Tokyo Vice season 2 first look reveals new characters, new dangers

You never know how long a TV show is going to last these days. So it takes guts to end a season with a plethora of cliffhangers, as Tokyo Vice did last year. But fans of the ‘90s-set Japanese crime show (a Max original produced by Fifth Season and WOWOW, Japan’s premium pay TV broadcaster) should rest easy knowing that season 2 is on its way with answers to all of your lingering questions. Check out exclusive first-look photos below.  

“We had Max's blessing to end season 1 with an episode that was nothing but cliffhangers,” show creator J.T. Rogers tells EW in a joint Zoom interview with director Alan Poul. “I was writing season 2 while we were shooting season 1, so it is the same story that we’re following. Everything that was left hanging at the end of season 1 will be settled — if not immediately, then over the course of the season. Some right away, some later on.”

Based on Jake Adelstein’s book of the same name, Tokyo Vice is set in 1999 and stars Ansel Elgort as a fictionalized version of Adelstein, an American-born journalist now working at the Japanese capital’s top newspaper at a time when the criminal Yakuza exerted a powerful influence over society. Over the course of season 1, Adelstein forged important connections with the likes of Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe), a detective who believes in maintaining a delicate balance between the different Yakuza factions, and Samantha Porter (Rachel Keller), another American expatriate who works as a club hostess. At the end of season 1, Adelstein found video evidence of powerful Japanese men raping Samantha’s fellow hostess, Polina (Ella Rumpf), and brought it to Katagiri. 

As season 2 opens, Samantha has opened her own club, while Adelstein continues to hone his reporting skills and dive deeper into the criminal economies of Tokyo. 

“One of the engines of the series is seeing what happens when you're young, ambitious, and incredibly talented, and you go for what you want, and you start to get it,” Rogers says. “What does that mean? Heavy lies the crown, the saying goes. All of these characters are grabbing the brass ring, but then because of the world that the show is set in, the danger and the violence get heightened exponentially.”

Rogers continues, “What they're learning is, ‘When my back is against the wall, what's the least bad decision I can make?’”

There are also new characters to meet in season 2. Two of the most important are Shoko Nagata (Miki Maya) and Naoki Hayama (Yosuke Kubozuka). Nagata is a detective from Japan’s National Police Agency who comes to town wanting to take a much more aggressive stance on the Yakuza than Katagiri’s philosophy of balance, while Hayama is a more dangerous flavor of criminal. 

“What you don't want to do in a season 2 is let people get comfortable, either those of us making it or those on screen,” Rogers says. “We tried to create voices that bring something new to the story and say, ‘No, we’re going to change the rules.’ So here we have someone wanting to change the rules for what we might call the good, and someone who wants to change the rules for the not-good.” 

Adds Poul, “One of the things that J.T. and the writers have so well calibrated is that we had to learn in season 1 how the system works in this precarious balance of power between the police, the press, and the Yakuza. And then over the course of season 2, you begin to see what happens when it stops working.” 

Behind the scenes, a big change from season 1 to season 2 of Tokyo Vice was the positive reception for the show among Japanese audiences, which allowed the show to dive deeper into the magnificent city they film in. It also helped that COVID-19 safety protocols had lightened up since season 1 was filmed a couple years ago.

“The city literally opened up to us in terms of shooting,” Poul says. “We were able to make much more headway with the police than before. Our brilliant location managers were able to get us permission to close down streets where no company had ever been able to do it before. So you will see a lot more big set pieces set out on the streets of Tokyo this season than we were able to accomplish on season 1, and that's really exciting to us.” 

Tokyo Vice season 2 is set to premiere on Max in February 2024. Check out first-look images above and below. 

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