know until it's in front of us because that is not the experience they're selling right now. At the very least the show has explosions, so there's that.

What I'm most worried about at this moment is obviously the changes that are inevitable in any project like this. We know this is more than just an adaptation it's a reimagining- which means we won't be getting a one-to-one with all the characters and stories that we know- I don't even know if we'll be getting Kazama or Sunflower Orphanage. It kind of looks like Kiryu grew up watching street fighters and decided to become a Dragon based on that alone- and unless the trailer is hiding her completely it seems we're not getting Haruka- which is insane to me consideringly she is literally the single most important person in Kiryu's life- throughout nearly the entire franchise! Everything he chooses to do in his entire life is framed around Haruka- if she really is excluded this time around... whew- god knows what that means for our boy.

Then again I do love this world, love it's style, love it's characters, so many giving us an alternative look at the story of the ten billion yen would be exactly what we need to breath a new life into this done and dusted story. Whilst Kiryu is busy handing off his legacy to Ichiban, real-life Kiryu is stalking an entirely different path leading in a different direction. Heck, who even knows if this Kiryu is going to be a virtue-touting hero or a down-dirty Yakuza rocking his way through the underworld with something to prove? He certainly does seem a lot younger than we would expect Kiryu to be at this point in his career. It's just very unclear right now.

All of this is to say that I'm not exactly burning with anticipation for what I'm seeing right now, despite having been pretty open to the idea of an adaptation for this franchise dating back a while now. But I don't rightly know what a perfect adaptation of this series would look like, so I'm keeping an open mind that I can be proven wrong. This is what I like to call 'healthy skepticism' so that I don't build up hopes too high just in case this turns out to be another mid dud like Netflix's Avatar. At the very least- I think this will be a good show. Will it be a good 'Yakuza' show? Wait and see.

The Dragon of Amazon

 Under the roiling cauldron of the pacific churns a ecliptic ziggurat. A ancient temple of prehistoric build buried beneath the destructive power of earth's primordial waves. That black temple stone sleeps, untouched by erosion, unbowed by Mother Nature's fury, impossible and non-Euclidian- it houses the unspeakable. The unwoken, the ever dreaming, the tyrant, the priest, the mountain, the fish man, the dawn and the twilight. His dreams are our nightmares, and his wake will be our sleep. Cosmic and alien, the God of Dreams waits, harrowing against the thin veil, clawing at the membrane of our psyche, leaking through the cracks, manifesting in our mania. And it is to him, Great Cthulhu, that I credit the recent announcement that Yakuza is getting a life action adaptation.

Because come on- what else am I supposed to believe? I've been bringing up how good of an idea this would be in blog after blog for years now, knowing well just how much brilliant stories and characters the world was missing out on thanks to the barrier to entry of the gaming world. This dreams, this longing, existed solely in my warped and peeling mind- until it didn't anymore! What am I supposed to believe, that Amazon reads this blog? Don't be foolish- 'twas the god king, obviously! In his neverending war to break beyond the waves and reclaim his foot on the head of all mankind, Cthulhu plucked that little gem from my mindscape and went "Oh, that's actually a pretty good idea! I'm going to just insert that in an Amazon exec's noggin' so when I rise there'll be a couple of seasons of the show to binge on!" He's a savvy one, that Cthulhu! Always planning ahead!

With this conflux of realities breaking down comes the apparent rapidly approaching adaptation of Yakuza 1's entire story within later this very year, under Amazon studios! Which would, of course, make this the second attempt to retell the beginning of Kazuma Kiryu's story- the first being a hilariously bizarre movie in which Majima walks around with a shotgun he uses to gun people down- (I suppose that was made back when Majima still flittered between being a good or bad guy) and wore an eyepatch on the wrong eye. But it did spawn that unforgettable image of Majima slyly peaking around the corner of a hallway using his blinded eye to spy on Kiryu and Haruka. (Classic.) Although I have to be honest, I'm not sure if this was the best start for a Yakuza series.

Back when Yakuza 0 was developed it did rest on the back of five Yakuza games before it in order to inform characters and direction, making it a prequel in the truest since balancing the weight of all that came after. But it was also a hail mary to try and score a western audience- which succeeded with gusto. Many people, including myself, were introduced to Yakuza through 0 and thus closely relate the majesty of that franchise with the quality of that original power house of a game and let me be clear- that is because 0 is an incredible introduction. None of that game is dependent on knowing who these characters are or what they will become. Foreshadowing is subtle character work delicately laying out the complexities of the iconic personalities these to-be heroes would adopt, and the overall narrative itself tells the origin of the series' most iconic landmark it returns to so often it even starred in the finale of Infinite Wealth earlier this year- Millennium Tower.

And that isn't even to mention the fact that Yakuza 0's story is, to be honest, actually a lot better than Yakuza 1's. That original was created back in a time when Yakuza was still finding it's identity and thus basing itself around the various rigors of romantic crime drama- in an almost cliché sense. You have the virtuous sacrifice, the 'protect the small girl' subplot, the betrayal, the surprise romance so cold I'll bet people were literally flashbanged by "I love you" in the final moments of the game. Yakuza 1 is a classic, no doubt- but 0 was a legend. Yakuza 0 broke all these characters down to their base most form and dragged them across a complex conspiracy that spanned across Asia and across generations, peppered with genuine slow burn romance, one emotionally shattering confrontation and enough cliffhanger plot-twists to break a gordian knot and worlds collided in a scrabble to seize what would eventually become the most important piece of real-estate in this entire franchise. That would be the way to start this new media journey, if Amazon were taking this serious.

We've already got ourselves a glimpse of our Kiryu's back, bearing a tattoo reminiscent of the classic dragon though slightly different, bringing to mind the most pressing question we should be asking about this adaptation- are we still going to do the one arm strip move? Afterall, how else are we going to demonstrate that tattoo? We can't have Kiryu rip his precious outfit, he needs to take that off in important and impactful moments- and will he perform the physics defining hand rip to pull it off? For that matter- what exact tone are the team looking to strike with this adaptation? Are we going to get ourselves a fun and light-hearted farce, or a serious and intense drama? Or will the showrunners be clever enough to know that in order to match the game franchise, they need to actually strike a balance of both?

An important point of note is the stipulation that 'Like a Dragon: Yakuza' is said to follow a 'loose' adaptation of the events of the first game, which may be their licence to trim the fat in a few areas- or to use the Yakuza franchise as a flesh-suit for the showrunners own failed storytelling ambitions as we've seen happen to 'The Rings of Power', 'The Witcher' and, regrettably, 'Avatar'. Ryoma Takeuchi is playing Kiryu, which means we'll have an actor of the right height at least, and he bares the name 'Ryoma'- so I guess they have to do an Ishin series if this thing makes it off the ground- I just can't shake the feeling he looks a little young for the role. (Which would have made him perfect to play 'Yakuza 0' Kiryu! Ah, I'm never going to shake this, am I?)

But enough misgivings. This is what I want. It's what I've always wanted. For Kiryu to finally shine on the screen in a medium he can genuinely be added to. None of these nowhere adaptations that have no possible ability to improve, or even match, the original- such as with cartoons like Avatar to live action versions of the same scenes, only slower and clunkier. Like a Dragon bases itself over an exaggerated reality which, if given a totally straight face, could elevate the source material in those special moments. Does that mean I want to see blue glowing auras and videogame stuff like that represented? I honestly don't know yet- and the fact that this series could literally go one of a hundred directions and still potentially prove faithful, as proven by the murder happy farce-fest of the movie- is just proof why this is the one video game adaptation that was meant to be.