The Yakuza series has seen several live action renditions and it seems that this version featuring the cast of the Direct to Video drama series Nihon Touitsu perhaps might be the one that is closest to the source material.
Fans of the Yakuza franchise will recognize some familiar faces such as Yasufumi Motomiya (Kiryu) and Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi (Goro Majima) were featured in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man who Erased his Name, Kenji Matsuda (Makoto Date) who provided the voices to characters in both Like a Dragon: A Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and Yakuza Kawami 3/Dark Ties. Of course there’s Kazuhiro Nakaya (Akira Nishikiyama), who portrayed well…Akira Nishikiyama and Ichiban Kasuga.
The 3 episode mini-series are roughly 1 hour each and they certainly do remix the events of the first Yakuza game. There’s certainly a low budget charm to the episodes (they splice in game footage as backgrounds!) and now that it’s subtitled it’s certainly worth a watch. Each episode is embedded below.
Yakuza Powered by Nihon Touitsu | Episode 1
Yakuza Powered by Nihon Touitsu | Episode 2
Yakuza Powered by Nihon Touitsu | Final Episode
The Yakuza franchise is available on the PC, Xbox, PlayStation platforms and select titles are available on the Switch 2.