Review by C.J. Bunce
The second season of the Max series Tokyo Vice begins February 8, so if you missed the first season you have plenty of time to get caught up. And you’ll want to. The series is loosely based on journalist Jake Adelstein’s memoir working as the first American journalist for a Japanese newspaper in the 1990s, interacting with members of the Japanese mob as he tries to understand the Japanese way of reporting. You can put aside how accurate Adelstein’s personal account was (it’s been the subject of debate) and just enjoy the action, thanks to high production values, solid writing, and a great cast. Although it doesn’t rise to the level of excitement in State of Play or The Hour, it’s another good addition to the investigative journalism genre.
Adelstein is played by Ansel Elgort, known best as the awkward but cool star of Baby Driver. Those qualities are a help to getting past the cocky and over-confident antics of this series lead. Adelstein has made his way to Japan from Missouri, and yet he hasn’t apparently researched much about Japanese culture other than the language. He is covering crime but doesn’t know the first thing about Japanese criminal law. He has no tact and is generally a bull in a China shop, blundering his way through each new nuance he comes across. Some of the circumstances are preposterous, especially when Jake tries to seduce the mob boss’s mistress, played by Ayumi Ito. So you’ll enjoy the series more if you view it as fiction. It’s a tad overstuffed with filler–it defaults too much to scenes of characters smoking and drinking when nothing else is happening. Yet the good still outweighs the bad.
Elgort is supported by a powerhouse talented cast. Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim, Babel) plays his boss Eimi. I’ve worked in major newspapers before and Kikuchi’s performance is the most realistic take on the editor role I’ve seen on TV–no-nonsense, takes no guff, dodges the politics, and she knows how to get answers. Jake is also supported by Trendy and Tin Tin, played by Takaki Uda and Kosuke Tanaka, two nervous entry-level peers who round out the trio of newb cub reporters.
Jake gets in deep fast when he covers a killing the police sweep under the rug (his police contact tells him, “There are no murders in Japan”), followed by a self-immolation. With Eimi’s help he works out a pattern that leads to a debt-threat scheme with ties to the yakuza–Japan’s mob. The newspaper bosses won’t report it and the police don’t seem to care, until he approaches straight-arrow detective Hiroto Katagiri, played by Academy Award-nominated actor Ken Watanabe. Katagiri is the genre’s typical wise, seasoned cop who knows how to keep two factions of the yakuza in line–as much as that is even possible. Jake becomes a pawn between the two mob heads: an elder, wiser crime boss played by frequent badass character actor Shun Sagata (Kill Bill, Vol. 1, The Last Samurai) and a meddling leader feigning illness (or not) played by Ayumi Tanida, who was the murderous King of Spades in Alice in Borderland. It’s a well cast match-up.
Mirroring Jake’s entry and rise at the newspaper is Shô Kasamatsu as Sato, a young man new to the yakuza who is trying to find his way as he balances the lifestyle’s death and destruction with what he knows to be just and right. Both Jake and Sato befriend Legion co-star Rachel Keller as Samantha, a hostess at a local club where she watches out for other young women and is trying to start her own business. One of the women is Slavic immigrant Polina, played by Ella Rumpf, who gets taken in by a dodgy player. A vice cop Jake tries to tap as a source, Hideaki Itô as Jin Miyamoto, rounds out the key cast.
For fans of Baby Driver and Legion, Elgort and Keller as the stars will be all you need to know to get onboard. Watanabe brings the gravitas. It’s also a far more interesting take on Americans in Japan than Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. The dark lighting and neons of the city call out some eye-popping cinematography, accompanying a suspenseful musical score. Japanese versions of American pop songs show the interplay between two worlds, but the best scenes feature the fun of an immigrant interacting with locals, like the trio of young reporters arguing over meaning and translations, Sato and Jake arguing over what qualifies as cool American shoes, jeans, and songs, and Jake educating Jin on hitting on women in exchange for inside information.
At one level this is another “white savior” story, with all of Japan apparently in need of Adelstein arriving to show them how to report in the ways of the Western world. But for a tale of investigative journalism the story is well-paced enough, although it’s a straightforward journey without much mystery. It’s a fish-out-of-water story with some betrayals, bad cops, surprise deaths, and people in over their heads–and it will keep you coming back for all eight episodes.
Here is the preview for the second season:
The first season leaves many plot threads hanging. Without much resolution the series is lucky it didn’t get canceled. It’s one of HBO/Max’s better series of the 2020s. Stream all of the first season of Tokyo Vice now on Max, with new episodes beginning February 8, 2024.
