Tokyo Vice
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This week onTokyo Vice,Katagiri makes his first big yakuza bust with Superintendent Nagata.
Their first target: Hishinuma-kai.
A small clan low on funds.
A perfect test case for the new no-balance approach.
Many of you have been on yakuza raids with me before, Katagiri tells the dozen or so men.
This one will be different.
I will ensure that happens, Nagata tells them.
Were playing dirty pool from here on out.
The raid goes pretty much according to plan.
The arrests like the prosecutors; the documents they seized will ensure the charges stick.
Later on, around closing time at the police station, Nagata approaches Katagiris desk for a drink.
You dont feel celebratory, Nagata says.
Katagiris reply: Nothing comes without cost.
Weighing the cost of everything (and the value of survival) is Samanthas modus operandi.
The mere presence of Hayama will do that.
Thats right, our newly minted Chihira-kai No.
2 is making a predictable ruckus in the club, and Sato cant do anything about it.
A bit of both, really; you have to pick your battles in times like these.)
Sam confronts Hayama only to be met with characteristic and blatant disrespect.
Things also heat up for Sato and Erika but in a good way.
He meets Erikas kid, reads him bedtime stories, and gets a little taste of domestic tranquility.
Erika walks him outside later on and sees him off with a kiss.
The emotional logic behind the connection brewing here is more than apparent.
Sato, in particular, finds himself reaching for whatever bit of familial normalcy he can.
Back on the Kaito front: The brothers online sneaker business is taking off.
But Mother said I couldnt see you.
Father wouldnt let me say your name.
All I wanted to do was be like you.
Exactly the heartbreaking line you want to hear when Hayama walks through the door.
Sure enough, this psychotic asshole takes an immediate, disconcerting shine to Kaito.
And Satos pleas only seem to motivate him further.
You have to respect your brothers wishes, Hayama says tauntingly.
But I know a gold mine when I meet one.
As Misaki points out, Jake knows its too dangerous.
Hes being dumb, but notthatkind of dumb.
This is cowboy pathology 10 the action is the juice, to borrow a quote fromHeat.
Jakes made an occupational fetish of going where the danger is.
line, and it works), and Jake manages to convince Misaki to attend as his date.
Their little lovers among the Tokyo elite fantasy is going well.
Nothing comes without cost.
The next morning, Jake wakes up to an incessant bang at his door.
Its Chika, Tatss sister.
It turns out that Tats was arrested.
You helped me steal one.
So why arent you?
Look out for my sister.
Shes got no one.
Jake tries in vain to get some help from Emi.
But the charges are too steep.
Reform school is off the table.
And juvenile prisons can be worse than the adult ones in Japan.
Back at Club Polina, Samanthas starting to feel the cost of firing Claudine against Ishidas wishes.
Sato fills her in: Claudine was getting close to Ohno on Ishidas behalf.
Ohno is the chief designer of a new shopping center to be built on a railway station.
Ishida wants to know which station before its public.
The success of my place depends on discretion, she says.
Not a high-ranking concern in the face of this railway-station scam.
And now that Claudine isnt around to get information, its up to Sam to finish the job.
After a rocky night at work, the whole Club Polina crew hangs back and throws Sam a party.
Now shes going to parlay her plight into a shot at securing the bag once and for all.
The architect has taken me into his confidence.
Invited me to his home.
So I am in a position to help, Samantha tells Ishida in their unscheduled one-on-one.
She wants sole ownership of her club in return.
And a promise that no member of Chihara-kai will ever enter again.
The absolutenerve, dude.
He agrees to three months.
Youre good at this, he says.
You will do well in this world.
But willanyonedo well inthisworld for long now that Tozawas back in town?
And thats to say nothing of the neo-mythic tenor mixed with ultraviolent realism pulsating through each story line.
Its a Mannianpiece for our times, through and through, only bolstered and expanded by J.T.
Rogers and crews palpable confidence and vision for their creation.
While the series has its admirers (there are dozens of us!
Maybe not in terms of budgets and tax incentives.
Among them, a successful soft-recharacterization of Jake Adelstein.
As depicted in the text, Jake Adelstein is kind of a smarmy doofus, says Nicholas Quah.
Capable and probably gifted as a reporter, sure, but very much a cad a white Japanophile unleashed.
