Tv Series Tokyo Vice
Tokyo Vice is an American crime drama television series created by J.
T. Rogers">J. T. Rogers and based on the 2009 book of the same title by Jake Adelstein. It premiered on April 7, 2022, on HBO Max. It stars Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe in lead roles. In June 2022, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on February 8, 2024.
| Tokyo Vice | |
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| Genre | Crime drama |
| Created by | J. T. Rogers |
| Based on | Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein |
| Starring | |
| Composers |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| Original languages |
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| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 18 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Producers | Ralph Winter Satch Watanabe |
| Production locations | Tokyo, Japan |
| Cinematography |
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| Running time | 54–63 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | |
| Release | April 7, 2022 – present |
Premise
In 1999, American journalist Jake Adelstein has relocated to Tokyo and must pass a written exam in Japanese to have the chance to join the staff of a major Japanese newspaper. He succeeds in becoming their first foreign-born journalist and starts at the very bottom. Taken under the wing of a veteran detective in the vice squad, he starts to explore the dark and dangerous world of the Japanese yakuza whilst living under the city's official line that "murder does not happen in Tokyo".
Cast and characters
Main
- Ansel Elgort as Jake Adelstein, an American journalist from Missouri who moves to Tokyo. The longer he stays, the more he delves into the corruption of Tokyo's seedy underworld, where no one is as they seem.
- Ken Watanabe as Hiroto Katagiri, a detective in the organized crime division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. He acts as a father figure to Adelstein and helps guide him through the thin and often precarious line between the law and organized crime.
- Rachel Keller as Samantha Porter, an American expatriate living in Tokyo and former Mormon who makes her living as a hostess in the Onyx Club of the Kabukicho district, and later starts her own club. Her clients vary from salarymen to high-end clients and yakuza.
- Hideaki Itō as Jin Miyamoto (season 1; guest season 2), a vice squad detective who is Jake's first contact in the Tokyo police but who is secretly working with the yakuza.
- Show Kasamatsu as Akiro Sato, an enforcer in the Chihara-kai yakuza clan who collects protection money and is Samantha's handler at the Onyx Club. He secretly has a crush on her and is disillusioned by the yakuza lifestyle which he sees as anachronistic.
- Ella Rumpf as Polina (season 1; guest season 2), an Eastern European migrant, and a struggling new hostess at the Onyx Club with Samantha. A kind-hearted but naive woman, she came to Tokyo to work as a model but was pulled into the seedy underbelly of Kabukicho.
- Rinko Kikuchi as Emi Maruyama, Adelstein's supervisor and a senior journalist for the Meicho Shimbun newspaper. Maruyama is a composite of the various colleagues and supervisors who worked with the real-life Adelstein during his career.
- Tomohisa Yamashita as Akira, Polina's boyfriend who works at a host club.
- Miki Maya as Shoko Nagata (season 2), a detective from the National Police Agency assigned to Tokyo, who seeks to create a new task force to permanently eradicate organized crime in the city.
- Yōsuke Kubozuka as Naoki Hayama (season 2), a high-ranking yakuza in the Chihara-kai, who is newly released from a 7-year imprisonment and is appointed as Ishida's second-in-command.
Recurring
- Shun Sugata as Hitoshi Ishida, the leader of the Chihara-kai yakuza clan
- Takaki Uda as Jun "Trendy" Shinohara, Jake's handsome friend and co-worker
- Kosuke Tanaka as Makoto "Tintin" Kurihira, Jake's witty friend and co-worker
- Masato Hagiwara as Duke (season 1), the owner of the Onyx hostess club
- Kōsuke Toyohara as Baku, Jake's by-the-books, racist nationalist boss
- Masayoshi Haneda as Yoshihiro Kume (season 1; guest season 2), Sato's direct superior within the Chihara-kai who is later revealed to be a mole working for the Tozawa organization
- Eugene Nomura as Kobayashi (season 1; guest season 2), Ishida's right-hand man and a high-ranking member of the Chihara-kai
- Kazuya Tanabe as Masamune Yabuki, the second-in-command of the Tozawa yakuza clan
- Nobushige Suematsu as Gen, a member of the Chihara-kai who has an internal conflict with Sato
- Koshi Uehara as Taro, a high-ranking member of the Chihara-kai
- Noémie Nakai as Luna (season 1; guest season 2), the most prestigious hostess at the Onyx club
- Rosaria Mokkhavesa as Malee (season 1), the most esteemed hostess at Onyx
- Ayumi Tanida as Shinzo Tozawa, the leader of the Tozawa yakuza clan, a rival organization to the Chihara-kai, who is trying to establish himself in Tokyo while suffering from an incurable health condition
- Yuka Itaya as Junko Katagiri, Hiroto's wife
- Chisato Yamasaki as Natsumi Katagiri, Hiroto's elder daughter
- Kaho Yamasaki as Shino Katagiri, Hiroto's younger daughter
- Motoki Kobayashi as Haruki Ukai (season 1; guest season 2), a writer and meth user who publishes articles about the Tozawa organization, with their approval
- Jundai Yamada as Matsuo (season 1), a cultured man who becomes one of Samantha's clients and later reveals that he was hired to track her down
- Ayumi Ito as Misaki Taniguchi, Shinzo Tozawa's mistress and a former model
- Bokuzō Masana as Ozaki (season 2; guest season 1), Baku's supervisor and an executive at Meicho
- Keita as Kei Maruyama (season 2; guest season 1), Emi's mentally ill brother
- Makiko Watanabe as Kazuko Tozawa (season 2; guest season 1), Shinzo Tozawa's wife
- Yohei Matsukado as Hagino (season 2; guest season 1), a high-ranking member of the Tozawa organization and a confidant to Kazuko and Misaki
- Masaki Miura as Funaki (season 2; guest season 1), a senior detective and Katagiri's friend
- Atomu Mizuishi as Kaito Sato (season 2; guest season 1), Sato's eager younger brother, who seeks to reconnect, despite their parents' qualms
- Syû Sekimoto as Etsuo (season 2), a low-ranking member of the Chihara-kai
- Takayuki Suzuki as Masahiro Ohno (season 2), a wealthy architect and one of Samantha's best customers at her new hostess club
- Hyunri Lee as Erika (season 2), the retired former owner of Club Destiny, where Samantha first worked as a hostess, who goes into business with Samantha
- Ukyo Nakamura as Daichi (season 2), Erika's son
- Soji Arai as Shingo Murata (season 2), Emi's lover and an editor for the Tokyo Weekly newspaper
- Yoshinori Miyata as Kenji (season 2), the barman at Samantha's club
- Aoi Takeya as Jason Aoki (season 2), a Japanese-American working at the U.S. embassy and Trendy's lover
Guest
- Jessica Hecht as Willa Adelstein, Jake's mother
- Sarah Sawyer as Jessica Adelstein, Jake's sister who sends him audio letters on tapes and has been in mental health treatment
- Hiroshi Sogabe as Sugita (season 1), the head of the Suzuno insurance company, which manipulates people into debt with the Tozawa organization
- Nanami Kawakami as Yuka (season 1), a young woman Jake hooks up with while hanging out with Sato, later revealed to be a prostitute
- Fumiya Kimura as Koji (season 1), Sato's first recruit within the Chihara-kai
- Renji Ishibashi as Noboru Nakahara, the chairman of the Tozawa organization, and Kazuko's uncle-in-law
- Toru Shinagawa as Koichi Tanaka, an elderly yakuza sōsai
- Sotaro Tanaka as Dr. Shimizu, an underground doctor, who treats members of the Chihara-kai
- Miyuki Matsuda as Inaba, the owner of a host club who pays protection money to the Tozawa organization
- Hajime Inoue as Jotaro Shigematsu, the Minister of Transport, who gets blackmailed by the Tozawa organization
- Kojun Notsu as Ide, a police captain and Katagiri's supervisor
- Akiko Iwase as Rie Sato, Sato's mother
- Danny Burstein as Eddie Adelstein, Jake's father
- Nadia Parkes as Claudine (season 2), a classy, but brazen British hostess and Samantha's biggest earner
- On Nakano as Tats (season 2), the leader of a Bōsōzoku biker gang, whom Jake investigates after a series of motorcycle thefts
- Hinata Arakawa as Chika (season 2), Tats' younger sister and member of his gang
- Geraldine Hughes as Lynn Oberfield (season 2), an FBI agent working with the U.S. Foreign Service at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo
- Kouichirou Kanzaki as Hishinuma (season 2), the elderly leader of the Hishinuma-kai yakuza clan
- Takao Kin as Ota (season 2), a former member of the Chihara-kai, who was exiled to Nagano
- Shoken Kunimoto as Ichikawa (season 2), Hishinuma's lawyer
- Yayoi Sanmi as Sakura Igarashi (season 2), Tozawa's new, younger lover
- Yuta Koga as Shinjiro (season 2), a former member of the Hishinuma-kai, who is hired by Tozawa for an assassination
- Vincent Gale as Dean Kudisch (season 2), the senior editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in America
- Marcel Jeannin as Dr. Edward Walker (season 2), the chief of organ transplantation at the Southern Minnesota Metropolitan General Hospital, where he secretly treated Tozawa
- Shoken Kunimoto as Ichikawa (season 2), the leader of the Ichikawa-gumi, a yakuza organization
- Kako Kariya as Yayoi Taniguchi (season 2), Misaki's mother
- Koshiro Asami as Noguchi (season 2), the CEO of Suzaku Financial and an associate of Tozawa's
Episodes
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | |||
| 1 | 8 | April 7, 2022 | April 28, 2022 | |
| 2 | 10 | February 8, 2024 | April 4, 2024 | |
Season 1 (2022)
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "The Test" | Michael Mann | J. T. Rogers | April 7, 2022 | ||
| In 1999, Jake Adelstein is an aspiring American journalist who sits for the entrance test at Japan's largest newspaper, Meicho Shimbun. Despite not answering all the questions, he is hired and assigned the police press department under the taciturn Emi Muroyama. His first assignment is to report on the murder of Mr. Aoki and at the police briefing, he meets Detective Miyamoto. He visits Aoki's house and finds that he was deep in debt to a company that does not seem to exist, however when he includes this in his draft article, he is told to follow the police report and not jump to conclusions. After work, he goes out to a nightclub with Miyamoto and meets the hostess, Samantha, a fellow American migrant, and crosses paths with members of the yakuza Chihara-kai clan. He goes with Miyamoto to Kabukicho to report on an incident. He meets the jaded detective Hiroto Katagiri and they witness a man who commits suicide by self-immolation. Jake visits the suicidal man's wife, who tells him that her husband was also in debt. Muroyama tells Jake she is not interested in a possible connection and instructs him to move on from the story, but Jake seems determined to investigate further. | |||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Kishi Kaisei" | Josef Kubota Wladyka | Karl Taro Greenfeld | April 7, 2022 | ||
| Jake struggles to find a good story to keep his job while he tries to investigate the deaths of the two indebted men. With money earned working as a hostess at Onyx nightclub, Samantha is planning to open her own club but finds many impediments in her way. Chihara-kai's protection racket is challenged by their rival, Tozawa’s gang, but the leader Hitoshi refuses to retaliate because he believes an open war with Tozawa would attract too much police attention. When Jake takes some photographs of an altercation between the gangs, he is spotted by Katagiri, who confiscates the photo and tells him not to report this. However, Jake presses him to meet for another potential story. | |||||||
| 3 | 3 | "Read The Air" | Josef Kubota Wladyka | Arthur Phillips | April 7, 2022 | ||
| Jake visits Katagiri's home, where he reveals the building tension between the Tozawa and Chihara-kai gangs in Tokyo which the police are trying to avoid becoming a gang war. Katagiri invites Jake to witness the arrest of Nakamura and two other members of Tozawa's gang after they disturb the peace, and after his story is published, Jake's standing in the office increases. Jake unsuccessfully tries to press Samantha for information about her background. He pays a visit to Katagiri who tells him he cannot officially give him his case file on the loan company, but then has his daughter 'take' the file, and give it to Jake. The file reveals that Aoki's wife was planning to sue the loan company before he was murdered. Jake gets the registered number of the company, but before he can act he is picked up by members of the Chihara-kai clan. | |||||||
| 4 | 4 | "I Want It That Way" | Hikari | Naomi Iizuka | April 14, 2022 | ||
| Jake is taken before Hitoshi Ishida, oyabun of the Chihara-kai clan who surprisingly asks Jake to find the Tozawa informant in his clan who is spreading rumors that he is working with the police. On Jake's return, Maruyama makes a connection with the loan company to a woman's suicide in Machiya and she takes Jake with her to investigate, however it leads to another dead end. Sato appears increasingly dissatisfied with yakuza life and takes Jake to a night out of clubbing and women. Later at an expensive restaurant they encounter Tozawa, and contrary to Sato's advice Jake openly identifies him, furthering his involvement and exposure to the yakuza. Meanwhile, Samantha's plans to open her own club begin unravelling: one of her clients, Matsuo, reveals that he is pursuing her for the money she stole in the past, and one of the girls has revealed her plans for her own club to Duke, the owner of the Onyx hostess club. | |||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Everybody Pays" | Hikari | Adam Stein | April 14, 2022 | ||
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| 6 | 6 | "The Information Business" | Josef Kubota Wladyka | Jessica Brickman | April 21, 2022 | ||
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| 7 | 7 | "Sometimes They Disappear" | Josef Kubota Wladyka | Brad Caleb Kane | April 21, 2022 | ||
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| 8 | 8 | "Yoshino" | Alan Poul | J. T. Rogers | April 28, 2022 | ||
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Season 2 (2024)
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 1 | "Don't Ever F**king Miss" | Alan Poul | J. T. Rogers & Brad Caleb Kane | February 8, 2024 |
| 10 | 2 | "Be My Number One" | Alan Poul | Karl Taro Greenfeld | February 8, 2024 |
| 11 | 3 | "Old Law, New Twist" | Josef Kubota Wladyka | Francine Volpe | February 15, 2024 |
| 12 | 4 | "Like a New Man" | Josef Kubota Wladyka | Ashley M. Darnall | February 22, 2024 |
| 13 | 5 | "Illness of the Trade" | Takeshi Fukunaga | Adam Stein | February 29, 2024 |
| 14 | 6 | "I Choose You" | Takeshi Fukunaga | Annie Julia Wyman & Joshua Kaplan | March 7, 2024 |
| 15 | 7 | "The War at Home" | Eva Sørhaug | Brad Caleb Kane | March 14, 2024 |
| 16 | 8 | "The Noble Path" | Eva Sørhaug | Arthur Phillips | March 21, 2024 |
| 17 | 9 | "Consequences" | Josef Kubota Wladyka | Jen Silverman | March 28, 2024 |
| 18 | 10 | "Endgame" | Josef Kubota Wladyka | J. T. Rogers | April 4, 2024 |
Production
Development
Tokyo Vice was initially set up as a movie in 2013, with Daniel Radcliffe attached to star as Adelstein. Anthony Mandler was set to direct, and development was advanced enough to where a production start of mid-2014 was set. In June 2019, the project was repurposed as a television series, receiving an eight-episode order from WarnerMedia to be streamed on its streaming service HBO Max. Ansel Elgort was to be executive producer on the series, with J. T. Rogers writing and Destin Daniel Cretton directing. In October 2019, Michael Mann was hired to direct the pilot episode and also serve as an executive producer of the series. The series premiered on April 7, 2022, with the first three episodes available immediately, followed by two episodes on a weekly basis until the season finale on April 28, 2022. On June 7, 2022, HBO Max renewed the series for a second season. Season Two returned on February 8, 2024.
Casting
In addition to his executive producing announcement, Ansel Elgort was also set to star. In September 2019, Ken Watanabe was added to the cast. In February 2020, Odessa Young and Ella Rumpf were added to the cast. In March 2020, it was announced that Rinko Kikuchi joined the cast, and that shooting began the previous month in Tokyo. In October 2020, Rachel Keller was cast to replace Young. In September 2021, Hideaki Itō, Shō Kasamatsu and Tomohisa Yamashita were announced as series regulars, with Shun Sugata, Masato Hagiwara, Ayumi Tanida and Kōsuke Toyohara joining as recurring. In November 2022 Aoi Takeya and Takayuki Suzuki were announced to be cast.
Filming
Principal photography on the series began on March 5, 2020. On March 17, 2020, it was announced that production had halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Tokyo. Production resumed on November 26, 2020, and concluded on June 8, 2021. Production for the second season started in November 2022 in Tokyo and concluded in August 2023.
Release
HBO Max and its sibling service HBO Go hold streaming rights to the series in countries where either service is available including the United States, Latin America, and certain European and Asian markets, while Wowow, also a co-producer, holds rights in Japan. Elsewhere, international distributor Endeavor Content has sold broadcast/streaming rights to the series to Crave in Canada, Canal+ in France, Paramount+ in Australia, OSN+ in the Middle East and Northern Africa region, LionsgatePlay in India and Starzplay in select European markets including the UK and Ireland. The BBC purchased second-window rights to the series in the UK, and began to air it in November 2022 on BBC One, with all episodes available for six months on the BBC's iPlayer service.
Reception
For the first season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 85% based on 25 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Tokyo Vice's protagonist is its least interesting element, but the intrigue of Japan's underworld and the verisimilitude of its setting make for a seductive slice of neo-noir." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 75 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
For the second season, Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 92% based on 13 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Fully settled into its dense cast of compelling characters and rich milieu, Tokyo Vice's sophomore season is a riveting crime chronicle." Metacritic assigned a score of 78 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
References
External links
- Tokyo Vice at IMDb
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