It’s been practically two years because the premiere of “Tokyo Vice,” by which director Michael Mann (“Thief,” “Warmth” and, most just lately, “Ferrari”) launched us to one more lonely male obsessive. As the only Caucasian worker of Tokyo’s largest newspaper, Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) — a real-life journalist and govt producer of the present, which is loosely primarily based on his memoir of the identical identify — stood out like a sore thumb. He additionally acted as a Virgil guiding American viewers by means of the Japanese underworld on the flip of the millennium. Jake investigates organized crime by way of a casual partnership with Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe), a policeman who doesn’t combat the yakuza a lot as assist protect the equilibrium amongst their competing factions. Samantha (Rachel Keller), a Mormon missionary turned apostate, served an identical goal to Jake, however as a information to hostess bars, a supply of paid but strictly nonsexual firm unfamiliar to Westerners.
In Season 2, “Tokyo Vice” lacks a hook like a revered auteur making a return to TV: Alan Poul, beforehand of “Six Ft Beneath” and the Season 1 finale, directs the two-part premiere, and serves as an govt producer. It’s additionally outgrown the necessity for one. The collection stays some of the finely rendered city portraits on TV, a criminal offense drama that resists sensationalism in favor of a extra affected person and character-forward method. Weighing in at 10 episodes to its predecessor’s eight, Season 2 will get an expanded canvas, an encouraging vote of confidence regardless of a doubtlessly momentum-stalling wait. With the additional room at their disposal, showrunner J.T. Rogers and his collaborators widen the present’s scope even additional past its preliminary protagonists.
The 2-part premiere shortly wraps up the largest excellent plot factors earlier than pivoting to a brand new set of considerations. The homicide of Rachel’s buddy and fellow hostess Polina (Ella Rumpf) is given due gravity, sending the American on a grief-stricken spiral. However Jake’s makes an attempt to reveal the politicians and gangsters accountable are thwarted by a sudden, suspicious fireplace on the newspaper’s places of work, forcing him to show his consideration elsewhere as Rachel directs her energies towards beginning her personal hostess membership.
Mixed with the sudden absence of primary antagonist Tozawa (Ayumi Tanida), an ascendant rival to the incumbent Chihara-kai syndicate, the brand new season is free to spend just a few episodes exploring new corners of Tokyo’s semi-licit fringe. Jake pursues a narrative a few crew of teenaged bike thieves; his editor Eimi (Rinko Kikuchi), a Zeinichi Korean, will get a extra fleshed-out household life; a romance involving his buddy and coworker Stylish (Takaki Uda) takes the present into queer nightlife, a section of the town obscure even to the remainder of the ensemble’s seasoned operators. The latter hints at this sophomore season’s true promoting level: with the setting established, “Tokyo Vice” not has to make use of a handful of American expats as an entry level into its world, a trope with a fraught historical past marked by incuriosity towards different cultures. Somewhat, it’s an more and more expansive world that occurs to characteristic American expats amongst its forged of canny strivers.
“Tokyo Vice” accomplishes this partially by breaking apart its central pairings, buying and selling platonic chemistry for brand spanking new alternatives. The place Samantha as soon as flirted with Sato (Shô Kasamatsu), the stoic Chihara-kai footsoldier is now assigned to deal with her new membership, which his group is backing. The association drives the 2 aside, however “Tokyo Vice” follows Sato as he manages his household and the arrival of a brand new boss in Naoki Hayama (Yôsuke Kubozuka), a hothead freshly launched from jail. (Probably the most endearing qualities of “Tokyo Vice” is the way it focuses much less on the violence and glamor of yakuza life than the methods it resembles a regular job, full with center administration and company technique.) In the meantime, Katagiri is recruited by a brand new process power that takes a extra confrontational tack towards gangster exercise, signaling a sea change in legislation enforcement’s method. Allowed to anchor their very own storylines, every character comes into their very own aside from their connection to Jake, who’s much less a white savior than an often-exasperating interloper.
Costly-looking, formidable and solely nominally hooked up to IP — Adelstein is hardly a star, and the present makes use of his expertise as a jumping-off level — “Tokyo Vice” can really feel like an endangered species, much more so in 2024 than it did in 2022. After the cancellation of different Max originals like “Julia,” “Rap Sh!t” and “Our Flag Means Demise,” all after second seasons whose reception felt way more muted than the collection’ debuts, one feels protecting of a present that’s solely getting richer because it goes. If “Tokyo Vice” ends imminently, it gained’t be a call made on inventive deserves. Simply in case, it’s price shouting its praises from the rooftops.
The primary two episodes of “Tokyo Vice” Season 2 at the moment are streaming on Max, with new episodes premiering weekly on Thursdays.
