Sega
The Yakuza Series is getting a Live-action Series
Follow the Story of Kazuma Kiryu in the latest adaptation of the first Yakuza game.
A new live-action series for the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series is coming to Prime Video. It will be appropriately named "Like a Dragon: Yakuza" (not to be confused with the seventh game in the series, Yakuza: Like a Dragon) and will be coming later this year, on October 24th. It will adapt the events of the first game into a TV format.
We can be sure that the series will adapt the first game, as the setting will be in the two time periods the game covers, 1995 and 2005, the former being the very beginning of the story, where we are introduced to the main characters and witness the reason Kazuma Kiryu ended up with a 10-year sentence in Jail.
According to Variety, the series will be directed by Take Masaharu and Takimoto Kengo, who are known for 100 Yen Love and Kamen Teacher, respectively. Takeuchi Ryoma, known for his role as Tomari Shinnosuke in the Kamen Rider Series, movies, and having multiple roles in several other Japanese dramas, will play the main character, Kazuma Kiryu.
It is also confirmed that the series will have a total of Six Episodes, three of which will be released on October 24th and the other three the following week.
The show will feature subtitles and dubbing into 30 languages, broadening the franchise's reach. Until the last few games from RGG Studio, which started adding a few more languages, most of the games were exclusively in Japanese or English.
The Yakuza Series is not entirely a serious story; the games are known for the many other minigames and sub-stories you can experience along the way, which, considering they have continuity in the other games, can be regarded as canon that Kiryu is a Talented singer, dancer, Pocket Circuit Racer, and has experienced some paranormal phenomenons; so, if done right, we might not see a completely serious story.
This isn't the first time the franchise gets a live-action adaptation. Notably, there is the 2007 movie Ryū ga Gotoku Gekijōban, which also adapts the first game, though loosely, and features some fun but bizarre scenes, such as the scene in which Majima is waiting at the end of a corridor, hiding only the left half of his body.
