Ansel Elgort stars as reporter Jake Adelstein, who begins working for the newspaper where he is met with some resistance, including a curt and strict supervisor named Eimi Maruyama (Rinko Kikuchi) and a loud and unabashedly racist editor (Kosuke Toyohara) who calls him “Gaijin” and singles him out for beration.
He is assigned to the lowest of levels, covering the police beat, where he is assigned mundane crimes to cover and is given no help by the police, though he tries to ingratiate himself with them, like trying to befriend abrasive cop Miyamoto (Hideaki Ito) who only gives him dead-end tips.
But when he is assigned investigating a routine suicide, he finds things aren’t quite as they seem. The victim was heavily in debt, and Adelstein is further confused when he tries to follow up on the creditors and finds an empty building. When a second “suicide” turns up with another person in debt to the same creditors, Jake feels he has a real story to pursue. But his superiors won’t let him run with it and is told to stick to the basics.
It’s only when he happens to catch the attention of a hard-as-nail veteran detective named Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) that his work begins to get traction. Katagiri takes Adelstein under his wing and slowly the real underworld of Japan is revealed to him...
There he finds a whole world full of ruthless and colorful thugs as well as slick and charming vipers like Sato (Sho Kasamatsu), and while trying to investigate the suicide debts, falls into the middle of a burgeoning power war between two Yakuza clans!
At the halfway point of Tokyo Vice and so far it’s been pretty engaging, though I must admit I’m not too interested in the parallel story of the American hostesses which takes up a good portion of the show, following American Samantha (Rachel Keller) dealing with her slimy bosses and Yakuza suitors while she tries to get out and start her own business…
A show like this is guaranteed to get names like Ken Watanabe and Rinko Kikuchi (names that most American audiences know well) but I was glad to see a whole bunch of other Nihongo actors here, Hideaki Ito, Sho Kasamatsu, Ayumi Ito and Yuka Itaya, even Tomohisa Yamashita as a rival club owner (!!!)
Below: Yamapi with Ella Rumpf
First episode was directed by Michael Mann (who also serves as co-producer) so you knew you were going to get a gritty crime drama, and so far it hasn’t disappointed!!
