Like a Dragon: Yakuza, a live-action Amazon Originals drama series based on Sega’s long-running game franchise, will begin broadcast on Prime Video on October 25. Directed by Masaharu Take (The Naked Director), the show partly follows the story of the first game, 2005’s Yakuza, while telling an original story. The show follows series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu in his misadventures in Japan’s crime underworld, set in the fictional Tokyo red light district Kamurocho in both the mid-1990s and 2005.
Playing stoic antihero Kiryu is actor Ryoma Takeuchi. Takeuchi played the titular role in Kamen Rider Drive in 2014, quickly reaching a wide audience in Japan, before going on to feature in multiple prestige drama series and films. He voiced Justice Smith’s character Tim Goodman in the Japanese dub of 2019’s Detective Pikachu movie adaptation, in which he also had an on-screen cameo as a Pokémon trainer. A highly physical actor with a background in soccer, Takeuchi is also a sensitive performer, who has earned acclaim for his roles in theater. Like a Dragon: Yakuza will be the actor’s first starring role in a global drama series.
“I was surprised to be offered this role,” Takeuchi tells IGN Japan shortly after the announcement of the series, at the historic Hotel Gajoen Tokyo in Tokyo’s Meguro neighborhood. “I knew about the game series and had played the first game at my uncle’s home. It’s a real challenge to play a character from an existing work, and I considered very carefully whether I was suited to portray Kiryu, and whether it was right for me. From the beginning, I knew I would have to give it everything I have, or I’d never pull it off.”
Takeuchi explains that he saw Kiryu as a “strong, well-built, heroic character”, but he acknowledged that simply copying those qualities alone would not be enough — not least because the story of Like a Dragon: Yakuza is part adaptation and part original story. He says his mission was to portray the character with great respect for the original game, but essentially to create his own take on Kazuma Kiryu. “Rather than me becoming Kiryu, I had to create Kiryu from scratch — that’s when he and I began to link together and become one,” he says.
Takeuchi saw Kiryu as a man who is “starved for love.” Just like in the games, Kiryu in the show was raised at the Sunflower Orphanage following the death of his parents.
“I think we all unconsciously chase after what is missing in our lives, and we all want to be loved,” Takeuchi says. “With this in mind, I thought about what Kiryu might be searching for in Kamurocho, as he strives to become the Dragon of Dojima. He wants a family, he wants love, and he doesn’t even realize how much this drives him. He is a hero who lives his life with honesty, but he fights when he has to fight, and he sometimes makes mistakes.”
Despite Kiryu’s popularity among Like a Dragon fans the world over, Takeuchi says he has avoided the pressure to meet expectations of fans of the games.
“I have great respect for the feelings of the fans,” he says. “But when I play a character, I have to express them in my own way, so I can’t pay attention to the preconceptions of others. I researched the games for myself, to identify Kiryu’s qualities and embody them in my own way. Of course, I hope the fans will be happy with my portrayal — but I can say with confidence that I’ve done my best to play Kiryu. There’s no point in trying to surpass the original game; rather I wanted to show respect to the games while making something new as an artist.”
Standing at 6’1, Takeuchi has an imposing frame, which he honed for the role through rigorous training and a carefully controlled diet he devised himself.
In the show, we see Kiryu in 2005 as the Dragon of Dojima, a fierce fighter who has sculpted his body through a decade working out in prison, while scenes set in the mid-1990s show him in his late teens as he is just starting out. Takeuchi was mindful to show the contrast between these two eras, partly through wardrobe and makeup (1990s Kiryu has bleached highlights and smoother skin) but also through his physique, altering his training accordingly so that the younger version of Kiryu appears less well built.
“If we’d had more time between filming the 1990s and 2005 periods, I would have gone even further to have a different physique in each era, but I worked hard in the time that we had,” he says. “For scenes where I would be showing skin, I adjusted my training to suit that scene.”
Beyond his appearance, Takeuchi aimed to portray the difference in Kiryu’s demeanor before and after his ascent within the underworld. In the 1990s, when Kiryu and his friends are young and green, Takeuchi ponders that their emotions are more intense, their desires more strongly felt.
“I was conscious of the passion and excitement that only young people have,” he says. “It’s the kind of energy you only get on the verge of your twenties. I wanted to bring out warmer emotions when Kiryu is young, and then subtract them for the 2005 part to give contrast.”
As you’d expect from the Like a Dragon game series, the Amazon Original series promises plenty of action – and Takeuchi performs fight scenes himself. He says that in learning martial arts for the role, he began by focusing on post-prison Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima who has become a seasoned fighter, and then work backwards from there.
“When the story starts in 1995, Kiryu’s fighting style is still rough and not very effective, because he has not formally learned martial arts and he is just using his instincts,” says Takeuchi. “I wanted to portray him growing as a fighter, as he gradually becomes able to beat his opponents. So his fighting style in each of the two eras is very different.”
Rather than any specific reference, Kiryu’s fighting style in 2005 is based partly on the game and partly created from scratch.
Like a Dragon: Yakuza is actually not Takeuchi’s first time to work with Masaharu Take, after appearing as a background extra in the director’s 2014 action-comedy film In the Hero. “I was on screen for about two seconds,” he laughs. He describes Take as a director who is able to permeate his sets with passion and positivity. “Sometimes he gives us intricate direction, and sometimes he let us go for it, which made for a fulfilling environment for us actors,” he says.
“I don’t think anyone else could have made a show like this,” he continues. “Take was able to portray the flavor of Kamurocho, a town with a living population. He was very particular to cast background actors through a ton of auditions as Kamurocho’s denizens, so that we could simply enter the world he had broguth to life. It was a luxury.”
Kamurocho in the games is truly alive, almost a character unto itself, and Takeuchi says great care was taken to recreate it for the screen. Kamurocho was originally based on a real-life Tokyo nightlife district; the version we see in the show was shot largely on production sets, portraying the area slightly differently in each of the show’s two eras.
“Kamurocho in 1995 is a lively, warm, sparkling place filled with energy,” says Takeuchi. “The set was so detailed, from each passerby to every corner of its streets, that I felt like I had traveled back in time. It didn’t feel like a set at all. Yes, there is some CG enhancement, but I think it was the people who really brought it to life. You can’t fake that.
“On the other hand, after Kiryu leaves prison and returns to Kamurocho in 2005, there have been various changes to the laws, and the atmosphere is colder than it was when he left in 1995. While the Kamurocho of 1995 features warm colors like orange, 2005 has cooler grays and blues. It reflects Kiryu’s loneliness, feeling out of step with the people around him.”
When Like a Dragon: Yakuza hits Prime Video globally in October, it will follow in the footsteps of global hit shows set in Japan such as Shogun and Tokyo Vice, along with game adaptations such as Amazon’s own incredible Fallout series. The Like a Dragon game franchise is already highly acclaimed and sells well around the world, but the drama series will surely reach an even wider, more diverse audience. While the production itself involves collaboration from Amazon’s global teams, the series was written, filmed and produced in Japan. As such, Takeuchi is cautiously curious about the show’s reception overseas.
“I’m excited to see what will happen,” he says. “The games are popular overseas, but the show includes elements that may be uniquely Japanese, and Kiryu is a very Japanese character. The show also has a specific flavor that may be different from other successful game adaptations, so I’m curious to see how it will be received.
“The show is set in Kamurocho’s underworld and features stories about the yakuza, but it is also vibrant. It’s dark, but it’s also bright. Its story is driven by hope, and while it has strong depictions of violence, it also asks questions about the meaning of family, parenthood, love and so on. These are universal themes that anyone can relate to.”
While the show’s story will not recreate that of the games exactly, Takeuchi says that even when making the show from scratch, links to the game were inevitable. “I think that’s the appeal of the original game series — it’s impossible to diverge too far from the original story,” he says. “The game developers at Sega told me the show is faithful to the games and that my performance was faithful to Kiryu, so that’s enough for me!”
Daniel Robson is Chief Editor of IGN Japan. Find him on Twitter here.