The game maker says the show gets Kamurocho right — maybe even better than the video games
Like A Dragon: Yakuza – Teaser Trailer | Prime Video
After a string of refreshingly great video game-to-TV adaptations — namely HBO's The Last of Us and Prime Video's Fallout — the bar is set high for Sega and Amazon's upcoming series based on Like A Dragon (née Yakuza). The producers and stars of October's Like A Dragon: Yakuza believe their show will meet the high bar, in part because it's locally grown and has global appeal as a story about family.
The manufacturer of the video games is also involved. Like A Dragon game series producer and head of Ryu Ga Gotoku studio Masayoshi Yokoyama gave his blessing to the TV series script and serves as executive producer on Like A Dragon: Yakuza. He told Polygon in an interview over Zoom that he had "in-depth conversations with the director and cast" to discuss the show's mythology and "the rules they needed to follow."
"I was ready to turn it down or really tear up the script," Yokoyama said through a translator, "but it turned out that what I read through was really, really impressive. So beyond that point, I was very easy on it and let the film crew take full control of the production.”
