A new live-action Like a Dragon: Yakuza series will appear on Amazon Prime Video on October 24, 2024. Ryoma Takeuchi will star as Kiryu Kazuma.
This will be a six-part series, with the first half appearing on October 25, 2024. The second half will air on November 1, 2024. There will be subtitled and dubbed versions of the show. It’ll take place between two time periods—1995 and 2005—and follow both Kiryu’s childhood and his adult life in the yakuza.
Masaharu Take (100 Yen Film) and Kengo Takimoto (Kamen Teacher) are the directors. As mentioned earlier, Takeuchi will be Kiryu, the protagonist and the Dragon of Dojima. Takeuchi’s known for his role as Shinnosuke Tomari, the main character of Kamen Rider Drive. He also starred in Love You as the World Ends as Hibiki Mamiya, and voice-acted as Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) in Detective Pikachu.
Because of the two time periods above, it seems that Like a Dragon: Yakuza on Amazon Prime will also cover the events of the first Yakuza game. The Like a Dragon film (Takashi Miike) which came out in 2007 also focused on that entry. This film had a somewhat comedic and campy tone to it, though. So this upcoming live-action series seems to be a more grounded adaptation. According to Masayoshi Yokoyama (head of RGG Studio and executive producer), the games let you see the world through a subjective lens, this show will let you experience the events from an objective perspective.
Like a Dragon: Yakuza will come out on October 24, 2024.