Amazon reveals Like a Dragon: Yakuza TV series

Can Amazon make lightning strike again with another video game adaptation?

SEGA’s Yakuza/Like A Dragon franchise is getting made into a live-action TV series, and it is coming to Amazon Prime Video on October 24th.

In the teaser trailer below, we can see series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu receive his trademark tattoos before showcasing the franchise’s fictional Kamurocho district.

Amazon has revealed that the series will “showcase modern Japan” and tell the “dramatic stories” of characters like Kazuma Kiryu. These stories will be tales that the game series hasn’t explored. This suggests that this series will be “canon” within the Like a Dragon/Yakuza universe, though this is unconfirmed.

Released in 2005 by SEGA, the “Yakuza” game series was positioned as an entertaining game for adults, which found massive fanfare amongst its target audience. The series depicts the lives of fierce yet passionate gangsters and people living in a huge entertainment district, Kamurocho, a fictional district modeled after the violent Shinjuku ward’s Kabukicho, that acts as the backdrop of the gameplay. Like a Dragon: Yakuza showcases modern Japan and the dramatic stories of these intense characters, such as the legendary Kazuma Kiryu, that games in the past have not been able to explore. Coming October 24 to Prime.

Amazon has found huge success recently with the release of Fallout. Now, Amazon are hoping for lightning to strike twice with another video game adaptation.

The Like a Dragon/Yakuza series isn’t as well known as Fallout, but that doesn’t mean that Amazon can’t make a success of this IP. In fact, the less fantastical nature of the Yakuza universe may make it more appealing to the average watcher. That said, Yakuza fans will know how goofy the series can be.

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