Ryu ga Gotoku: Beyond the Game (2024)

The Fine Line Between Loyalty and Megalomania

Fans' opinions about the game deserve respect and recognition; after all, they have a long-standing relationship with this story, dating back to its very beginning. It’s natural for their evaluation to be more critical, as evidenced by the ratings throughout the mini-series on TVTIME. That said, as someone who has never played the game—though I was aware of its existence—I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of watching the adaptation. Amazon Prime Video deserves praise for its investment and the way it brought this narrative to life.

Overall, the script was quite cohesive, despite leaning a bit too heavily on flashbacks. However, these back-and-forth moments in time ultimately converged on a central point, which helped offset that minor flaw. As for the plot, I have to admit I had already suspected that Nishikiyama was the "Demon of Shinjuku." It wasn’t exactly a shocking twist, but the development of his plan, born from the tragedy of his sister’s death, was compelling. It’s a plan tinged with both schizophrenia and megalomania, but it offers plenty of layers for those willing to look deeper.

The mini-series ends with a clear hook for a potential second season. However, given the critical feedback from fans of the game, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t continue. Still, if it gets renewed, I’ll be first in line to watch.

It’s also worth highlighting the technical excellence of the production: the set design, costumes, and overall atmosphere were flawless, elevating the experience to a visually stunning level. Even with a few missteps in the script, these elements helped solidify the adaptation’s quality.

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All they had to do was create a cohesive narrative with decent production...

I am a huge RGG fan and the yakuza series is near and dear to my heart. Now that being said, this series got a few things right, and a whole lot of things wrong. the actors did a pretty good job. nishiki's actor and majima's actor really brought their respective characters to life. in fact, majima was the highlight of the entire series. he was perfect.

the story - I knew it was going to be a departure from the games and was prepared for it. at first, I was hopeful. I watched through the first couple of episodes and thought that it was a pretty decent retelling of the original game, minus a couple of things that were absolutely diabolical. (making kiryu beg dojima to have the title the dragon of dojima, kiryu getting his a** kicked by majima, the kids at sunshine hating kazuma for no apparent reason) but other than that, I was on board. then we got to episode 3 and saejima randomly died after 2 minutes of screen time, majima got his eye gouged out to a cover of 'mad world', shimano had hair???, etc and and I didn't even want to watch the rest of it. kiryu stayed getting beat up. also, what was happening in 1995 was so much more interesting than the 2005 arc. the characters by the end either had no arc or too much of an arc that their behavior made no sense. and look, I understand that it's difficult to squeeze an entire 2 games into 6 episodes. but they removed SIGNIFICANT moments which were crucially important to the story. I do not know how you could watch this if you were not alreadt a yakuza fan and understand what was happening. there were also no consequences for these characters which is a big NO for yakuza. the whole point is to show the consequences of that world. sigh. overall I would say the story made very little sense to fans, and even less to outsiders.

the camera cuts were an absolute mess and quite jarring. it was so bad that I had to check prime a few times to see if it was glitching. production as a whole really failed in this series.

now let me tell you what I liked about it. I absolutely loved catching references to the game, and I was excited to keep watching to see the next one. (Mr. try-and-hit-me, date-meets-helicopter). majima as I said earlier was perfectly in character and is probably the main reason I don't regret watching this. he was hilarious and crazy. majima in any medium is always my favorite. I also liked how they combined the yakuza 0 plot with the og plot, that was really a good change.

all in all I would say if you are a fan of the series, watch it. if not, you probably want to skip this one. it's not that good. as the title of this review says, since I am such a massive RGG fan, they literally only had to do the bare minimum and I would have loved this. create a cohesive story which makes sense and proper character motivations. have decent production and be decent from a technical aspect. unfortunately, this show failed on all fronts.

but as I have said I am a huge fan of the series as a whole so I'll be generous with my rating. I appreciate that someone tried. but the live action play and prequel available on YouTube remain the best live action media of this series. (no I am not talking about the 2007 movie. that also sucked except majima ironically.) I would recommend those first.

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