Amazon unveiled its TV series adaption of the Sega video game franchise “Yakuza” (aka. “Like a Dragon”) on Thursday, and so far the reviews have not been good. On , the series scored just a 48/100 from critics, while audience reviews are much better at 5.
3/10. The same as true on , where first season has scored a 56% (5.9/10).
To put that 48 MC critics score in comparison to other game-to-TV series adaptations, “The Last of Us” landed an 84, “Fallout” scored a 73, “Halo” and “Knuckles” scored a 61, “Twisted Metal” landed a 55, and “Resident Evil” scored a 53. Consensus seems to be that the series fails as an adaptation of the games and their unique tone, and also fails as a standalone crime epic regardless of your familiarity with the games. The series loosely adapts the original 2005 game and follows the story of Kazuma Kiryu (Ryoma Takeuchi), a former yakuza has spent years in prison.
He returns to the underworld during a vast conspiracy involving his best friend Akira Nishikiyama (Kento Kaku) and their former Dojima family. Series was initially announced as a film before being redone as a six-episode TV series with a strange release cadence – three of the episodes were released on Thursday with the remaining three to release this coming Friday..