Yup, its not a title. Kiryu became a "Dragon" because no one could defeat him and his feats seemed impossible by human standards. The Dojima part just came from the family he was apart of while in the Yakuza.
It sounds like Yumi's sister being real could have made the idea of the fake identity more believable, if she's just died in obscurity and Kazama had taken advantage of that to keep Yumi safe.
pretty sure the people behind the show outright went on record saying "we are forbidding any of the actors participating from playing or watching any of the games because we want to do our own thing" AKA "We think of video games as lesser and are using this adaptation as an excuse to get our own project off the ground" AKA the death flag for any adaptation.
@@randomfox12245 You know Sonic SatAM: A) Was in the 90s, where Sonic barely had anything and B) Is widely beloved, literally one of the highest-praised Sonic shows among people who knew it, and spun off into a long-running comic series that did so well, they are STILL making Sonic comics to this day, just under a different publisher? At least use Sonic Underground, dear GOD.
@@Berrineso As a halo fan, that adaption turned out better than Yakuza's. Is that a hot take? Idk but I genuinely couldn't find anything to enjoy about the Yakuza show, it's just so boring. At least the Halo series had badass moments (and better close-quarter fight scenes than the Yakuza show-a show based on a series known for all-out brawls-some-fucking-how.)
i think the worst thing about this show is that they cast majima really well and then do literally nothing with him also saejima is just. there. and then dies
The double standard against video games when adaptations get made is always so insane. The cast of this literally said in an interview "we haven't played the games, we're going to do our own thing with it." Can you imagine someone being cast in a movie based on a book and saying that? I couldn't. Ian McKellen hadn't read Lord of the Rings before he was cast as Gandalf, and there's behind the scenes footage of him walking around the set with book in hand making sure he was informed on the source material before participating in the scene. But when it's video games is fine to treat the source material as this lame stupid little thing that we don't need to bother with. We're uplifting it to the status of "true art" with this adaptation. And when fans of the games complain, they're told to shut up because the games were stupid anyway in so many words. It's always very clear that video games still are simply not respected as a medium of entertainment.
I honestly feel the same way about the Fallout show. It doesn’t respect the source material and normies will eat it up and fans of the series will gaslight themselves into believing it’s good. It’s honestly sad how these mega corps are ruining beloved franchises like this. Yakuza fans deserve better
Adaptations of the more niche mediums of games and comics are just like that a lot of the time, and while yeah it *should* be at least a little different to justify being an adaptation, they’re often made by people who just don’t care about the source material and thus are unable to capture the essence of it. Like you mentioned nobody would bat an eye if someone complained about an adaptation of a novel doing a bad job adapting it but do the same for these more niche mediums and now you’re nitpicking or whatever. Really wish more of these adaptations, if they need to be made, would capture what makes their source material special
5:15 Oh this hurt my soul. Gaiden definitely isn't the best in the series, but when it hits it fucking HITS. If you care about Kiryu and his growth as a character at all, then Gaiden's ending cutscene is a must watch. It had me bawling right along with Kiryu in that scene. Only playing two hours and completely writing it off as bad is really disappointing to hear, especially when it also has a visually and conceptually incredible new area and a really fun new character
Im sorry but one good scene at the very end does not make up for an otherwise redundant story, especially when Infinite Wealth treats it and its characters as such.
@@Foxcade I do think a good bit of it is filler but Akame and Shishido make it worth it to me. I really want them to come back at some point because IMO shishido makes top 4 antagonist in this franchise. Akame and her drink links were pretty good although I wished it was longer. maybe ichi can meet up with her at some point. Its fine if you don't want to play it, although I would at least recommend watching a playthrough. even more so if these characters return.
@@Foxcade I get where you're coming from as it's definitely a game that didn't need to exist, but there's still a lot to appreciate other than mainline story, even if a Yakuza game's story doesn't completely land for you there will always be side content that still does. It's just disappointing to hear people so quickly write it off as an entry that's not even worth playing when I think it's quite the opposite if you are invested in Kiryu as a character, and/or just love watching the wacky shit that happens in these games. Watching Kiryu go on some wild side adventure becoming a secret agent with hoover shoes and infiltrating giant boat casino's while going against some top tier Yakuza antagonists could never be bad in my book.
@@nyarancia In gaiden only ending and colliseum are really worth playing. And even then combat was half-baked. Gaiden gives almost nothing to Kiryu as a character outside of couple cut-scenes. And whole hawaii vacation and the ring have no place in IW's narrative. I 100% it like any other yakuza game on steam, but I recommend other people to skip it and watch ending on youtube.
@@Foxcade IW treating the story like an afterthought is probably a result of Gaiden being made late into its development, and that's something that unfortunately can't be rectified. However, I feel that Gaiden definitely earns its place. 7 treats Kiryu like this mystical figure that has it all figured out: connections, knowledge about the underlying plot, the same strength and superiority that made us love Kiryu, but Gaiden shows the underlying truth to that. Not just in the ending scene, but throughout the entire story. Gaiden breaks this poor man down, takes him on a journey he wants no part in. It beats him down repeatedly again, and again, and again. You can definitely say it's derivative of Yakuza 5, in fact I'd say it's literally just Yakuza 5.2, but I think that's what makes it work. I love 5, it's a wild and goofy and incredibly long journey, but the focus on Kiryu is too shallow and the final fight doesn't have that proper build up or pay-off. Gaiden pulls this same trick, but I feel in a much more satisfying manner. And part of that satisfaction is how the final boss is a reflection of Kiryu. He's everything Kiryu used to be in a way, a successful man fighting for his own dreams, willing to take on the four strongest men in the series because his dream means that much to him. In contrast, Kiryu is a broken man fighting for someone else's dream: a theme I feel is carried into 8 with how he treats his situation. I think Gaiden helps make 8's story complete. We have the context for his pain, the absence of the unstoppable will we once knew. I think it's really beautiful how the two games are in antithesis. One is Kiryu's despair, him sinking all the way down, and the other is him climbing back up from rock bottom, exactly how Ichiban did in 7. Yeah this definitely doesn't convince anyone to like Gaiden if they already don't like it, but this is at least why I consider it a top 3 game for me. And I'd definitely recommend for people to watch every cutscene, not just the final one.
36:05 Actually I believe it all started after they kicked out Henry Cavill from The Witcher because Cavill _is_ an avid gamer and big Witcher fan (not just the games, but also the books), obviously because as a fan of the series *he was actually far more invested in the project **_than the actual directors_* That really shows how much of a farce these adaptations are
I agree it was pretty public when the director and screenwriter blew up at him for being a "hinderance" on set for arguing to treat the source material with more respect. Ever since then directors doing adaptations have been scared.
@@MrGamesaregreat Well yeah, because I'm sure the producers/directors/writers for these projects already know the changes they want to push won't bode well with most of the pre-established fanbase, so having their lead actor call them out on the spot during the production makes them "uncooperative"
@Jose-se9pu he said he was committed to The Witcher to adapt the whole series as long as they were respectful to the source material. Difficult to upend a series based on just a cameo when you could look at the near constant reports of the directors/writers not respecting the source material.
@@DAEDAEANTI mean it could be a combination of both. The Witcher producers not treating the series with respect might've made it easier to jump ship to DC.
15:07 There is a difference between "Making changes to the source material for a better adaptation/better execution" And "Making changes to the source material because we think its lesser and don't respect it" and, as my other comment highlights, the people behind this adaptation are firmly on the latter camp.
The ironic thing is that Yakuza 1 has SO MUCH that could be improved on in a retelling. Which ia mostly a product of the era when it came out and how much storytelling in games has improved in leaps and bounds since then (not saying there were no games with good or deep stories at the time, just that this was not the norm for your average mid-2000s action-focused game). And yet instead of filling in gaps or making rewrites that would have improved the already existing plot, they kind of just... scrapped most major plot beats and ignored the main characters' personalities to make something completely unrecognizable from the source material.
My wife and I love Yakuza/LaD but this was so bad we didn't even make it out of the second episode. At least we'll always have that stage play adaptation.
I'd probably love a "full American Season" adaptation of an RGG game (because that's, basically, how they structure the stories in their games these days, as 22 episode seasons with interactive elements), but this seems like what it is: What would have been a not good movie version (as in, a movie version a bit worse than the first attempt) turned into an interminable "6 episodes, but not really" "TV miniseries" story. Like MCU Hawkeye, but without the admission "this probably would have been REALLY GOOD as a movie, at least".
That was clever putting the "Gaiden was bad" comment 5 minutes in so everyone comments "Wdym Gaiden was bad?!" for algorithm engagement. I swear like 70% of the comments I'm seeing are about that and not the show 😅
The more you talk about the show the more it makes me think this was supposed to be something else that got crowbarred into being Yakuza after the fact
Its a known Hollywood practice Hack directors and writers using adaptations as an excuse to put their foot on the door (or studios taking old unused scripts/concepts and slapping them into an adaptation... like the league of extraordinary gentleman movie). Specially when it comes to video game adaptations as Hollywood tends to look down on gaming, so writers directors will often go "I can make something better than the source material" without bothering to even look at the source material, just using the contract/name as an excuse. And yeah, that was obvious the case here from pre-release comments by the cast and crew.
@@MaiolyYou can't just blame Hollywood, though. It's not like Japan is any better in this regard either, as many directors and writers make dumb changes from the source material as well.
It's the classic "I can write a better story than this dumb game for children" story. A writer who has never written anything successful think they're a better writer than the person who wrote a franchise successful enough to justify an adaptation.
I was surprised people were even excited about this when the creators raised a lot of red flags for a video game adaptation: didn't play the games, would be making a lot of changes and inserting OCs as main characters. It was like Halo all over again.
8 made it look like a cash in filler episode as nothing in it really mattered. comabt was all it has going for it but at that point just play the judgements
@@megamike15 Yeah, this. The combat was fine, Agent style (the one original fighting style that the game was themed around) was gimmicky and mid overall and the story was just... there. It's not a bad game, but it was just so forgettable compared to all of the RGG titles around it. There's a reason the ending scene in the dojo was shared so much on socials. It's really kind of the only thing even worth sharing. I'd take a rubber bullet any day over what they did with Gaiden.
@@qwesx i think it served its purpose of being "what kiryu did between 6,7 and 8" pretty well, it wasn't meant to be a mainline game level story anyways.
I love that you talked at length about the many MANY problems of this adaptation, and you didn't even mention what they did to the 'jima brothers. Or the bizarre magic white guy with the sacred medallion or WHATEVER that was. Or the unbelievable character assassination of the Florist. Or the like, two sets they have for Kamuro. It's just so bad. The few scenes the botched writing allows to play out more or less as they did in the game only give way to the realization that the direction and cinematography are also worse, by orders of magnitude. The third Sonic movie makes huge weird deviations from SA2, but feels like its heart is in the right place, and the tone is more or less on point. It's respectful. This has no reason to deviate so wildly, and even if it did, the deviations are just worse in every way. It feels like they specifically wanted to disrespect the fans.
who would win? a live action based on a video game that also based on of real city and all around pretty grounded soap opera drama. a live action based on video game with 2 missing character for the adaptation it was base on (or not, i haven't watch it yet :(.
I am convinced the showrunner had a ready script for an unrelated yakuza crime drama but was told no unless he somehow fit the games story into it, that is the only way I can see how this trainwreck got so much wrong edit: spelling and clarification
42:54 you said you didn't like Gaiden and didn't play it, then used THE BEST SCENE IN THE SERIES, straight from it. I sense what you said wasn't the full picture (or you looked up the ending on UA-cam)
the consensus on people who dont like man who erased his name is that the ending was good but most of the game was filler and not that good as a whole in spite of the few good parts it has
@@alicemargatroid52 the author of the video liking this comment is very concerning "people didn't like the game, I guess I'm not playing it and calling it bad" having your own opinion is so scary, right? this channel goes into ignore list for me now
@@alicemargatroid52 That's a real shame- I personally felt that it had the most fun combat in the whole series (thank you triple finishers and funny knockout physics) and the story, whilst less consistent than some other titles, cooks HARD when it needs to. Also, shishido is the Aizawa fight perfected and no-one clan claim otherwise. Edit: Yakuza Gaiden, to me, was a companion to Yakuza 7 in that it gave us a vision of what might replace the Yakuza in the Daidoji, who are effectively the same thing but 'home-grown' inside the legal system of Japan, and very thematic given Japan's struggle with corrupt politicians. Kiryu has avoided real entanglement throughout the other games, but through Haruka he is effectively a slave to the Daidoji by the end of the game.
it is pretty fucking bad if you don't really care about combat. Story is almost as bad as Yakuza 4 on stupidity level. Exetremely overrated for understandable reason such as brilliant finale. My favorite boss fight in the whole series.
Most of the horrible stuff in the game is overlooked because "Well the ending is just SO good", which I won't deny, it's amazing... It don't make Gaiden suddenly good. Constant plot walls preventing you from going anywhere until you finish Akame stuff. The coliseum eventually gets really repetitive and all these characters with 3-4 unique attacks don't offer much. Atrociously bad story, has a bottom-1, Z-tier villain in the whole franchise (Nishitani 3). And the combat, while good, is a noticeable step back from LJ
Most Yakuza games are pretty bad. Yes, I have played through all of them. (other than infinite wealth and I guess some alternate stuff like Ishin) Even though 0 is basically a masterpiece, or close to it. (which is what led me to push through and finish the rest, eventually) 3/4/5/6 especially, are filled with objectively very bad writing(and mishandling of characters). On top of being unfocused and boring for the most part. Like a Dragon was solid in comparison, but still not great. Decent, maybe. Fanbase will eat up anything without question or critical thinking though.
I played it almost to the end but I just stopped caring because the plot itself was so offensively bland I when I had more than a couple days of break from it I had no desire to go back to it.
@@HiddenStr3ngth I agree with everything except that 0 is a masterpiece. While the story is fairly well written, the gameplay (Kiryu's part, at least) is pretty stiff if you've played literally anything else before. It's a good introduction to the franchise, but not something I'd call a masterpiece, especially when Judgment exists (not a masterpiece either, but a way better game in every aspect).
Blame the writers, directors, and producers. They outright stated that they wouldn't be following the games. They would use the settings, characters, etc. while borrowing some stuff from the games and doing their own thing with it.
@DivineNaruto Especially given how well the game lends itself TO the medium. Throw some recreations of heat actions into the fight choreography, make end-of-episode bumpers of the mini games, it SHOULD have been easy!
Yeah, it's the difference between a 4 hour show I watched with friends vs a 15 hour game that I felt was redundant from the outset, and going by feedback from friends who did play through it, it wasn't going to change my mind if I did finished it. Seeing how Infinite Wealth basically ignores everything that happened in Gaiden pretty much cemented my opinion.
The fact that Receive You (or any track from the franchise) doesn’t appear at all speaks volumes to me about the way this show went about adapting the story.
Okay, the Yakuza live action is bad and all but excuse me… what do you mean Yakuza Gaiden is bad? It has one of the most emotional stories in the franchise and the main antagonist is also one of the best in the franchise despite his very short screen time. Not to mention that harrowing ending. I had to pause my viewing because I legit had a whiplash hearing this. 😔
@@abzu235tbf gaiden story not mattering bc of IW is a given seeing how they made it after IW, maybe it would matter in 9 because somehow Hanawa magically survived considering how people keep getting revived since 7
@@sacb0y because there's the hint that Hanawa was that guy from yakuza 5 and he built up respect from gaiden just so that he could get killed (Kiryu barely even cares aswell)
@AAAAAA-bm9qd Well that's why it's Gaiden. A short game focused on Kiryu. Seeing an important event for the Yakuza from his perspective was incredible. Shishido and Tsuruno are amazing, memorable characters. But everything about Akane 100% felt like a filler.
I feel like Kiryu losing Yumi is like Spiderman losing uncle ben, its such a fundamental part of the backstory. I mean if Yumi is alive Kiryu wouldnt adopt Haruka as his daughter. I supose if the this tv show wants to have a radically different story than the game, then it needs to have a good story in its own right to justify its existence. Because its not an adaptation, so its just a really bad yakuza show, because it fails completely at adaptation.
Bro, you need to give Gaiden another chance as it shifts from the agent stuff into GREAT sunsetting of the Yakuza and FANTASTIC new side characters. This is coming from someone who did not buy the game at launch I thought SEGA was pandering to certain "reactionary" fans who were angry about the change to Turn-Based, after seeing some video about how "It's better than think" and it was. As someone who has issues with the Yakuza 5 story, I loved its Kiryu combat which has come back in full force after Y6 was so slow and sluggish. If only played for 2 hours it's clear you don't see literally (I do mean this word) CRASHES in with Yazkua characters and classic combat...
Gaiden isn't as great as people say. Sure finale is kinda good, but other than that this game offers nothing. Pocket racing is the same as it was. Combat lets be honest, isn't the best dragon engine combat. Just look at how many mods there is fixing shit all over the place. It ain't noticable on a lower difficulties, but it is noticeable when you're a fun of RGG combat.
@@Geagra a fan of which RGG combat exactly? Afaik, there's like 3-4 different combat variants. And yes, there's people that actually love the blockuza combat.
The writers probably don't want the actors to understand the source materials, since the writers themselves seem to actively ignore it. If actors understood it but were then faced with whatever the heck this was, the whole production may become more complicated, because the writers never intended to follow the source, the name Yakuza is there just to make money from a known IP.
When I saw that Saejima died gutshot in the middle of Kamurocho. Thats when I put it down, Saejima has been written poorly throughout the series as a poor mans Kiryu, and I was hoping they could improve him by showing Majima and him wreaking havoc around the town. But they didn't they just killed him, in a street that sells great steamed buns and smells like piss
The music choices seem pretty westernized, like Amazon wanted to make it accessible for a western audience and they needed to add stuff Americans can understand. Because everyone knows that American people can't watch foreign films
I totally forgot this series existed until I saw this video in my feed. Based on your title I assume in 54 mins that I'll wish I had forgotten it existed again
It's such a shame that they missed the mark for a yakuza tv show when it should have been a slam dunk. Now that it bombed so much it is likely we will never get another go at it for a long time. I wish these projects were better handled by people who have more than a surface level understanding of the source material more often
Calling gaiden shit cause "agents"?.. huh?? that reeeally took me out of it. I get not liking it, but what the fuck are you on about saying lol agents it suck. like, what did you not like? you stated it like it's as obvious as video game adaptations usually suck. I'm genuinely confused by that statement. not the fact that someone may dislike something I like, but the way it's presented is weird. In the same video where you say yakuza is a realistic human story that also has you beating up thugs that are into diaper play, yet insist it works. How's agents.. the outlier? This is a genuine question, I'm very fucking confused lmao.
Hell, he actually talks about Kiryu punching a SHARK in one of the minigames. But Agents is jumping the shark? Really? And if you want to talk about just the main story, how many times in the games, the catalyst of the story were SECRET KOREANS?! Hell, Ichiban FIGHTS A GIANT OCTOPUS IN THE MAIN STORY OF 8. Like...Foxcade, my brother, I don't get you.
Came here to say something similar. Gaiden is a bit different, but it’s by no means straight up bad. Final battle was pretty sick too, took him on with Dragon of Dojima style without resorting to healing items, nearly died but nailed it first try.
Even if Yakuza was one of those franchises super hard to adapt to TV, the thing is there is a official Super Mario game where Mario goes to hell and kills Lucifer (Super Paper Mario). You can genuinely make just about any concept work, sure some are harder than others but its never an outright excuse like people will often say with game adaptations.
Gaiden was great, it took the series back to its beat em up roots and provided a decent story to fill in the blanks for what Kiryu was doing during 7. That being said, I will agree it had a lot of filler.
I think the point of the scene after the heist with them leaving was this. Kiryu wanted nishki and the girl (I don't remember their name) to leave on a bus early in the morning and he said he would take a later bus. I think the point is he lied because he actually just wanted those two out of danger when he confessed to doing the heist.
I got the same impression, but what I didn't get was why he would ever go through with a plan with such a high risk of leading dangerous yakuza back to Sunflower and endangering all of the younger kids there (something I fully believe he anticipates given how mad he is when he finds out Nishiki and co are still there, meaning he knows they'll be in danger). There's believable recklessness bc of Kiryu being younger, and then there's completely out of character, and this falls into the latter camp for me based on everything the games tell us about who Kiryu is even as a kid
Foxcade, NO! BAD FOXCADE! GAIDEN IS GREAT!!! Holycrap, it's literally the culmination of Kiryu's entire journey into a heartbreaking finale. Like... Bro, just.... finish the game, it's not long. If you still don't like it afterwards, then that's fine, but stopping 2 hours in is a HUGE disservice and takes away your credibility.
35:53 Speaking as someone with some limited experience in tv production, the usual reason for directors discouraging their actors from looking up the source material for the roles they're playing is often because it can sometimes make it harder to direct them. In that, the actors might try to act in a way that the writers and director didn't envision for the project they're working on. In most cases, It's much easier to direct a blank slate than the opposite.
I more or less expect that's the reasoning in most cases, but I feel it's also an incredibly stubborn way to approach it, in my opinion. Productions like this should be a collaborative effort rather than the writer/directors stubbornly not giving the actors freedom to explore the characters they are meant to be portraying. If you're making changes to a character that might raise questions from the actors who are familiar with the material, you should be able to back up the reasons for those changes.
@Foxcade Oh yeah, I'm not saying one way or another whether it's good or not. After all, I'm only a video editor with some light experience as a cameraman. I have little knowledge of how effective it is. I'm just giving the reason behind why a lot of directors prefer their actors to remain ignorant of the source material that they're working on. Like most things, I think whether it's worth it or not all depends on the director and their ability to get their actors to understand and convey what they envision for the project.
Oh I understand you're just expressing a thought. I'm just giving my reasoning why it still frustrates me. But you are right, it will always depend on the project and the creatives involved.
@Foxcade That's fair! And I do agree that I think that it only served to hurt the overall quality of the show. Sometimes it works, but in this case, nah.
Lack of any wierdness of franchise really is wrong move, that's literally one reason of why we love Yakuza games, especially NO KARAOKE at any episode feels like creators of this show should have their pinkies to cut off😤
5:15 I usually try to accept people’s opinions on certain yakuza games like when people say yakuza 4 is the best one but holy shit this take is sooo bad.I had to listen to this 3 times because I couldn’t believe my ears.
Bro you did NOT just say Like a Dragon Gaiden was bad. That has to be rage bait. Gameplay-wise it's the best in the series. Story-wise it's shorter but that's okay. Not every Yakuza game needs to be 30 hours
I love Gaiden than Infinite Wealth and Yakuza 7 combined. Idgaf if people disagree with due to JRPG and it is. Plus the JRPG system is fucking boring and long.
He has one badly choreographed fight against Kiryu where he got knocked out like a bitch by Nishiki sneaking up on him. Then showed up later for the big Yakuza brawl and got arrested shortly after The actor was great, unfortunately, they gave him absolutely nothing to work with I forgot to mention that he got his eye stabbed out by Dojima while Mad World plays in the background
He quite literally only chases Kiryu and Nishiki (Saejima dies in process bruh), fights them, gets banished (?), and shows up at the end for essentially a glorified cameo.
25:45 it's actually pretty meta, as this song was used in a lot of American 80's montage scenes, and there were a lot of these 80's American movies released in Japan during this wave of Hollywood foreign distribution. It's why 80s action stars became so big in Japan, that they were doing commercials for all kinds of products.
Whenever an adaptation does the "we didn't let the actors play/watch the source material beforehand" thing, it always ends in one way... One Piece worked because they wanted to be true to the series, and had the mangaka on as the consultant to make sure they stay faithful to the source material. Avatar: Last Airbender LA also suffered the fate of the show creators leaving the project due to creative differences, and see how that turned out.
I think my favorite part about every character being characterized as the mirror world version of themselves is that it gets to the point where for Shimano they make his character in the show be a really thin guy with hair.
Not that surprising, Miike films are usually not PG-13 slop appealing to western sensibilities. Imagine if the subtext of the series was "yeah, those dudes are just sadomasochists who are really into each other" 😂
Oof, I was liking the video until I heard gaiden is bad. People are allowed to have opinions, but to not even complete the game and just write it off as a bad game. That just kinda hurts.
You know I almost wanna say "wish somebody in amazon creative watched this" but all that'd happen is they'd get ignored and then somebody in a business suit will say " you're doing it this way for optimized money return or you won't do it at all" and they sit quietly and do as they're told
I think, for me at least, the reason why Miike's adaptation is better than Amazon's is not because they adapted the stories and characters well but because watching Miike's Yakuza you feel like you are just watching the game but with real people at least that's how I fell when I watched it.
So it basically adopts the Kamen Rider Kiva method of storytelling? Interesting. I haven’t seen too many shows jump between two time periods in that way
The most damning thing about this video, there is no chapter on Haruka, the second most important character in the series. That just tells everything about this show as an adaptation ans\d how little Amazon gave a damn about the games and the fans of those games.
Mikei's film is a feature-length "extra-scenes" to the game. It's not a replacement for the game in telling the story, but it's a fun watch for anyone who already knows the original story. The amazon show has an identity crisis between trying to be an entirely original story and trying to keep the same characters for brand recognition.
As a huge Kiryu saga fan, I was also disappointed with the drastic changes they made in just the first episode. I usually am not super judgemental on adaptations, especially when I've seen so many that I enjoyed, especially as a J-drama fan too. But there were just TOO many things they changed that bothered me that I knew would have repercussions in the future of the story. Butchering Yumi's backstory was what I feared the most. You're so right, there was so much opportunity to flesh her and Kazama-san out and the fact that they barely did that really saddens me 😭 I was not planning to watch anything after the first episode, and then seeing your video grace my feed was the confirmation I needed. Thank you so much for your service on summarizing everything 😂🙏 I have had my eye on that 2005 movie too, and you just solidified me wanting to see it! I figured it'd have more of the heart and soul of the game series, even if it's still also not the best it could be.
Calling Gaiden bad has gotta be one of the most "out of touch with the series" takes lmao. I actually stopped eating my lunch, paused the video, did a rewind cuz I thought maybe I misheard something. That's how insane (and just wrong) that take is
The weirdest part is that, if you told me that the Dojima plan that they put in the show, was also in the games, it'd be actually very accurate since a lot of yakuza plots can be that convoluted (rubber bullets and yakuza 5). But yeah, event the older movie was more interested, since they put a lot of their into that movie
Well, this puts the Takashi Miike movie into a whole new light, doesn't it? At least the shotgun scene with Kiryu and Majima feels like something which would happen. Why won't people just do official subs of that fantastic stageplay, which even had Kiryu open the pause menu to drink Staminan?
Yeah, The Man Who Erased His Name wasn't that interesting story-wise, but as it's really short, it's worth it for the ending (coincidentally, there were a lot of chopped onions near me when I finished it).
Making a Yakuza adaptation is a goofy thing to do, because the series' main stories borrow a TON of elements from famous Yakuza movies and real events. When you adapt it, you have to make sure you're not just ripping off the original inspirations. I don't really agree with it being a good fit like you say, because as a movie, you're likely to just end up with something highly derivative from the get go. A similar case is Mortal Kombat, where the first game was essentially Enter the Dragon the video game, so when they adapted that into a movie, they had to focus on all the supernatural stuff to not rip off Bruce Lee's most famous film.
"I wanna become the Dragon of Doujima"
Jesus...
"I wanna become..."
*looks to the camera*
"Like a Dragon™"
god this version of kiryu makes me appriachate him in 0. despitte it being him at his lest intresting as a chracter.
@@creamdeluxe5655 My soul literally leave my body after reading this 😂
Yup, its not a title. Kiryu became a "Dragon" because no one could defeat him and his feats seemed impossible by human standards. The Dojima part just came from the family he was apart of while in the Yakuza.
Literally the first line of the whole thing was "All I ever wanted was to be a dragon" and then it went to the heist thing and I turned it off.
It sounds like Yumi's sister being real could have made the idea of the fake identity more believable, if she's just died in obscurity and Kazama had taken advantage of that to keep Yumi safe.
pretty sure the people behind the show outright went on record saying "we are forbidding any of the actors participating from playing or watching any of the games because we want to do our own thing"
AKA
"We think of video games as lesser and are using this adaptation as an excuse to get our own project off the ground"
AKA
the death flag for any adaptation.
It was true for Sonic SatAM and it's true here too
The people who made the Halo show did the same thing and we all saw how that turned out.
@@randomfox12245 You know Sonic SatAM:
A) Was in the 90s, where Sonic barely had anything
and
B) Is widely beloved, literally one of the highest-praised Sonic shows among people who knew it, and spun off into a long-running comic series that did so well, they are STILL making Sonic comics to this day, just under a different publisher?
At least use Sonic Underground, dear GOD.
@@Berrineso As a halo fan, that adaption turned out better than Yakuza's. Is that a hot take? Idk but I genuinely couldn't find anything to enjoy about the Yakuza show, it's just so boring. At least the Halo series had badass moments (and better close-quarter fight scenes than the Yakuza show-a show based on a series known for all-out brawls-some-fucking-how.)
@@Berrineso yep.
i think the worst thing about this show is that they cast majima really well and then do literally nothing with him
also saejima is just. there. and then dies
i SCREAMED when saejima died. how the hell they dared to kill one of the main characters of the game who you could play as in 2 of the games
@@slevemcdichael4481 Maybe they will make an incredibly meta joke and literally do the rubber bullets plot on him.
...Saejima WHAT?!
@@slevemcdichael4481 HE DIES??? WTF THANK GOD I DIDN'T WATCH THIS SHOW! HE'S LITERALLY MY FAVORITE CHARACTER IN THE WHOLE SERIES!!!
The double standard against video games when adaptations get made is always so insane. The cast of this literally said in an interview "we haven't played the games, we're going to do our own thing with it." Can you imagine someone being cast in a movie based on a book and saying that? I couldn't. Ian McKellen hadn't read Lord of the Rings before he was cast as Gandalf, and there's behind the scenes footage of him walking around the set with book in hand making sure he was informed on the source material before participating in the scene.
But when it's video games is fine to treat the source material as this lame stupid little thing that we don't need to bother with. We're uplifting it to the status of "true art" with this adaptation. And when fans of the games complain, they're told to shut up because the games were stupid anyway in so many words. It's always very clear that video games still are simply not respected as a medium of entertainment.
I honestly feel the same way about the Fallout show. It doesn’t respect the source material and normies will eat it up and fans of the series will gaslight themselves into believing it’s good. It’s honestly sad how these mega corps are ruining beloved franchises like this. Yakuza fans deserve better
Adaptations of the more niche mediums of games and comics are just like that a lot of the time, and while yeah it *should* be at least a little different to justify being an adaptation, they’re often made by people who just don’t care about the source material and thus are unable to capture the essence of it. Like you mentioned nobody would bat an eye if someone complained about an adaptation of a novel doing a bad job adapting it but do the same for these more niche mediums and now you’re nitpicking or whatever. Really wish more of these adaptations, if they need to be made, would capture what makes their source material special
5:15 Oh this hurt my soul. Gaiden definitely isn't the best in the series, but when it hits it fucking HITS. If you care about Kiryu and his growth as a character at all, then Gaiden's ending cutscene is a must watch. It had me bawling right along with Kiryu in that scene. Only playing two hours and completely writing it off as bad is really disappointing to hear, especially when it also has a visually and conceptually incredible new area and a really fun new character
Im sorry but one good scene at the very end does not make up for an otherwise redundant story, especially when Infinite Wealth treats it and its characters as such.
@@Foxcade I do think a good bit of it is filler but Akame and Shishido make it worth it to me. I really want them to come back at some point because IMO shishido makes top 4 antagonist in this franchise. Akame and her drink links were pretty good although I wished it was longer. maybe ichi can meet up with her at some point. Its fine if you don't want to play it, although I would at least recommend watching a playthrough. even more so if these characters return.
@@Foxcade I get where you're coming from as it's definitely a game that didn't need to exist, but there's still a lot to appreciate other than mainline story, even if a Yakuza game's story doesn't completely land for you there will always be side content that still does. It's just disappointing to hear people so quickly write it off as an entry that's not even worth playing when I think it's quite the opposite if you are invested in Kiryu as a character, and/or just love watching the wacky shit that happens in these games. Watching Kiryu go on some wild side adventure becoming a secret agent with hoover shoes and infiltrating giant boat casino's while going against some top tier Yakuza antagonists could never be bad in my book.
@@nyarancia In gaiden only ending and colliseum are really worth playing. And even then combat was half-baked. Gaiden gives almost nothing to Kiryu as a character outside of couple cut-scenes. And whole hawaii vacation and the ring have no place in IW's narrative. I 100% it like any other yakuza game on steam, but I recommend other people to skip it and watch ending on youtube.
@@Foxcade IW treating the story like an afterthought is probably a result of Gaiden being made late into its development, and that's something that unfortunately can't be rectified.
However, I feel that Gaiden definitely earns its place. 7 treats Kiryu like this mystical figure that has it all figured out: connections, knowledge about the underlying plot, the same strength and superiority that made us love Kiryu, but Gaiden shows the underlying truth to that. Not just in the ending scene, but throughout the entire story.
Gaiden breaks this poor man down, takes him on a journey he wants no part in. It beats him down repeatedly again, and again, and again. You can definitely say it's derivative of Yakuza 5, in fact I'd say it's literally just Yakuza 5.2, but I think that's what makes it work.
I love 5, it's a wild and goofy and incredibly long journey, but the focus on Kiryu is too shallow and the final fight doesn't have that proper build up or pay-off. Gaiden pulls this same trick, but I feel in a much more satisfying manner. And part of that satisfaction is how the final boss is a reflection of Kiryu. He's everything Kiryu used to be in a way, a successful man fighting for his own dreams, willing to take on the four strongest men in the series because his dream means that much to him. In contrast, Kiryu is a broken man fighting for someone else's dream: a theme I feel is carried into 8 with how he treats his situation.
I think Gaiden helps make 8's story complete. We have the context for his pain, the absence of the unstoppable will we once knew.
I think it's really beautiful how the two games are in antithesis. One is Kiryu's despair, him sinking all the way down, and the other is him climbing back up from rock bottom, exactly how Ichiban did in 7.
Yeah this definitely doesn't convince anyone to like Gaiden if they already don't like it, but this is at least why I consider it a top 3 game for me. And I'd definitely recommend for people to watch every cutscene, not just the final one.
36:05 Actually I believe it all started after they kicked out Henry Cavill from The Witcher because Cavill _is_ an avid gamer and big Witcher fan (not just the games, but also the books), obviously because as a fan of the series *he was actually far more invested in the project **_than the actual directors_*
That really shows how much of a farce these adaptations are
I agree it was pretty public when the director and screenwriter blew up at him for being a "hinderance" on set for arguing to treat the source material with more respect. Ever since then directors doing adaptations have been scared.
@@MrGamesaregreat Well yeah, because I'm sure the producers/directors/writers for these projects already know the changes they want to push won't bode well with most of the pre-established fanbase, so having their lead actor call them out on the spot during the production makes them "uncooperative"
Nah, it was because he was back as Superman, and that was getting his full atention...and then it turned out he wasnt back as Superman neither
@Jose-se9pu he said he was committed to The Witcher to adapt the whole series as long as they were respectful to the source material. Difficult to upend a series based on just a cameo when you could look at the near constant reports of the directors/writers not respecting the source material.
@@DAEDAEANTI mean it could be a combination of both. The Witcher producers not treating the series with respect might've made it easier to jump ship to DC.
15:07
There is a difference between "Making changes to the source material for a better adaptation/better execution"
And
"Making changes to the source material because we think its lesser and don't respect it" and, as my other comment highlights, the people behind this adaptation are firmly on the latter camp.
The ironic thing is that Yakuza 1 has SO MUCH that could be improved on in a retelling. Which ia mostly a product of the era when it came out and how much storytelling in games has improved in leaps and bounds since then (not saying there were no games with good or deep stories at the time, just that this was not the norm for your average mid-2000s action-focused game). And yet instead of filling in gaps or making rewrites that would have improved the already existing plot, they kind of just... scrapped most major plot beats and ignored the main characters' personalities to make something completely unrecognizable from the source material.
"Gaiden was bad", "HxH doesn't get interesting till episode 20"
Brother you're killing me here...
he's not wrong he's just saying hard truths
@@joedatius Hard truths, or hardly true.
Gaiden was bad.
It actually takes closer to 30 episodes 😂
My wife and I love Yakuza/LaD but this was so bad we didn't even make it out of the second episode. At least we'll always have that stage play adaptation.
Holy shit Charlatan Wonder
I'd probably love a "full American Season" adaptation of an RGG game (because that's, basically, how they structure the stories in their games these days, as 22 episode seasons with interactive elements), but this seems like what it is: What would have been a not good movie version (as in, a movie version a bit worse than the first attempt) turned into an interminable "6 episodes, but not really" "TV miniseries" story. Like MCU Hawkeye, but without the admission "this probably would have been REALLY GOOD as a movie, at least".
That was clever putting the "Gaiden was bad" comment 5 minutes in so everyone comments "Wdym Gaiden was bad?!" for algorithm engagement. I swear like 70% of the comments I'm seeing are about that and not the show 😅
The more you talk about the show the more it makes me think this was supposed to be something else that got crowbarred into being Yakuza after the fact
Its a known Hollywood practice
Hack directors and writers using adaptations as an excuse to put their foot on the door (or studios taking old unused scripts/concepts and slapping them into an adaptation... like the league of extraordinary gentleman movie).
Specially when it comes to video game adaptations as Hollywood tends to look down on gaming, so writers directors will often go "I can make something better than the source material" without bothering to even look at the source material, just using the contract/name as an excuse.
And yeah, that was obvious the case here from pre-release comments by the cast and crew.
@@MaiolyYou can't just blame Hollywood, though. It's not like Japan is any better in this regard either, as many directors and writers make dumb changes from the source material as well.
The MULTIPLE heist scenes (which are nonexistent in the games) that somehow found their way into this adaptation really make me believe this
It's the classic "I can write a better story than this dumb game for children" story. A writer who has never written anything successful think they're a better writer than the person who wrote a franchise successful enough to justify an adaptation.
I was surprised people were even excited about this when the creators raised a lot of red flags for a video game adaptation: didn't play the games, would be making a lot of changes and inserting OCs as main characters. It was like Halo all over again.
Gaiden is great, underappreciated being sandwiched between 7 and 8.
8 made it look like a cash in filler episode as nothing in it really mattered.
comabt was all it has going for it but at that point just play the judgements
Other than the ending, what is so great about it. I have a theory that all of the positive reviews were influenced by recency bias.
@@megamike15 Yeah, this. The combat was fine, Agent style (the one original fighting style that the game was themed around) was gimmicky and mid overall and the story was just... there. It's not a bad game, but it was just so forgettable compared to all of the RGG titles around it. There's a reason the ending scene in the dojo was shared so much on socials. It's really kind of the only thing even worth sharing.
I'd take a rubber bullet any day over what they did with Gaiden.
@@qwesx i think it served its purpose of being "what kiryu did between 6,7 and 8" pretty well, it wasn't meant to be a mainline game level story anyways.
@@megamike15dude, Gaiden’s story is better than 8’s easily
Glad your back from editing Kathy’s victory laps around John to bring us a new video, but still looking forward to Yugioh part 2.
I am back! Part 2 is still coming, its just taking a little longer than I anticipated.
I love that you talked at length about the many MANY problems of this adaptation, and you didn't even mention what they did to the 'jima brothers. Or the bizarre magic white guy with the sacred medallion or WHATEVER that was. Or the unbelievable character assassination of the Florist. Or the like, two sets they have for Kamuro. It's just so bad. The few scenes the botched writing allows to play out more or less as they did in the game only give way to the realization that the direction and cinematography are also worse, by orders of magnitude. The third Sonic movie makes huge weird deviations from SA2, but feels like its heart is in the right place, and the tone is more or less on point. It's respectful. This has no reason to deviate so wildly, and even if it did, the deviations are just worse in every way. It feels like they specifically wanted to disrespect the fans.
random clawbear encountear
who would win?
a live action based on a video game that also based on of real city and all around pretty grounded soap opera drama.
a live action based on video game with 2 missing character for the adaptation it was base on (or not, i haven't watch it yet :(.
I had no idea this was even out till now
ditto and i'm so sad now
I forgot it did
I am convinced the showrunner had a ready script for an unrelated yakuza crime drama but was told no unless he somehow fit the games story into it, that is the only way I can see how this trainwreck got so much wrong
edit: spelling and clarification
42:54 you said you didn't like Gaiden and didn't play it, then used THE BEST SCENE IN THE SERIES, straight from it. I sense what you said wasn't the full picture (or you looked up the ending on UA-cam)
the consensus on people who dont like man who erased his name is that the ending was good but most of the game was filler and not that good as a whole in spite of the few good parts it has
@@alicemargatroid52 the author of the video liking this comment is very concerning
"people didn't like the game, I guess I'm not playing it and calling it bad"
having your own opinion is so scary, right? this channel goes into ignore list for me now
@@lemonov3031...but he did play it, he just dropped it because the beginning is boring filler that doesn't matter.
@@alicemargatroid52 That's a real shame- I personally felt that it had the most fun combat in the whole series (thank you triple finishers and funny knockout physics) and the story, whilst less consistent than some other titles, cooks HARD when it needs to.
Also, shishido is the Aizawa fight perfected and no-one clan claim otherwise.
Edit: Yakuza Gaiden, to me, was a companion to Yakuza 7 in that it gave us a vision of what might replace the Yakuza in the Daidoji, who are effectively the same thing but 'home-grown' inside the legal system of Japan, and very thematic given Japan's struggle with corrupt politicians. Kiryu has avoided real entanglement throughout the other games, but through Haruka he is effectively a slave to the Daidoji by the end of the game.
@@AAAAAA-bm9qd Idk. Gaiden has some of the best combat in the franchise imo. To say it's "bad" is kinda wild but it is what it is.
Bro did not just say that Gaiden is “bad”.
it is pretty fucking bad if you don't really care about combat. Story is almost as bad as Yakuza 4 on stupidity level. Exetremely overrated for understandable reason such as brilliant finale. My favorite boss fight in the whole series.
Most of the horrible stuff in the game is overlooked because "Well the ending is just SO good", which I won't deny, it's amazing...
It don't make Gaiden suddenly good. Constant plot walls preventing you from going anywhere until you finish Akame stuff. The coliseum eventually gets really repetitive and all these characters with 3-4 unique attacks don't offer much. Atrociously bad story, has a bottom-1, Z-tier villain in the whole franchise (Nishitani 3). And the combat, while good, is a noticeable step back from LJ
Most Yakuza games are pretty bad. Yes, I have played through all of them. (other than infinite wealth and I guess some alternate stuff like Ishin)
Even though 0 is basically a masterpiece, or close to it. (which is what led me to push through and finish the rest, eventually)
3/4/5/6 especially, are filled with objectively very bad writing(and mishandling of characters). On top of being unfocused and boring for the most part. Like a Dragon was solid in comparison, but still not great. Decent, maybe.
Fanbase will eat up anything without question or critical thinking though.
I played it almost to the end but I just stopped caring because the plot itself was so offensively bland I when I had more than a couple days of break from it I had no desire to go back to it.
@@HiddenStr3ngth I agree with everything except that 0 is a masterpiece. While the story is fairly well written, the gameplay (Kiryu's part, at least) is pretty stiff if you've played literally anything else before.
It's a good introduction to the franchise, but not something I'd call a masterpiece, especially when Judgment exists (not a masterpiece either, but a way better game in every aspect).
Looks like the Yakuza: Like A Dragon *(2007)* will forever be the _best live action Yakuza movie_ ever made now.
An adaptation about a rubber man pirate turns perfect.
An adaption about a weird yakuza gets messed up.
What are we even doing?
Blame the writers, directors, and producers. They outright stated that they wouldn't be following the games. They would use the settings, characters, etc. while borrowing some stuff from the games and doing their own thing with it.
Don't forget we are getting pirate majima next month to line up with this conversation as well.
@artofchang Sure. An adaptation should fit the medium but they didn't even get the spirit down.
@DivineNaruto Especially given how well the game lends itself TO the medium. Throw some recreations of heat actions into the fight choreography, make end-of-episode bumpers of the mini games, it SHOULD have been easy!
Watching the entire show and not finishing Gaiden is crazy
Calling Gaiden bad was the last straw
watched it MULTIPLE times
Yeah, it's the difference between a 4 hour show I watched with friends vs a 15 hour game that I felt was redundant from the outset, and going by feedback from friends who did play through it, it wasn't going to change my mind if I did finished it. Seeing how Infinite Wealth basically ignores everything that happened in Gaiden pretty much cemented my opinion.
@ still crazy
Gaiden is a filler episode that does not matter aside from the ending. it coull have just been a flash back in 8.
The fact that Receive You (or any track from the franchise) doesn’t appear at all speaks volumes to me about the way this show went about adapting the story.
Gaiden is one best yakuza man that ending will make a grown man cry his eyes out
Okay, the Yakuza live action is bad and all but excuse me… what do you mean Yakuza Gaiden is bad? It has one of the most emotional stories in the franchise and the main antagonist is also one of the best in the franchise despite his very short screen time. Not to mention that harrowing ending.
I had to pause my viewing because I legit had a whiplash hearing this. 😔
Most people don't like it because half of it it's runtime is straight up filler and the story simply doesn't matter because of IW
@@abzu235 I thought infinite Wealth was just another name for gaiden? lol
@@abzu235tbf gaiden story not mattering bc of IW is a given seeing how they made it after IW, maybe it would matter in 9 because somehow Hanawa magically survived considering how people keep getting revived since 7
@@Citrusgrass Why would gaiden not matter because of IW? That makes no sense. Nothing that happens in Gaiden is elaborated in IW.
@@sacb0y because there's the hint that Hanawa was that guy from yakuza 5 and he built up respect from gaiden just so that he could get killed (Kiryu barely even cares aswell)
You lost me when you said Gaiden was bad.
That's my comment 😅
It was ok at best. A strong ending can't make me overlook how much filler the game has.
Literally 3rd best in my book
It's not bad but it doesn't have much going for it aside from one character and the ending. Everything else is just complete boring filler
@AAAAAA-bm9qd Well that's why it's Gaiden. A short game focused on Kiryu. Seeing an important event for the Yakuza from his perspective was incredible. Shishido and Tsuruno are amazing, memorable characters. But everything about Akane 100% felt like a filler.
I feel like Kiryu losing Yumi is like Spiderman losing uncle ben, its such a fundamental part of the backstory. I mean if Yumi is alive Kiryu wouldnt adopt Haruka as his daughter. I supose if the this tv show wants to have a radically different story than the game, then it needs to have a good story in its own right to justify its existence. Because its not an adaptation, so its just a really bad yakuza show, because it fails completely at adaptation.
Bro, you need to give Gaiden another chance as it shifts from the agent stuff into GREAT sunsetting of the Yakuza and FANTASTIC new side characters. This is coming from someone who did not buy the game at launch I thought SEGA was pandering to certain "reactionary" fans who were angry about the change to Turn-Based, after seeing some video about how "It's better than think" and it was. As someone who has issues with the Yakuza 5 story, I loved its Kiryu combat which has come back in full force after Y6 was so slow and sluggish. If only played for 2 hours it's clear you don't see literally (I do mean this word) CRASHES in with Yazkua characters and classic combat...
Gaiden isn't as great as people say. Sure finale is kinda good, but other than that this game offers nothing. Pocket racing is the same as it was. Combat lets be honest, isn't the best dragon engine combat. Just look at how many mods there is fixing shit all over the place. It ain't noticable on a lower difficulties, but it is noticeable when you're a fun of RGG combat.
@@Geagra >Combat lets be honest, isn't the best dragon engine combat
You lost me there.
He probably just watched Cvit's video on it.
@@Geagra a fan of which RGG combat exactly? Afaik, there's like 3-4 different combat variants. And yes, there's people that actually love the blockuza combat.
@@ZumaUnji-j4g the juggements are better.
The writers probably don't want the actors to understand the source materials, since the writers themselves seem to actively ignore it. If actors understood it but were then faced with whatever the heck this was, the whole production may become more complicated, because the writers never intended to follow the source, the name Yakuza is there just to make money from a known IP.
I knew it was gonna be bad when Kson said it was terrible
You know when shit hits the fan when Kson of all people says it's bad
And she's like one of the biggest RGG fans I know
You just _know_ the light faded from her eyes bit by bit before the first episode was even over 😭
When I saw that Saejima died gutshot in the middle of Kamurocho. Thats when I put it down, Saejima has been written poorly throughout the series as a poor mans Kiryu, and I was hoping they could improve him by showing Majima and him wreaking havoc around the town. But they didn't they just killed him, in a street that sells great steamed buns and smells like piss
Holy moly Foxcade is back???
The music choices seem pretty westernized, like Amazon wanted to make it accessible for a western audience and they needed to add stuff Americans can understand. Because everyone knows that American people can't watch foreign films
Yakuza Gaiden has one of THE best endings I have ever seen from a video game.
This felt like one of those late '90s/early '00s adaptations that were ashamed of the source material, so they referenced as little as possible.
I totally forgot this series existed until I saw this video in my feed. Based on your title I assume in 54 mins that I'll wish I had forgotten it existed again
I can do one better, I didn't even know it existed.
It's such a shame that they missed the mark for a yakuza tv show when it should have been a slam dunk. Now that it bombed so much it is likely we will never get another go at it for a long time. I wish these projects were better handled by people who have more than a surface level understanding of the source material more often
Calling gaiden shit cause "agents"?.. huh?? that reeeally took me out of it.
I get not liking it, but what the fuck are you on about saying lol agents it suck. like, what did you not like? you stated it like it's as obvious as video game adaptations usually suck.
I'm genuinely confused by that statement. not the fact that someone may dislike something I like, but the way it's presented is weird. In the same video where you say yakuza is a realistic human story that also has you beating up thugs that are into diaper play, yet insist it works. How's agents.. the outlier?
This is a genuine question, I'm very fucking confused lmao.
Hell, he actually talks about Kiryu punching a SHARK in one of the minigames.
But Agents is jumping the shark? Really?
And if you want to talk about just the main story, how many times in the games, the catalyst of the story were SECRET KOREANS?!
Hell, Ichiban FIGHTS A GIANT OCTOPUS IN THE MAIN STORY OF 8.
Like...Foxcade, my brother, I don't get you.
My guy doesn't think agents actually exist.
“Gaiden is bad” LMAO
what gaiden is great. that ending broke me
Came here to say something similar. Gaiden is a bit different, but it’s by no means straight up bad. Final battle was pretty sick too, took him on with Dragon of Dojima style without resorting to healing items, nearly died but nailed it first try.
What a Way to throw out 50 minutes of a video right?
Even if Yakuza was one of those franchises super hard to adapt to TV, the thing is there is a official Super Mario game where Mario goes to hell and kills Lucifer (Super Paper Mario). You can genuinely make just about any concept work, sure some are harder than others but its never an outright excuse like people will often say with game adaptations.
"Gaiden is bad"
Are you on crack man?
It was fantastic❤
4:47 funny thing is that this is canon in the series currently 😂😂, chinese mafia vs japanese yakuza is a crazy story
Wow. You've been gone so long Hideki Kamiya went back to Capcom!
But seriously, welcome back Fox!
Gaiden was great, it took the series back to its beat em up roots and provided a decent story to fill in the blanks for what Kiryu was doing during 7. That being said, I will agree it had a lot of filler.
I think the point of the scene after the heist with them leaving was this. Kiryu wanted nishki and the girl (I don't remember their name) to leave on a bus early in the morning and he said he would take a later bus. I think the point is he lied because he actually just wanted those two out of danger when he confessed to doing the heist.
I got the same impression, but what I didn't get was why he would ever go through with a plan with such a high risk of leading dangerous yakuza back to Sunflower and endangering all of the younger kids there (something I fully believe he anticipates given how mad he is when he finds out Nishiki and co are still there, meaning he knows they'll be in danger). There's believable recklessness bc of Kiryu being younger, and then there's completely out of character, and this falls into the latter camp for me based on everything the games tell us about who Kiryu is even as a kid
Foxcade, NO! BAD FOXCADE! GAIDEN IS GREAT!!!
Holycrap, it's literally the culmination of Kiryu's entire journey into a heartbreaking finale.
Like... Bro, just.... finish the game, it's not long.
If you still don't like it afterwards, then that's fine, but stopping 2 hours in is a HUGE disservice and takes away your credibility.
35:53 Speaking as someone with some limited experience in tv production, the usual reason for directors discouraging their actors from looking up the source material for the roles they're playing is often because it can sometimes make it harder to direct them. In that, the actors might try to act in a way that the writers and director didn't envision for the project they're working on. In most cases, It's much easier to direct a blank slate than the opposite.
I more or less expect that's the reasoning in most cases, but I feel it's also an incredibly stubborn way to approach it, in my opinion. Productions like this should be a collaborative effort rather than the writer/directors stubbornly not giving the actors freedom to explore the characters they are meant to be portraying. If you're making changes to a character that might raise questions from the actors who are familiar with the material, you should be able to back up the reasons for those changes.
@Foxcade Oh yeah, I'm not saying one way or another whether it's good or not. After all, I'm only a video editor with some light experience as a cameraman. I have little knowledge of how effective it is. I'm just giving the reason behind why a lot of directors prefer their actors to remain ignorant of the source material that they're working on. Like most things, I think whether it's worth it or not all depends on the director and their ability to get their actors to understand and convey what they envision for the project.
Oh I understand you're just expressing a thought. I'm just giving my reasoning why it still frustrates me. But you are right, it will always depend on the project and the creatives involved.
@Foxcade That's fair! And I do agree that I think that it only served to hurt the overall quality of the show. Sometimes it works, but in this case, nah.
That seems more egomanical than helpful.
11:55 - You could show me this bit and say the subtitle is edited for humor and I would believe you.
5:15 it’s not.
Lack of any wierdness of franchise really is wrong move, that's literally one reason of why we love Yakuza games, especially NO KARAOKE at any episode feels like creators of this show should have their pinkies to cut off😤
the goat is back welcome back king
After so long you're back welcome back!
Yeah!!!
Welcome back Legend.
5:15 I usually try to accept people’s opinions on certain yakuza games like when people say yakuza 4 is the best one but holy shit this take is sooo bad.I had to listen to this 3 times because I couldn’t believe my ears.
Bro you did NOT just say Like a Dragon Gaiden was bad. That has to be rage bait. Gameplay-wise it's the best in the series. Story-wise it's shorter but that's okay. Not every Yakuza game needs to be 30 hours
I love Gaiden than Infinite Wealth and Yakuza 7 combined.
Idgaf if people disagree with due to JRPG and it is. Plus the JRPG system is fucking boring and long.
@@JoKa1013 The Daidoji fighting style when fully upgraded is soooooo much fun.
@@bigmeowster99 I upgraded everything in that game. It was literally fun.
foolish not playing gaiden all the way through
Just realized 50 minutes in that you did not mention Majima once, how nothing was he in that show as well?
He has one badly choreographed fight against Kiryu where he got knocked out like a bitch by Nishiki sneaking up on him. Then showed up later for the big Yakuza brawl and got arrested shortly after
The actor was great, unfortunately, they gave him absolutely nothing to work with
I forgot to mention that he got his eye stabbed out by Dojima while Mad World plays in the background
He quite literally only chases Kiryu and Nishiki (Saejima dies in process bruh), fights them, gets banished (?), and shows up at the end for essentially a glorified cameo.
25:45 it's actually pretty meta, as this song was used in a lot of American 80's montage scenes, and there were a lot of these 80's American movies released in Japan during this wave of Hollywood foreign distribution. It's why 80s action stars became so big in Japan, that they were doing commercials for all kinds of products.
8:53 I agree with you fox, his time of reckoning is coming soon. Also nice Bleach music queue.
I didn't even know it was out
Whenever an adaptation does the "we didn't let the actors play/watch the source material beforehand" thing, it always ends in one way... One Piece worked because they wanted to be true to the series, and had the mangaka on as the consultant to make sure they stay faithful to the source material. Avatar: Last Airbender LA also suffered the fate of the show creators leaving the project due to creative differences, and see how that turned out.
Gaiden is peak
Calling one of the best Yakuza games bad lost me.
Good video
Except the part where you said Gaiden was bad. Can't go with you there.
I think my favorite part about every character being characterized as the mirror world version of themselves is that it gets to the point where for Shimano they make his character in the show be a really thin guy with hair.
Gaiden is bad? nahhh
it;s the only game that gave me hope for the studio and made me push to play and finish 7 and 8.
Once they announced that Haruka wasn't going to be in the adaptation, I knew it was wraps
Dude, LaD Gaiden is super short. Power through it for an emotional ending.
Im convinced the producers just read a GameFAQs on 0/Kiwami, did some drugs and then called it a day.
Ok but guys
have you seen the Stage Play?
The Yakuza Stage Play?
Its here, on youtube.
And it is... fantastic.
Wait you telling me fucking Takashi Miike did a god damn Yakuza movie?!
And Amazon didn't try to nab him again?!
Not that surprising, Miike films are usually not PG-13 slop appealing to western sensibilities. Imagine if the subtext of the series was "yeah, those dudes are just sadomasochists who are really into each other" 😂
Oof, I was liking the video until I heard gaiden is bad. People are allowed to have opinions, but to not even complete the game and just write it off as a bad game. That just kinda hurts.
You know I almost wanna say "wish somebody in amazon creative watched this" but all that'd happen is they'd get ignored and then somebody in a business suit will say " you're doing it this way for optimized money return or you won't do it at all" and they sit quietly and do as they're told
I think, for me at least, the reason why Miike's adaptation is better than Amazon's is not because they adapted the stories and characters well but because watching Miike's Yakuza you feel like you are just watching the game but with real people at least that's how I fell when I watched it.
So it basically adopts the Kamen Rider Kiva method of storytelling? Interesting. I haven’t seen too many shows jump between two time periods in that way
The most damning thing about this video, there is no chapter on Haruka, the second most important character in the series. That just tells everything about this show as an adaptation ans\d how little Amazon gave a damn about the games and the fans of those games.
This show made me so sad. It changed so much stuff for no reason and it was so bland and boring
Mikei's film is a feature-length "extra-scenes" to the game. It's not a replacement for the game in telling the story, but it's a fun watch for anyone who already knows the original story.
The amazon show has an identity crisis between trying to be an entirely original story and trying to keep the same characters for brand recognition.
5:13 bro finish Gaiden. It's amazing. Why would you even think it's bad? It has one of the best ending scenes in the series.
Because he has a right to that. It's not that big of a deal
@@JDracovia129 no it is not. I am just curious as to why he thinks it's bad.
As a huge Kiryu saga fan, I was also disappointed with the drastic changes they made in just the first episode. I usually am not super judgemental on adaptations, especially when I've seen so many that I enjoyed, especially as a J-drama fan too. But there were just TOO many things they changed that bothered me that I knew would have repercussions in the future of the story.
Butchering Yumi's backstory was what I feared the most. You're so right, there was so much opportunity to flesh her and Kazama-san out and the fact that they barely did that really saddens me 😭
I was not planning to watch anything after the first episode, and then seeing your video grace my feed was the confirmation I needed. Thank you so much for your service on summarizing everything 😂🙏
I have had my eye on that 2005 movie too, and you just solidified me wanting to see it! I figured it'd have more of the heart and soul of the game series, even if it's still also not the best it could be.
The Fox is backkkkkkk!!!!
Gaiden is not bad. It was still better than Yakuza 3 or even 5.
Calling Gaiden bad has gotta be one of the most "out of touch with the series" takes lmao. I actually stopped eating my lunch, paused the video, did a rewind cuz I thought maybe I misheard something. That's how insane (and just wrong) that take is
Dogshit combat and filler story
The weirdest part is that, if you told me that the Dojima plan that they put in the show, was also in the games, it'd be actually very accurate since a lot of yakuza plots can be that convoluted (rubber bullets and yakuza 5). But yeah, event the older movie was more interested, since they put a lot of their into that movie
Crazy take calling gaiden bad
Well dude.. they literally said the show will not reflect the game and told the directors not to use it as resource
calling gaiden a bad yakuza game is crazy ESPECIALLY AFTER THE ENDING
Gaiden has a better written story than Infinite Wealth.
I'll be honest with you, that's a very low bar to clear in my opinion.
@Foxcade ok valid response
Well, this puts the Takashi Miike movie into a whole new light, doesn't it? At least the shotgun scene with Kiryu and Majima feels like something which would happen.
Why won't people just do official subs of that fantastic stageplay, which even had Kiryu open the pause menu to drink Staminan?
Glad to see you still got time to work on your other stuff.
They hated him because he spoke the truth
>refuses to watch a whole video on the amaon seires becuse he did not like gaiden.
>comments proced to blame Civit.
Yeah, The Man Who Erased His Name wasn't that interesting story-wise, but as it's really short, it's worth it for the ending (coincidentally, there were a lot of chopped onions near me when I finished it).
It's like they said "Kiryu, orphan, yakuza, go"
"guess I really was like a dragon" - John kazuma
It’s Like a Dragon now, after the rebranding or whatever. Gaiden is bad? I don’t think I could take you seriously after saying that lol.
Welcome back!
A bit of a spoiler warning would help people who haven't played the original game haha.
Making a Yakuza adaptation is a goofy thing to do, because the series' main stories borrow a TON of elements from famous Yakuza movies and real events. When you adapt it, you have to make sure you're not just ripping off the original inspirations. I don't really agree with it being a good fit like you say, because as a movie, you're likely to just end up with something highly derivative from the get go.
A similar case is Mortal Kombat, where the first game was essentially Enter the Dragon the video game, so when they adapted that into a movie, they had to focus on all the supernatural stuff to not rip off Bruce Lee's most famous film.
Good point. Even the Miike film, as much as I enjoyed it, at times felt more like "another STV Miike film".