Gangster Town (The Mega Catridge)
Je l'ai attendu ce Yakuza, porté par mon chouchou des rôles d'action-romantique, Takeuchi Ryoma. Mais nul romantisme ici, Like a Dragon est une énième adaptation burinée du jeu vidéo de Sega paru en 2005 et revenant chaque année comme le père Noël dans la cheminée. J'y ai joué, à l'époque, mais je ne me rappelle plus grand-chose, à part mon martelage de bouton et mes conversations dans les bars à hôtesses. L'essentiel, quoi ! Vous aurez donc droit à une critique purement dramatique qui n'engage, comme d'habitude, que moi, car je tiens à mes doigts.Le pognon est visible à l'écran. Dès les premières secondes, ils vous éclaboussent au visage, injecté par une de ces mafias du streaming qu'est Amazon, alléché par le succès de son concurrent et Parrain dans la matière, Netflix. Avec son homme de main, le One Piece, qu'il compte bien user jusqu'à épuisement de son auteur, comme s'il devait rembourser une dette à ces pirates de Yankees. Mais pour ceux qui savent, les Vrais, Sega est loin d'être un amateur en termes de collaboration avec l'occupant Ricain. La société lui doit tout. Et pourtant, dans ce Yakuza "made in America (en partie)", très peu de référence à l'oncle Sam et à sa manière de conter une histoire transparait. Malgré cela, on pourra regretter la frilosité des producteurs en déroulant l'histoire sur six courts épisodes. Malgré sa diffusion avec VF dès sa sortie, on a l'impression que les producteurs n'y croient pas vraiment, comme si le staff entièrement japonais les gênait. C'est sûr, qu'on ne parcourt pas le globe comme Luffy, du coup l'effet Benetton, n'est pas là. Mais Kabuchiko et Tokyo, en général, attirent toujours des hordes de Geeks autoproclamées devant leurs écrans. Alors pourquoi tant de frilosité dans la promo, comparé à ses satanés pirates
Il faut dire que Yakuza ne fait pas dans la dentèle. Sombre, violant, n'en déplaise à ceux qui regrettent le peu de scènes de combats. Pour moi, elles sont déjà trop nombreuses au détriment de personnages pas assez développés. Les caricatures de Yakuza, d'orphelin, de bad girl ou tout simplement de la misère de ses jeunes, gênent un peu, mais le jeu des acteurs rattrape tout. Même si les décors font parfois carton pâte (ou jeu vidéo) comme cette place à la fontaine ou cette tour, on est quand même dans la bonne prod, quasi cinématographique. Des scènes d'action comme celles du parking ou du braquage de la fourgonnette impressionnent (la classe américaine). Mais c'est clairement le duo Takeuchi Ryoma/Kawai Yuumi la raison principale pour laquelle il faut regarder Yakuza.
Et bon sang, quel gâchis d'argent. L'histoire n'est pas assez développée, on a donc du mal à accrocher à ses vengeances et ses rédemptions de pourriture qui ne le sont pas vraiment. Les flashbacks ne servent à rien, car évidement, on comprend assez vite chaque situation. Orphelin, chirurgie, pas d'argent, tous pourris. Pour un jeu vidéo, ça passe, mais là, il faut les développer ses personnages. Faire des side story, par épisode. Comment les sœurs ont grandi et affronté les difficultés, par exemple. Tout était possible, mais à consacrer trop de temps à la recherche de cette sœur et aux combats de coqs, tout est brouillon et haché. Dommage, la production voulait absolument nous offrir une série coup de poing, pour en finir en six rounds, trop influencé par les succès d'action Netflix dont les suites dépendent du nombre de vues et qu'importe la cohérence scénaristique. On ressent plutôt une griffure qui laissera une cicatrice de quelques jours après la diffusion, jusqu'à l'oublier complètement. Mais qui sait ? peut-être qu'un Drama Yakuza 2, 3, etc... viendra des fans. Il parait que les suites fonctionnent souvent sur ces fans base. Ça a marché pour le jeu vidéo. Ce n'est pas moi, c'est Sega qui le dit et Sega, c'est plus fort que toi.
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The Fine Line Between Loyalty and Megalomania
Fans' opinions about the game deserve respect and recognition; after all, they have a long-standing relationship with this story, dating back to its very beginning. It’s natural for their evaluation to be more critical, as evidenced by the ratings throughout the mini-series on TVTIME. That said, as someone who has never played the game—though I was aware of its existence—I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of watching the adaptation. Amazon Prime Video deserves praise for its investment and the way it brought this narrative to life.Overall, the script was quite cohesive, despite leaning a bit too heavily on flashbacks. However, these back-and-forth moments in time ultimately converged on a central point, which helped offset that minor flaw. As for the plot, I have to admit I had already suspected that Nishikiyama was the "Demon of Shinjuku." It wasn’t exactly a shocking twist, but the development of his plan, born from the tragedy of his sister’s death, was compelling. It’s a plan tinged with both schizophrenia and megalomania, but it offers plenty of layers for those willing to look deeper.
The mini-series ends with a clear hook for a potential second season. However, given the critical feedback from fans of the game, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t continue. Still, if it gets renewed, I’ll be first in line to watch.
It’s also worth highlighting the technical excellence of the production: the set design, costumes, and overall atmosphere were flawless, elevating the experience to a visually stunning level. Even with a few missteps in the script, these elements helped solidify the adaptation’s quality.
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All they had to do was create a cohesive narrative with decent production...
I am a huge RGG fan and the yakuza series is near and dear to my heart. Now that being said, this series got a few things right, and a whole lot of things wrong. the actors did a pretty good job. nishiki's actor and majima's actor really brought their respective characters to life. in fact, majima was the highlight of the entire series. he was perfect.the story - I knew it was going to be a departure from the games and was prepared for it. at first, I was hopeful. I watched through the first couple of episodes and thought that it was a pretty decent retelling of the original game, minus a couple of things that were absolutely diabolical. (making kiryu beg dojima to have the title the dragon of dojima, kiryu getting his a** kicked by majima, the kids at sunshine hating kazuma for no apparent reason) but other than that, I was on board. then we got to episode 3 and saejima randomly died after 2 minutes of screen time, majima got his eye gouged out to a cover of 'mad world', shimano had hair???, etc and and I didn't even want to watch the rest of it. kiryu stayed getting beat up. also, what was happening in 1995 was so much more interesting than the 2005 arc. the characters by the end either had no arc or too much of an arc that their behavior made no sense. and look, I understand that it's difficult to squeeze an entire 2 games into 6 episodes. but they removed SIGNIFICANT moments which were crucially important to the story. I do not know how you could watch this if you were not alreadt a yakuza fan and understand what was happening. there were also no consequences for these characters which is a big NO for yakuza. the whole point is to show the consequences of that world. sigh. overall I would say the story made very little sense to fans, and even less to outsiders.
the camera cuts were an absolute mess and quite jarring. it was so bad that I had to check prime a few times to see if it was glitching. production as a whole really failed in this series.
now let me tell you what I liked about it. I absolutely loved catching references to the game, and I was excited to keep watching to see the next one. (Mr. try-and-hit-me, date-meets-helicopter). majima as I said earlier was perfectly in character and is probably the main reason I don't regret watching this. he was hilarious and crazy. majima in any medium is always my favorite. I also liked how they combined the yakuza 0 plot with the og plot, that was really a good change.
all in all I would say if you are a fan of the series, watch it. if not, you probably want to skip this one. it's not that good. as the title of this review says, since I am such a massive RGG fan, they literally only had to do the bare minimum and I would have loved this. create a cohesive story which makes sense and proper character motivations. have decent production and be decent from a technical aspect. unfortunately, this show failed on all fronts.
but as I have said I am a huge fan of the series as a whole so I'll be generous with my rating. I appreciate that someone tried. but the live action play and prequel available on YouTube remain the best live action media of this series. (no I am not talking about the 2007 movie. that also sucked except majima ironically.) I would recommend those first.
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