Tokyo Vice (TV series)

Tokyo Vice
Genre	Crime drama
Created by	J. T. Rogers
Based on	Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein
Starring	Ansel Elgort Ken Watanabe Rachel Keller Hideaki Itō Show Kasamatsu Ella Rumpf Rinko Kikuchi Tomohisa Yamashita Miki Maya Yōsuke Kubozuka
Composers	Danny Bensi Saunder Jurriaans
Country of origin	United States
Original languages	English Japanese
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	16
Production
Executive producers	John Lesher Michael Mann J. T. Rogers Alan Poul Ansel Elgort Emily Gerson Saines Jake Adelstein Kayo Washio Brad Caleb Kane Destin Daniel Cretton Ken Watanabe
Producers	Ralph Winter Satch Watanabe
Production locations	Tokyo, Japan
Cinematography	John Grillo Diego García Katsumi Yanagijima Daniel Satinoff
Running time	54–63 minutes
Production companies	Gerson Saines Productions Grisbi SRO Productions Boku Films Forward Pass Wowow Fifth Season
Original release
Network	HBO Max (season 1) Max (season 2)
Release	April 7, 2022 (2022-04-07) – present (present)

Tokyo Vice is an American crime drama television series created by J. T. Rogers and based on the 2009 book of the same title by Jake Adelstein. It premiered on April 7, 2022, on HBO Max. It stars Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe in lead roles. In June 2022, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on February 8, 2024.

Premise

In 1999, American journalist Jake Adelstein has relocated to Tokyo and must pass a written exam in Japanese to have the chance to join the staff of a major Japanese newspaper. He succeeds in becoming their first foreign-born journalist and starts at the very bottom. Taken under the wing of a veteran detective in the vice squad, he starts to explore the dark and dangerous world of the Japanese yakuza whilst living under the city's official line that "murder does not happen in Tokyo".

Cast and characters

Main

• Ansel Elgort as Jake Adelstein, an American journalist from Missouri who moves to Tokyo. The longer he stays, the more he delves into the corruption of Tokyo's seedy underworld, where no one is as they seem.
• Ken Watanabe as Hiroto Katagiri, a detective in the organized crime division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. He acts as a father figure to Adelstein and helps guide him through the thin and often precarious line between the law and organized crime.
• Rachel Keller as Samantha Porter, an American expatriate living in Tokyo and former Mormon who makes her living as a hostess in the Onyx Club of the Kabukicho district (season 1), and later starts her own hostess club (season 2). Her clients vary from salarymen to high-end clients and yakuza.
• Hideaki Itō as Jin Miyamoto (season 1; guest season 2), a vice squad detective who is Jake's first contact in the Tokyo police but who is secretly working with the yakuza.
• Show Kasamatsu as Akiro Sato, an enforcer in the Chihara-kai yakuza clan who collects protection money and is Samantha's handler at the Onyx Club. He secretly has a crush on her and is disillusioned by the yakuza lifestyle which he sees as anachronistic.
• Ella Rumpf as Polina (season 1; guest season 2), an Eastern European migrant, and a struggling new hostess at the Onyx Club with Samantha. A kind-hearted but naive woman, she came to Tokyo to work as a model but was pulled into the seedy underbelly of Kabukicho.
• Rinko Kikuchi as Emi Maruyama, Adelstein's supervisor and a senior journalist for the Meicho Shimbun newspaper. Maruyama is a composite of the various colleagues and supervisors who worked with the real-life Adelstein during his career.
• Tomohisa Yamashita as Akira, Polina's boyfriend who works at a host club.
• Miki Maya as Shoko Nagata (season 2), a detective from the National Police Agency assigned to Tokyo, who seeks to create a new task force to permanently eradicate organized crime in the city.
• Yōsuke Kubozuka as Naoki Hayama (season 2), a high-ranking yakuza in the Chihara-kai, who is newly released from a 7-year imprisonment and is appointed as Ishida's second-in-command.

Recurring

• Shun Sugata as Hitoshi Ishida, the leader of the Chihara-kai yakuza clan
• Takaki Uda as Jun "Trendy" Shinohara, Jake's handsome friend and co-worker
• Kosuke Tanaka as Makoto "Tintin" Kurihira, Jake's witty friend and co-worker
• Masato Hagiwara as Duke (season 1), the owner of the Onyx hostess club
• Kōsuke Toyohara as Baku, Jake's by-the-books, racist nationalist boss
• Masayoshi Haneda as Yoshihiro Kume (season 1; guest season 2), Sato's direct superior within the Chihara-kai who is later revealed to be a mole working for the Tozawa organization
• Eugene Nomura as Kobayashi, Ishida's right-hand man and a high-ranking member of the Chihara-kai
• Kazuya Tanabe as Yabuki, the second-in-command of the Tozawa yakuza clan
• Nobushige Suematsu as Gen, a member of the Chihara-kai who has a major internal conflict with Sato
• Koshi Uehara as Taro, a high-ranking member of the Chihara-kai
• Noémie Nakai as Luna (season 1; guest season 2), the most prestigious hostess at the Onyx club
• Rosaria Mokkhavesa as Malee (season 1), the most esteemed hostess at Onyx
• Ayumi Tanida as Shinzo Tozawa, the leader of the Tozawa yakuza clan, a rival organization to the Chihara-kai, who is trying to establish himself in Tokyo while suffering from an incurable health condition
• Yuka Itaya as Junko Katagiri, Hiroto's wife
• Chisato Yamasaki as Natsumi Katagiri, Hiroto's elder daughter
• Kaho Yamasaki as Shino Katagiri, Hiroto's younger daughter
• Motoki Kobayashi as Haruki Ukai (season 1; guest season 2), a writer and meth user who publishes articles about the Tozawa organization, with their approval
• Jundai Yamada as Matsuo (season 1), a cultured man who becomes one of Samantha's clients and later reveals that he was hired to track her down
• Ayumi Ito as Misaki Taniguchi, Shinzo Tozawa's mistress and a former model
• Bokuzō Masana as Ozaki (season 2; guest season 1), Baku's supervisor and an executive at Meicho
• Keita as Kei Maruyama (season 2; guest season 1), Emi's mentally ill brother
• Makiko Watanabe as Kazuko Tozawa (season 2; guest season 1), Shinzo Tozawa's wife
• Yohei Matsukado as Hagino (season 2; guest season 1), a high-ranking member of the Tozawa organization and a confidant to Kazuko and Misaki
• Masaki Miura as Funaki (season 2; guest season 1), a senior detective and Katagiri's friend
• Atomu Mizuishi as Kaito Sato (season 2; guest season 1), Sato's eager younger brother, who seeks to reconnect, despite their parents' qualms
• Takayuki Suzuki as Masahiro Ohno (season 2), a wealthy architect and one of Samantha's best customers at her new hostess club
• Hyunri Lee as Erika (season 2), the retired former owner of Club Destiny, where Samantha first worked as a hostess, who goes into business with Samantha
• Ukyo Nakamura as Daichi (season 2), Erika's son
• Soji Arai as Shingo Murata (season 2), Emi's lover and an editor for the Tokyo Weekly newspaper
• Yoshinori Miyata as Kenji (season 2), the barman at Samantha's club
• Aoi Takeya as Jason Aoki (season 2), a Japanese-American working at the U.S. embassy and Trendy's lover

Guest

• Jessica Hecht as Willa Adelstein, Jake's mother
• Sarah Sawyer as Jessica Adelstein, Jake's sister who sends him audio letters on tapes and has been in mental health treatment
• Hiroshi Sogabe as Sugita (season 1), the head of the Suzuno insurance company, which manipulates people into debt with the Tozawa organization
• Nanami Kawakami as Yuka (season 1), a young woman Jake hooks up with while hanging out with Sato, later revealed to be a prostitute
• Fumiya Kimura as Koji (season 1), Sato's first recruit within the Chihara-kai
• Renji Ishibashi as Noboru Nakahara, the chairman of the Tozawa organization, and Kazuko's uncle-in-law
• Toru Shinagawa as Koichi Tanaka, an elderly yakuza chairman with a lot of authority among his peers
• Sotaro Tanaka as Dr. Shimizu, an underground doctor, who treats members of the Chihara-kai
• Miyuki Matsuda as Inaba, the owner of a host club who pays protection money to the Tozawa organization
• Hajime Inoue as Jotaro Shigematsu, the Minister of Transport, who gets blackmailed by the Tozawa organization
• Kojun Notsu as Ide, a police captain and Katagiri's supervisor
• Akiko Iwase as Rie Sato, Sato's mother
• Danny Burstein as Eddie Adelstein, Jake's father
• Nadia Parkes as Claudine (season 2), a classy, but brazen British hostess and Samantha's biggest earner
• On Nakano as Tats (season 2), the leader of a Bōsōzoku biker gang, whom Jake investigates after a series of motorcycle thefts
• Hinata Arakawa as Chika (season 2), Tats' younger sister and member of his gang
• Geraldine Hughes as Lynn Oberfield (season 2), an FBI agent working with the U.S. Foreign Service at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo
• Kouichirou Kanzaki as Hishinuma (season 2), the elderly leader of the Hishinuma-kai yakuza clan
• Takao Kin as Ota (season 2), a former member of the Chihara-kai, who was exiled to Nagano
• Shoken Kunimoto as Ichikawa (season 2), Hishinuma's lawyer
• Yayoi Sanmi as Sakura Igarashi (season 2), Tozawa's new, younger lover
• Yuta Koga as Shinjiro (season 2), a former member of the Hishinuma-kai, who is hired by Tozawa for an assassination
• Vincent Gale as Dean Kudisch (season 2), the senior editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in America
• Marcel Jeannin as Dr. Edward Walker (season 2), the chief of organ transplantation at the Southern Minnesota Metropolitan General Hospital, where he secretly treated Tozawa

Episodes

Season	Episodes		Originally released
			First released	Last released
1	8		April 7, 2022 (2022-04-07)	April 28, 2022 (2022-04-28)
2	10		February 8, 2024 (2024-02-08)	April 4, 2024 (2024-04-04)

Season 1 (2022)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
1	1	"The Test"	Michael Mann	J. T. Rogers	April 7, 2022 (2022-04-07)
In 1999, Jake Adelstein is an aspiring American journalist who sits for the entrance test at Japan's largest newspaper, Meicho Shimbun. Despite not answering all the questions, he is hired and assigned the police press department under the taciturn Emi Muroyama. His first assignment is to report on the murder of Mr. Aoki and at the police briefing, he meets Detective Miyamoto. He visits Aoki's house and finds that he was deep in debt to a company that does not seem to exist, however when he includes this in his draft article, he is told to follow the police report and not jump to conclusions. After work, he goes out to a nightclub with Miyamoto and meets the hostess, Samantha, a fellow American migrant and crosses paths with members of the yakuza Chihara-kai clan. He goes with Miyamoto to Kabukicho to report on an incident. He meets the jaded detective Hiroto Katagiri and they witness a man who commits suicide by self-immolation. Jake visits the suicidal man's wife, who tells him that her husband was also in debt. Muroyama tells Jake she is not interested in a possible connection and instructs him to move on from the story, but Jake is still plagued by visions of the self-immolation.
2	2	"Kishi Kaisei"	Josef Kubota Wladyka	Karl Taro Greenfeld	April 7, 2022 (2022-04-07)
Jake struggles to find a good story to keep his job while he tries to investigate the deaths of the two indebted men. With money earned working as a hostess at Onyx nightclub, Samantha is planning to open her own club but finds many impediments in her way. Chihara-kai's protection racket is challenged by their rival, Tozawa’s gang, but the leader Hitoshi refuses to retaliate because he believes an open war with Tozawa would attract too much police attention. When Jake takes some photographs of an altercation between the gangs, he is spotted by Katagiri, who confiscates the photo and tells him not to report this. However, Jake presses him to meet for another potential story.
3	3	"Read The Air"	Josef Kubota Wladyka	Arthur Phillips	April 7, 2022 (2022-04-07)
Jake visits Katagiri's home, where he reveals the building tension between the Tozawa and Chihara-kai gangs in Tokyo which the police are trying to avoid becoming a gang war. Katagiri invites Jake to witness the arrest of Nakamura and two other members of Tozawa's gang after they disturb the peace, and after his story is published, Jake's standing in the office increases. Jake unsuccessfully tries to press Samantha for information about herself and the yakuza. He pays a visit to Katagiri who also believes that the mysterious loan company and yakuza are connected to two suspicious deaths in the city. Jake leaves with a file that Katagiri received from Aoki's wife who was planning to sue the loan company before he was murdered. Jake gets the registered number of the company, but before he can act he is abducted by the members of the Chihara-kai clan.
4	4	"I Want It That Way"	Hikari	Naomi Iizuka	April 14, 2022 (2022-04-14)
Jake is taken before Hitoshi Ishida, oyabun of the Chihara-kai clan who surprisingly asks Jake to find the Tozawa informant in his clan who is undermining his authority by spreading rumors that he is working with the police. On Jake's return, Maruyama makes a connection with the loan company to a woman's suicide in Machiya and she takes Jake with her to investigate, however it leads to another dead end. Sato appears increasingly dissatisfied with yakuza life and takes Jake to a night out of clubbing and women. Later at an expensive restaurant they encounter Tozawa, and contrary to Sato's advice Jake openly identifies him, furthering his involvement and exposure to the yakuza. Meanwhile, Samantha's plans to open her own club begin unravelling: one of her clients, Matsuo, reveals that he is pursuing her for the money she stole in the past, and one of the girls has revealed her plans for her own club to Duke, the owner of the Onyx hostess club.
5	5	"Everybody Pays"	Hikari	Adam Stein	April 14, 2022 (2022-04-14)
Samantha reveals to Polina that she arrived in Japan as a Mormon missionary five years earlier and that she stole $40,000 when she left the organization to remain in Japan. Katagiri gives Jake the name of the Tozawa mole in the Chihara-kai clan to give to Ishida, warning him not to accept any favors in return. Nevertheless, Jake asks Ishida about the loan shark story he is doing, and Ishida suggests that Jake investigate those who refused to lend to the people desperate for money. Jake tracks down the Suzuno company and loan manager Sugita who admits to sending people to the loan sharks. However, Jake later finds Sugita dead, with a note accepting all blame and not mentioning Tozawa. Meanwhile, Yoshihiro Kume, Sato's direct superior, prepares to discipline him for not controlling Samantha, but he is then called out by Ishida as the Tozawa mole. Ishida orders Sato to kill Kume, but he jumps from the top of the building instead. Sato confronts Samantha about her recalcitrant behavior, reminding her that "Everybody Pays" and they spend the night together. Both Jake and Sato have misgivings about the paths that they have taken. Meanwhile Samantha tries to pay off Matsuo but instead he declares that she is sexually beholden to him, or he will tell on her. Sato returns to Chihara-kai headquarters to find that it has been attacked by Tozawa assassins and helps Ishida fight off the remaining two men. Ishida kills one of them, saving Sato, although Ishida is badly wounded.
6	6	"The Information Business"	Josef Kubota Wladyka	Jessica Brickman	April 21, 2022 (2022-04-21)
Jake tracks down Ukai Haruki, a writer and meth user who has published articles about Tozawa in yakuza fan magazines. He gets a lead on Tozawa's girlfriend, Misaki, however she is uncooperative. At a meeting of the Tokyo yakuza council to resolve the conflict between Tozawa and the Chihara-kai clan, chairman Nakahara forces Tozawa to pay compensation and humbly apologize for his actions. However it is later revealed that Nakahara has been sponsoring Tozawa against the Chihara-kai. Matsuo again pressures Samantha to cater to his needs, also revealing that her father hired him to track her down. Sato takes Jake to Ishida who tells him that a shipment of Tozawa's shabu is arriving by air so he can inform the police and get a scoop. Jake tells Katagiri who is circumspect and refuses to act, so Jake takes the information to Miyamoto. Miyamoto leads a police raid on the suspect airplane with Jake in tow, but they find nothing and Jake has to withstand the ire of Katagiri who later arrives on the scene. To help Samantha, Sato tries to scare off Matsuo but instead Sato loses his composure and kills him. Emi and the editor force Jake to write a story about police incompetence over the failed raid, further ruining Jake's reputation with the police and revealing his rookie status in the information business. Meanwhile, Miyamoto explains to Tozawa how he protected the hidden drug shipment during the raid, and that it was Jake Adelstein who provided the tip-off.
7	7	"Sometimes They Disappear"	Josef Kubota Wladyka	Brad Caleb Kane	April 21, 2022 (2022-04-21)
The body of a mechanic at the airport of the failed drug raid is found floating in the river furthering Katagiri's suspicions that Miyamoto is working for Tozawa and convinces his boss to set a trap to obtain evidence. Emi attends a police briefing announcing the arrest of a man by Miyamoto for the murderer of a young woman, Kaori Shoda, but Emi suspects that there is more to the story. Samantha is concerned for Polina who appears to have disappeared and asks Sato to look into the matter, placing further strain on their faltering relationship. Tozawa attends a function for his 52nd birthday after receiving an injection for his worsening health, but he collapses during the evening and calls for Misaki. On the same night Jake takes Dave Fisch, a friend from Missouri he met earlier in the day, out to a trendy nightclub where he encounters Misaki and they spend the evening together until Tozawa's men arrive and take her away. At police headquarters, Katagiri tells Miyamoto that evidence for his case against Tozawa is stored in the basement, prompting Miyamoto to break into the room after hours to copy it for Tozawa. He only finds an empty evidence box but sees a surveillance camera and realizes that he has been exposed. Meanwhile, Sato finds that Polina has run up a huge debt trying to please her erstwhile boyfriend Akira and has been sent away to service the debt. Sato tells Samantha that "sometimes they disappear", prompting her to go to Jake's apartment for help to find Polina.
8	8	"Yoshino"	Alan Poul	J. T. Rogers	April 28, 2022 (2022-04-28)
Miyamoto confronts Katagiri over the surveillance footage that confirms his connection with Tozawa, and Katagiri offers him a way to make amends by feeding Tozawa misinformation. Meanwhile, Jake finds nothing on Yoshino, but Samantha discovers it is a club controlled by Tozawa. Jake takes Samantha to Ukai Haruki and offer him meth in exchange for information on Yoshino and he reveals that Yoshino is a boat which Tozawa uses to entertain his VIP guests, including offering Western women for sex. However, when Haruki makes a pass at Samantha, she strikes him and they leave. Miyamoto tells Tozawa that Katagiri is bluffing, has no evidence, and is actually protecting Ishida, then offers to continue working for Tozawa. Miyamoto passes information from Tozawa onto Katagiri that a shipment of drugs is arriving at a port warehouse and he suggests they catch Tozawa there. Meanwhile, Akira approaches Samantha, saying that Polina's abductors have asked for 10 million yen to release her. Samantha collects her savings to help free Polina; however, Akira is in league with them and they take her money, leaving her penniless. Jake is attacked in his apartment by two of Tozawa's men and warned off. Samantha approaches Ishida's moneylenders for a loan to start her own club, and they agree. Sato is put in charge of the operation and tells Samantha, but as he leaves, he is repeatedly stabbed by Gen. Katagiri waits for hours at the appointed port location, but after realizing Miyamoto is not answering his phone, he enters the warehouse. He meets Tozawa, who threatens to kill Katagiri's family if he interferes in his business and that he has "dealt with" Miyamoto. The next morning, Jake finds a videotape outside his door showing Polina being kicked to death on a boat after refusing the Vice Minister of National Affairs's sexual advances by a member of the Tozawa clan. He takes the tape to Katagiri, who is alone since his family left town.

Season 2 (2024)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
9	1	"Don't Ever F**king Miss"	Alan Poul	J. T. Rogers & Brad Caleb Kane	February 8, 2024 (2024-02-08)
10	2	"Be My Number One"	Alan Poul	Karl Taro Greenfeld	February 8, 2024 (2024-02-08)
11	3	"Old Law, New Twist"	Josef Kubota Wladyka	Francine Volpe	February 15, 2024 (2024-02-15)
12	4	"Like a New Man"	Josef Kubota Wladyka	Ashley M. Darnall	February 22, 2024 (2024-02-22)
13	5	"Illness of the Trade"	Takeshi Fukunaga	Adam Stein	February 29, 2024 (2024-02-29)
14	6	"I Choose You"	Takeshi Fukunaga	Annie Julia Wyman & Joshua Kaplan	March 7, 2024 (2024-03-07)
15	7	"The War at Home"	Eva Sørhaug	Brad Caleb Kane	March 14, 2024 (2024-03-14)
16	8	"The Noble Path"	Eva Sørhaug	Arthur Phillips	March 21, 2024 (2024-03-21)
17	9	TBA	Unknown	Jennifer Silverman	March 28, 2024 (2024-03-28)
18	10	TBA	Unknown	J. T. Rogers	April 4, 2024 (2024-04-04)

Production

Development

Tokyo Vice was initially set up as a movie in 2013, with Daniel Radcliffe attached to star as Adelstein. Anthony Mandler was set to direct, and development was advanced enough to where a production start of mid-2014 was set. In June 2019, the project was repurposed as a television series, receiving an eight-episode order from WarnerMedia to be streamed on its streaming service HBO Max. Ansel Elgort was to be executive producer on the series, with J. T. Rogers writing and Destin Daniel Cretton directing. In October 2019, Michael Mann was hired to direct the pilot episode and also serve as an executive producer of the series. The series premiered on April 7, 2022, with the first three episodes available immediately, followed by two episodes on a weekly basis until the season finale on April 28, 2022. On June 7, 2022, HBO Max renewed the series for a second season. Season Two returned on February 8, 2024.

Casting

In addition to his executive producing announcement, Ansel Elgort was also set to star. In September 2019, Ken Watanabe was added to the cast. In February 2020, Odessa Young and Ella Rumpf were added to the cast. In March 2020, it was announced that Rinko Kikuchi joined the cast, and that shooting began the previous month in Tokyo. In October 2020, Rachel Keller was cast to replace Young. In September 2021, Hideaki Itō, Shō Kasamatsu and Tomohisa Yamashita were announced as series regulars, with Shun Sugata, Masato Hagiwara, Ayumi Tanida and Kōsuke Toyohara joining as recurring. In November 2022 Aoi Takeya and Takayuki Suzuki were announced to be cast.

Filming

Principal photography on the series began on March 5, 2020. On March 17, 2020, it was announced that production had halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Tokyo. Production resumed on November 26, 2020, and concluded on June 8, 2021. Production for the second season started in November 2022 in Tokyo and concluded in August 2023.

Release

HBO Max and its sibling service HBO Go hold streaming rights to the series in countries where either service is available including the United States, Latin America, and certain European and Asian markets, while Wowow, also a co-producer, holds rights in Japan. Elsewhere, international distributor Endeavor Content has sold broadcast/streaming rights to the series to Crave in Canada, Canal+ in France, Paramount+ in Australia, OSN+ in the Middle East and Northern Africa region, LionsgatePlay in India and Starzplay in select European markets including the UK and Ireland. The BBC purchased second-window rights to the series in the UK, and began to air it in November 2022 on BBC One, with all episodes available for six months on the BBC's iPlayer service.

Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an overall rating of 88% for the two seasons. The website's critics consensus reads, "Tokyo Vice's protagonist is its least interesting element, but the intrigue of Japan's underworld and the verisimilitude of its setting make for a seductive slice of neo-noir." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 76 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

External links

• Tokyo Vice at IMDb