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Max's series Tokyo Vice just released its season two photos, Entertainment Weekly exclusively reported.
The '90s-set crime show produced by Fifth Season and Japan's pay-TV broadcaster WOWOW ended its first season with plenty of cliffhangers, with Max's blessing.
Show creator J.T. Rogers told the entertainment website, “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.”
Tokyo Vice is based on Jake Adelstein's 2009 book of the same name which talks about his experiences as the first foreign-born journalist in Japan. The series follows Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) who ends up being mentored by a veteran vice squad detective, Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe).
Tokyo Vice: Murder does not happen in Tokyo
Adelstein begins to explore the world inhabited by the yakuza, all the while living under Tokyo's official line that “murder does not happen in Tokyo.”
Tokyo Vice's second season will see the return of Elgort, Watanabe and Rachel Keller (Samantha Porter). The new season open with Samantha, formerly a club hostess, now owning her own club. Jake is still a reporter and diving deeper into Tokyo's criminal underworld.
Also returning to the show are Ayumi Ito (Misaki Taniguchi) and Rinko Kikuchi (Emi Maruyama). Ito plays the mistress of a yakuza boss and Kikuchi plays Jake's supervisor.
The show also adds new cast members such as Miki Maya and Yosuke Kobozuka. Maya plays Shoko Nagata, a detective from Japan's National Police Agency whose aggressive stance clashes with Katagiri's philosophy of balance. Kobozuka plays Naoki Hayama, a more dangerous class of criminal.
One of the biggest changes in filming in Tokyo was the Japanese audience's positive reception of the show. The relaxation of the COVID-19 safety protocols compared to when the series' first season was filmed a couple of years ago also helped.
“The city literally opened up to us in terms of shooting,” director Alan Poul said.
“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,” he added.
Max, is WarnerBros. Discovery's streaming channel rebranded when HBO Max and Discovery+ merged on May 23.
Tokyo Vice season 2 is set to be released on Max in February 2024.
