Series / Tokyo Vice

"Nothing is free. Everybody's for sale."

Tokyo Vice is a HBO Max series based on Jake Adelstein's memoirs Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. It aired for two season on Max between 2022 and 2024, with various countries receiving the rights to stream it, including the Japanese WOWOW.

The series is set in 1999, where Jake Adelstein (portrayed by Ansel Elgort) has settled in Japan from the US after he attended Sophia University to study Japanese literature. From there, he's recruited to the Meicho Shimbun newspaper as the company's first non-Japanese staff member. Jake later works alongside veteran police officer Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s Organized Crime Control Bureau as he investigates and reports on incidents in the Greater Tokyo Area that concern the Yakuza.

Main cast credits include Rachel Keller (Samantha), Hideaki Ito (Jin Miyamoto), Sho Kasamatsu (Sato), Ella Rumpf (Polina), Rinko Kikuchi (Emi Maruyama) and Tomohisa Yamashita of NEWS (Akira).

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Tokyo Vice provides examples of:

• The '90s: While the real story occurred in the early 1990s, the series begins in 1999.
  • In "I Want It That Way", there's pop culture references to *NSYNC.
  • "Sometimes They Disappear" has some new Ishida-gumi recruits discuss The Matrix and the Blue/Red pill.
• The Alcoholic: It's quite standard for yakuza to drink themselves into liver failure, at which point they simply die because Japanese do not donate organs.
• All Bikers are Hells Angels: While Samantha is established to be a normal biker, Jake does a story about a bosozoku gang who make their living stealing motorcylces to sell to chop shops.
• Artistic License – Cars:
  • In some shots of some Tokyo streets, you can actually see Toyota JPN Taxi cabs if you look hard. The vehicle entered service with various Japanese taxi companies in 2017.
  • Some of the Toyota HiAces seen in the show are from the fifth generation instead of the fourth generation.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Ishida is clearly in an advanced age, but he manages to hold off two knife-wielding assassins with a katana for quite a long time.
• Batman Gambit: Katagiri sends his location to Tozawa knowing that he would send an assassin to kill him. He lies in wait with a pistol sitting on the bed. When the assassin arrives, Katagiri ambushes him with a gun, so the assassin lunges for the pistol on the bed and tries to shoot Katagiri. Not only has he just tried to kill a cop in front of witnesses, but he put his fingerprints on the gun, which is the murder weapon in another crime.
• Bitch Slap: Hayama slaps the faces of those who wrong him as a punishment.
• Bittersweet Ending: Season 2 ends with Shinzo Tozawa killing himself over shame that he was an informant for the FBI, but only at the cost of many characters compromising their integrity to attain justice. Misaki wanting to walk away from the yakuza life entirely, but knowing that Jake will never stop reporting on their crimes, ends their relationship. Rachel makes a deal with Tozawa's widow, selling the development deal info intended for Ishida for ten million yen and and leaves Tokyo for a while to contemplate her options. Kurihira awakens at the hospital and his friendship with Jake seems to be on the mend. Sato formally assumes leadership of the Chihara-kai, but is now cemented to the yakuza life. Katagiri, disenchanted with the police bureaucracy and having to resort to selling Tozawa out to his fellow yakuza, retires from the police and enjoys a quiet life with his family back at their home. Emi resigns from the Meicho after learning the extent of her publisher's cover-up, but exposes Tozawa's corruption in Japanese politics as a reporter for her boyfriend's magazine. However, Sugihara ends his friendship with Jake for crediting Jason as a lead source to get accurate info that the FBI made Tozawa their mole in the yakuza underworld. The season also implies that Polina is truly dead despite some scenes mentioning that she could be still alive.
• Book Ends: Sato's story opens in the pilot watching Kume undergoing an elaborate ceremony for his promotion within Chihara-Kai. Sato ends season two undergoing the same ceremony himself as he is formally assumes leadership of Chihara-Kai.
• Brick Joke: In "I Want It That Way," Sato and Jake argue over Backstreet Boys vs *NSYNC, respectively, while listening to the aforementioned song. Later, the two go to a club, and "Tearin' Up My Heart" starts playing. Sato flips Jake off in response.
• Bullying a Dragon: Matsuo browbeats a yakuza and almost backs it up.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: If you freeze the frame on Samantha's mission journal, you can read one entry where she mentions being cursed out by a salaryman. In the next entry, she says she met the same salaryman again, and he didn't seem to recognize her.
• Chekhov's Skill: Jake is shown practicing aikido and not doing very well. He also practices aikijutsu with Miyamoto and gets some licks in. He's called upon to use his modest asskicking powers to brawl with two yakuza in several episodes later and again in season 2.
• Cliffhanger: Season 1 ends with Polina and Miyamoto dead, Sato stabbed multiple times, Katagiri having his family threatened by Tozawa for trying to stop him, and Samantha being swindled out of her money and forced to make an arrangement with the yakuza.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Polina is a professional hostess who makes her living by bilking lonely men into buying her bottles of champagne. It turns out that her "boyfriend" is also a host who is actually just bilking her out of her money by buying him champagne where he works.
• Comically Missing the Point: Some yakuza unwittingly order Blue Hawaiians at an American resort, but they're disgusted by the bright color and begin arguing with the waitress to send them back. At that moment, the FBI storm in to arrest the yakuza. One of the confused yakuza pleads, "OK, we'll take the drinks!"
• Cool Car: Katagiri's red Nissan Fairlady 280Z gets quite a lot of action throughout the series and stands out amongst the other vehicles.
• Cowboy Cop:
  • Miyamoto always wears a leather jacket without a tie and has a reputation of bending the rules to get the justice he wants. In truth, he's just on the take.
  • Katagiri is a true cowboy cop who is said to be the only incorruptible man on the force. He blazes his own trail to maintain peace, which includes dealing with yakuza more closely than would be officially allowed.
  • In season two, he's one-upped by his new superior, Deputy Superintendent Nagata, who takes a more hardline stance towards the yakuza. She uses a broad application of a law previously used for political agitators to aggressively arrest yakuza clans, but her results earn her latitude from her superiors.
• The Dead Have Names: Maruyama scolds Jake for still referring to the yakuza victims as "the burned guy" and "the stabbed guy," telling him that they had names. Later, she does the same to Miyamoto when he refers to a murder victim as "the girl." In season 2, Jake turns the tables on her when Rachel is the subject of a story in the Meicho and Maruyama refers to her only as "the subject."
• Death Glare: Downplayed for dramatic effect. When an underling suggests to Tozawa that they pull back on their loan sharking business, Tozawa merely needs to lean forward with a vaguely displeased expression to make the underling retract his statement and flee from the room.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Jake and Samantha face constant discrimination for being white, from Innocently Insensitive remarks to petty rudeness to outright slurs.
  • During a job interview, the Meicho executives blithely ask Jake what he thinks about those who say Jews control the world economy, something that would be outrageously offensive back home in America. It's not the end of the antisemitism he faces.
  • Maruyama must hide the fact that she has Korean ancestry from her coworkers to avoid discrimination.
  • One of Jake's co-workers is a closeted gay man. Not only is he in the 90s, but he's in Japan, so it's doubly taboo.
  • It's noted to Jake that Japanese people do not donate their organs, so when a Japanese person suffers organ problems, they usually just die.
  • Some yakuza vacationing in America unwittingly order Blue Hawaiian cocktails, but they're disgusted by the cocktails' bright blue color, saying they look "rotten."
• Destroy the Evidence:
  • Jake was told by Eiko that the Tokyo Fire Department found an office in the Meicho Shimbun destroyed by fire, which also destroyed the tape implicating the Vice Foreign Minister.
  • Hayama uses gasoline to burn Ota's body and residence to hide evidence of his presence.
• Doctor's Orders: Tozawa is told by his doctor to avoid alcohol and tobacco. While he does occasionally make efforts to avoid both, he's still seen smoking and drinking on occasion.
• Establishing Character Moment: Jake gets a montage of his life in Japan: working a menial job, studying hard, practicing aikido, and blowing off steam at a club, which establish most of his interests and personality. He gets another one when he blows through his entrance exam and seemingly finishes early, only to discover too late that he missed the last page of the test. This establishes him as talented but also overconfident.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Ishida tells Jake that all major yakuza groups are involved as loan sharks, but driving their customers to the point of suicide is not honorable.
  • The Ishida-gumi are all hardened gangsters, but they're aghast when a young recruit starts hacking wildly at his pinky in a deranged attempt to make amends. They eventually tackle him to prevent him from further harming himself.
• Everybody Smokes: The high stress of long hours and abusive work environment drive just about every career oriented person in the series to smoke, eventually including Jake.
• Exact Words: When Jake is asked if he's an American reporter, he obfuscates the fact that he's working for a Japanese newspaper by responding, "Well, I'm an American, and I'm a reporter."
• Failed a Spot Check: While taking the test, Jake appears to finish early. Then when the time runs out, he realizes he missed the backside of the last page.
• Fictional Counterpart: The Meicho Shimbun for the Yomiuri Shimbun.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Samantha flips through the journal she kept while she was on her mission, you can freeze the frame and read several entries. She recounts getting cursed at by a salaryman and then meeting the same man again later, when this time he confided in her how miserable his life was. She writes that she hopes to help him find comfort in Jesus.
• From Bad to Worse: Played for comedy when Hayama and Sato force a family to give them a lift after bungling a mission. Hayama orders the driver to turn off the obnoxious music. When he does, the family's infant immediately starts screaming.
• Greedy Jew: The Japanese know about antisemitic stereotypes but seem to regard them as a novelty within the tapestry of gaijin stereotypes. When the Meicho editors blithely ask Jake what he thinks about the accusation that Jews run the world's economy, they seem to genuinely want his opinion. For his part, Jake is well practiced in not taking offense.
• Hollywood Genetics: Jake is tall, slender, and has a full head of fair hair. His father is short, stocky, bald, and dark-haired.
• Host Club: The series devotes a significant amount of time to the inner workings of the host/hostess club industry. Rachel works as a hostess and has been saving up her earnings for some time in the hopes of opening her own club. By season two, she's successfully opened her club, but only by partnering with the yakuza.
• How We Got Here: The series opens with Jake and Katagiri going to a high-risk meeting with the yakuza, only to find their safety arrangements have been countered but are left with no choice but to proceed. The scene then cuts to two years earlier in 1999, before Jake got his job at the Meicho. Interestingly, the first season ends without reaching this point in the story again. The scene where Jake and Katagiri head to the meeting ends in Season 2's "The Noble Path".
• I Have No Son!: Sato learns that his father suffered a minor stroke and goes to visit him. His mother sternly says that the room is for family only.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Jake hears that his editor called him a "half ape, half-Jew," Jake responds, "First off, I'm full Jew..."
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • When the Meicho editors ask Jake about what he thinks of Greedy Jew stereotypes, they seem to genuinely want to know his opinion and don't realize how insulting he could find the question.
  • When one of Katagiri's daughters answers the door to see Jake, she screams in fright and accuses him of being an ogre. He's apparently the first white man she's ever seen. Later, she draws a picture of him with a demonic, red head even though she's no longer afraid of him.
• Lady Macbeth: Tozawa's wife is yakuza royalty, and she's the one who controls the purse strings. She prefers to exercise soft power, while Tozawa is trying to seize total control of the country through crooked politicians.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Unlike Tozawa, the Chihara-kai draw a line against certain criminal enterprises, such as dealing drugs and profiting off of driving people to suicide. This is for both moral and practical reasons. That said, they are still yakuza and engage in a brutal criminal enterprise that sees them pummeling businessmen to steal profits from their businesses.
• Loan Shark: A particularly brutal, Yakuza-backed company is introduced in "I Want It That Way". They take a life insurance for all their clients as a part of the contract, and if the client fails to pay their exorbitant fees, they start a harassment campaign meant to drive the client into suicide and then collect the insurance money in lieu of payment.
• Loophole Abuse: Katagiri reluctantly refuses to hand Jake his file on the stabbing victim, as doing so would violate TMPD policy and likely cost him his job. As Jake leaves his home, Katagiri's daughter runs out of the house and hands him the file, giving a clearly rehearsed explanation that since she has 'stolen' the file and given it to Jake, Katagiri cannot be held responsible for its content being used for Jake's investigation.
• Married to the Job: Jake is frequently guilted by his family for not having any time for them due to his devotion to his job on the other side of the world. In the final scene of season 2, Katagiri and Jake commiserate on their inability to "do nothing."
• Mock Millionaire: After getting her money stolen by Akira in season 1, Samantha is enraged to discover in season 2 that he's become a wealthy and successful fashion icon. When she confronts him, however, she discovers him living out of a hotel with barely any possessions to his name. His whole life is a facade.
• The Mole: Throughout Season Two, Maruyama and the TMPD realize that someone they know within their organizations could be working for Tozawa in providing them info. Which is why the tapes were destroyed in a fire or the arrested gunman was assassinated in broad daylight.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: In her journal, Samantha writes that a salaryman cursed her, but she says she won't dignify what curse was hurled at her by writing it down.
• Never Suicide: It's implied that the wakashus loyal to Tozawa instead of Nakahara, being the group's actual leader, pushed him out of the balcony of his apartment.
• Phenotype Stereotype: Jake and Samantha are two Americans in Japan and stand out as such by being tall and blond.
• Police Brutality: Sato mentions in "Old Law, New Twist" that Correction Bureau officers in Asaka Prison use fire hoses to shove them into the ass of one prisoner. He got a ruptured intestine.
• Police Are Useless: The TMPD gives out their statements to the reporters according to what they said and they don't allow further questioning on what they've given out even when questioned to find inaccuracies or to confirm their statements. Behind the scenes, the police leadership is also more interested in resolving cases than actually solving them, accepting confessions from known criminals even if they don't match the evidence.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Maruyama notes that her brother hates sugar, and he seems the type for macho posturing. Some yakuza in America are also aghast at the sweet, tropical cocktails they receive, though they refuse to even taste them.
• The Reveal: The season two finale contains two big revelations:
  • The party responsible for the fire at Meicho that destroyed the tape was not Baku, but his supervisor. Despite being supportive of Maruyama pursuing her investigation on Tozawa throughout the series, he didn't want to risk the Meicho losing access to the government.
  • The person who sent the tape to Jake in the season one finale was none other than Tozawa's wife, in an attempt to curtail her husband's growing power. She expresses her disappointment to Jake for allowing such a "smoking gun" to be swept under the rug so easily.
• Self-Immolation: In "The Test", Jake come across an old man in a suit who douses himself with gasoline before he lights himself up with a match.
• Shame If Something Happened: Yabuki warns Jake to stop writing articles linking the Tozawa-gumi or else his family in the US will be "visited" by his men.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Jake and Rachel bond over their shared love of Japan, one of the things they list is 20th Century Boys.
  • In "Sometimes They Disappear," the Ishida-gumi discuss The Matrix and argue over whether they'd take the red pill or the blue pill.
  • Jake ask Katagiri in "Illness of the Trade" if they're still okay like Starsky & Hutch.
• Shown Their Work: In "Be My Number One", Sato is seen acquiring a TT-33 from an Arms Dealer. Truth in Television since the TT-33 (and its numerous variants) are easily available in the underground black market and is favored by shady groups in Japan for being cheap.
• Stupid Crooks: The crooked American surgeon took a $250,000 watch as a bribe from Tozawa and wears it in public, making it very easy for Jake to spot him as the collaborator. A watch has to be pretty damn expensive before it becomes suspicious for a head surgeon to be wearing it.
• Totally Not a Criminal Front: As in real life, the yakuza operate in the open but do not publicly admit to simply being common criminals.
• Twofer Token Minority:
  • Being American and Jewish makes Jake one in the Japanese society, and he often faces discrimination in the professional settings where foreigners usually aren't welcome.
  • Jake's direct superior, Emi Maruyama, is a woman of Korean descent, but she keeps the latter half a secret to avoid even more discrimination that she already faces as a career-oriented woman.
• The Voice: We hear tapes that Jake's sister sends him, and there's a lot of discussion about her mental state, but we never see her. She finally appears in Season 2.
• Villains Out Shopping: While driving Jake back into the city, Sato sings along to "I Want It That Way" by Backstreet Boys on the radio. Jake recommends *NSYNC, who Sato dismisses as being imitators.
• Yakuza: They're a major figure in the series. Some even threaten to kill Jake if he doesn't stop publishing articles talking about them.
• You Watch Too Much X: In "The War at Home".
  Shinjiro: Give me witness protection, and I'll tell you everything you want to know.
  Hiroto: You watch too many American movies. There's no witness protection in Japan.
• Yubitsume:
  • After a big screw-up, Sato is called upon to perform the ritual, but bigger business interrupts him.
  • One of the Ishida-gumi recruits takes it upon himself to cut off his pinky for yet another minor failure. He makes a butchery of it right in the middle of the clan's rec room, and he was never required to do it, so it just makes things much worse.

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