Live-Action Yakuza Series Announced for Amazon Prime

TV adaptations of video games are all the rage right now, with The Last of Us and Fallout both making fantastic transitions to scripted television. Now, Amazon has announced its next video game adaptation, and it’s a pretty interesting one.

Amazon has announced a live-action series based on the Like a Dragon series of video games from Sega, which up until very recently was known as the Yakuza series. The new series will consist of six episodes, and is set to premiere in two batches, the first coming in October.

The series is titled Like a Dragon: Yakuza, and is said to follow the events of the first Yakuza game, along with a few moments from Yakuza 0, the first two games in the Yakuza series in chronological order. Like the game, the series will be set in the fictional Kamurocho district in Tokyo, Japan, a seedy entertainment and red light district loosely based on the real district of Kabukicho.

Lead character Kiryu Kazuma – the Dragon of Dojima, as he’s known – will be portrayed by Japanese actor Ryoma Takeuchi, who previously shot to stardom thanks to his role as Tomari Shinnosuke, the lead character in Kamen Rider Drive. A poster for the series was released alongside the announcement, showing Tekeuchi with Kiryu’s signature back tattoo and a hairstyle that definitely looks right.

Having a tokusatsu actor as the lead is a great choice, too — the Like a Dragon series is very campy and silly, and toku as a genre definitely leans toward that, too.

The series is said to have been produced in Japan, and is likely to be entirely in the Japanese language. It’s being directed by Masaharu Take, best known for his work on The Naked Director.

Like a Dragon: Yakuza will be released worldwide on Amazon Prime in two batches, with the first half being released on October 25, 2024, and the second half being released on November 1, 2024.

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