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.
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
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 TH-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.
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.
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.
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.)
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).
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.
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.
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.
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 :(.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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 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
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 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
23:45 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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)
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.
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
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.
What I think they should've tried doing to make it feel more like yakuza/like a dragon, is release two kinds of episodes, where every second episode is a goofy "substory". I think if done right it could've been a great way to do it.
Wow this is crazy that the best editor on Eyepatch Crawfish is just peak video editor and is able to help that new guy calling Hobocrawfish (I think that's his name) anyway enjoy your New Year and thank you for editing The Final Gamer Kathy Video series featuring J*hn. Foxcade you keep on producing videos and help us though this year when you can dude.
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 didn't mind the changes when watching, but I realized I never cared to finish the tv show while watching this review. Man, I'm glad Sonic 3 was such a banger because two of my favorite Sega IPs getting bad adaptations would have stung.
I'd just noticed something about Saejima's appearance in this whole show..... Why the hell is he for??! shouldn't he be in prison still during this time? unless in this version the police released him early i guess 🤷♂
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.
The idea of having Kazuma also having a dragon tattoo would also be cool. It would also put another meaning when Shibusawa in 0 would say that he wasn’t the only one who had a dragon on his back, aside from just him and Kiryu.
It sounds like they incorporated Tatsuya Ukyo's story into Kiryu's in this one - a "child" (17) in an illegal underground (literally underground) fighting ring.
And that was already adapted into a TV series. 1 season for each game. I liked some of the liberties taken there. Two examples: in Shinshou, Nioka is so evil that he's willing to shoot Tatsuya in broad daylight, and in Ashura Hen, Nozaki is basically one of the good guys.
All of my information about Yakuza comes from a mutual on tumblr who sometimes posts meta analysis about the characters and even my totally uneducated ass was flinching during the set up part of the video. Even I could recognize this wasn't going well. Then it got worse. Then, improbably, it somehow went, "Oh, you thought that was bad?" and Mad World started playing over visuals so bad it almost felt like black comedy. I feel like Foxcade is entitled to compensation for watching this thing.
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
you know I got 20 minutes into this video and paused for a moment and thought wait why did Foxcade make this video? Where is your yakuza series retrospective??? free money ngl
Glad your back Fox from your Kathy charades, this was a great video. Now it's back to hoping for my dream Yakuza Adaptation helmed by The Raid Director Gareth Evans and starring either Makenyu from One Piece or Shun Oguri from Gintama as Kiryu.
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.
I knew this was gonna happen when they were talking in interviews and showing it off, they said they were going to do their OWN THING from the start. Bruh if you want a VG adaptation to work how hard is it to get you need to be FAITHFUL like Fallout or EXPAND upon what's there like Arcane.... this is just sad
As someone said in another video, Yakuza is a soap opera. The ridiculous nature of some of the things the characters put themselves in, as well as the "110%" attitude everyone puts into anything, gives it a "tv show with many filler episodes" vibe.
I just love how me and my mate watched it and all we got out of it in the end was majima nowhere instead of majima everywhere they tried but I think I'll just play the rest of the games
While it does suck to get a yakuza or halo show once in a while considering all the good adpations lately like one piece, castlevania, sonic and fallout i can take a bad adaption since it feels like we are getting to the point in our life where we are getting more good adaptions then bad
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 is a double edged sword for adaptation: It's easy because it is an prestige of yakuza movies. But that also mean that it easily can become Just a Prestige of Yakuza Movies.
I've dropped it after the first three episodes, losing my sanity over it wasn't worth it. Time to check out what other bullshit happened there I guess. Thanks for the upload
I feel like the biggest issue with trying to adapt Yakuza is that it's not really a crime drama, it's a wacky comedy where the characters occasionally end up being involved in a gritty crime drama. It's like Rosencrants and Gildenstein are Dead, except that the people we're focusing on are actually important enough to affect the plot of the story that's mostly happening away from our point of view. If I were to try and capture the energy of the series I wouldn't have referenced crime dramas so much as offbeat comedies like Human Traffic, Four Lions, Spaced, or Community. A Yakuza adaptation for television should have at least one full episode devoted to Kiryu starting a new hobby and making some non criminal friends, as well as getting into a petty rivalry with someone who takes the activity too seriously. The crime drama should be a background element, not the focus, just like it is in the games.
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.
Yeaaaah Let's get this video to a lot of views in the first hour so that it gets love from youtube Algorithm bless this video which i liked even before watching it because it's that good Seriously, sometimes i end up pissed off because i can't like it again after watching it, fix that youtube Lots of words lots of engagement, yadda yadda
"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.
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 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
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 TH-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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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).
I had no idea this was even out till now
ditto and i'm so sad now
I forgot it did
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
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.
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.
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 :(.
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
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
Holy moly Foxcade is back???
Looks like the Yakuza: Like A Dragon *(2007)* will forever be the _best live action Yakuza movie_ ever made now.
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?
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.
Wow. You've been gone so long Hideki Kamiya went back to Capcom!
But seriously, welcome back Fox!
After so long you're back welcome back!
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 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.
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.
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 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
23:45 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.
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.
the goat is back welcome back king
The Fox is backkkkkkk!!!!
Yeah!!!
Welcome back Legend.
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
8:53 I agree with you fox, his time of reckoning is coming soon. Also nice Bleach music queue.
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.
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.
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
11:55 - You could show me this bit and say the subtitle is edited for humor and I would believe you.
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
4:47 funny thing is that this is canon in the series currently 😂😂, chinese mafia vs japanese yakuza is a crazy story
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.
Just realized 50 minutes in that you did not mention Majima once, how nothing was he in that show as well?
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)
5:15 it’s not.
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.
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
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.
Dude, LaD Gaiden is super short. Power through it for an emotional ending.
@ 9:42 didnt expect to hear Mobb Deep "Hell on Earth" instrumental in the background of a Yakuza video. Goated song
What I think they should've tried doing to make it feel more like yakuza/like a dragon, is release two kinds of episodes, where every second episode is a goofy "substory". I think if done right it could've been a great way to do it.
They hated him because he spoke the truth
I didn't even know it was out
Glad to see you still got time to work on your other stuff.
Wow this is crazy that the best editor on Eyepatch Crawfish is just peak video editor and is able to help that new guy calling Hobocrawfish (I think that's his name) anyway enjoy your New Year and thank you for editing The Final Gamer Kathy Video series featuring J*hn. Foxcade you keep on producing videos and help us though this year when you can dude.
25:45 can’t believe this show used the song from hit doctor who episode love & monsters
Wait you telling me fucking Takashi Miike did a god damn Yakuza movie?!
And Amazon didn't try to nab him again?!
Welcome back!
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.
Once they announced that Haruka wasn't going to be in the adaptation, I knew it was wraps
Isn't the old guy Kazama? Feels like you're saying Kazuma. Sorry I got confused multiple times.
I didn't mind the changes when watching, but I realized I never cared to finish the tv show while watching this review. Man, I'm glad Sonic 3 was such a banger because two of my favorite Sega IPs getting bad adaptations would have stung.
I'd just noticed something about Saejima's appearance in this whole show..... Why the hell is he for??! shouldn't he be in prison still during this time? unless in this version the police released him early i guess 🤷♂
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.
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.
I knew people in the comments would immediately jump onto "gaiden bad" instead of the actual video
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.
The idea of having Kazuma also having a dragon tattoo would also be cool. It would also put another meaning when Shibusawa in 0 would say that he wasn’t the only one who had a dragon on his back, aside from just him and Kiryu.
i feel like no one in RGG working on this amazon yakuza show
Your alive hooray 😃 🎉
Agree with you on Gaiden… but that ending almost made up for it.
It sounds like they incorporated Tatsuya Ukyo's story into Kiryu's in this one - a "child" (17) in an illegal underground (literally underground) fighting ring.
And that was already adapted into a TV series. 1 season for each game.
I liked some of the liberties taken there. Two examples: in Shinshou, Nioka is so evil that he's willing to shoot Tatsuya in broad daylight, and in Ashura Hen, Nozaki is basically one of the good guys.
All of my information about Yakuza comes from a mutual on tumblr who sometimes posts meta analysis about the characters and even my totally uneducated ass was flinching during the set up part of the video. Even I could recognize this wasn't going well. Then it got worse. Then, improbably, it somehow went, "Oh, you thought that was bad?" and Mad World started playing over visuals so bad it almost felt like black comedy. I feel like Foxcade is entitled to compensation for watching this thing.
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
them makkeing dojima look like a normal dude is makeing me scream. that scumbag should not llook like that.
you know I got 20 minutes into this video and paused for a moment and thought wait why did Foxcade make this video?
Where is your yakuza series retrospective??? free money ngl
Glad your back Fox from your Kathy charades, this was a great video. Now it's back to hoping for my dream Yakuza Adaptation helmed by The Raid Director Gareth Evans and starring either Makenyu from One Piece or Shun Oguri from Gintama as Kiryu.
Someya as Kiryu? That would be interesting haha
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.
I gave up on adaptation, when they announced they are making "their own version" and that they "didnt let actors play the games".
How was this made despite having the director of the games as a supervisor?
I knew this was gonna happen when they were talking in interviews and showing it off, they said they were going to do their OWN THING from the start. Bruh if you want a VG adaptation to work how hard is it to get you need to be FAITHFUL like Fallout or EXPAND upon what's there like Arcane.... this is just sad
holy shit, is that the Foxcade from the LadyEmily Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist Alliance stream?
As someone said in another video, Yakuza is a soap opera. The ridiculous nature of some of the things the characters put themselves in, as well as the "110%" attitude everyone puts into anything, gives it a "tv show with many filler episodes" vibe.
I just love how me and my mate watched it and all we got out of it in the end was majima nowhere instead of majima everywhere they tried but I think I'll just play the rest of the games
While it does suck to get a yakuza or halo show once in a while considering all the good adpations lately like one piece, castlevania, sonic and fallout i can take a bad adaption since it feels like we are getting to the point in our life where we are getting more good adaptions then bad
The Yakuza would have never called the police.. Imagine sending someone with info on you to the cops?
Naw he would have simply dissapeared
I must ask wats wores this or the English kiryu vioce in infinite wealth
Here’s hoping the next adaptation of Sega franchise goes better than this
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'm I the only one knowing from interviews this was confirmed to be a different take from the source material? I feel crazy.
Yakuza is a double edged sword for adaptation: It's easy because it is an prestige of yakuza movies. But that also mean that it easily can become Just a Prestige of Yakuza Movies.
I've dropped it after the first three episodes, losing my sanity over it wasn't worth it. Time to check out what other bullshit happened there I guess. Thanks for the upload
They turned Nishiki into cheap version of Ebina lol
Foxcade took a break from editing just to roast the Yakuza prime series
Why is there a yakuza video in my yu-gi-oh channel???
It is honestly kinda fun hearing Foxcade sounding so animated and exasperated in a vid. Sorry it had to be at the expense of good TV though.
I feel like the biggest issue with trying to adapt Yakuza is that it's not really a crime drama, it's a wacky comedy where the characters occasionally end up being involved in a gritty crime drama.
It's like Rosencrants and Gildenstein are Dead, except that the people we're focusing on are actually important enough to affect the plot of the story that's mostly happening away from our point of view.
If I were to try and capture the energy of the series I wouldn't have referenced crime dramas so much as offbeat comedies like Human Traffic, Four Lions, Spaced, or Community.
A Yakuza adaptation for television should have at least one full episode devoted to Kiryu starting a new hobby and making some non criminal friends, as well as getting into a petty rivalry with someone who takes the activity too seriously.
The crime drama should be a background element, not the focus, just like it is in the games.
The thing I took away most from this video...
Wtf did Vince say? lol 15:14
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.
Yeaaaah
Let's get this video to a lot of views in the first hour so that it gets love from youtube
Algorithm bless this video which i liked even before watching it because it's that good
Seriously, sometimes i end up pissed off because i can't like it again after watching it, fix that youtube
Lots of words lots of engagement, yadda yadda