We recommended the first season of Tokyo Vice earlier this year, the Max Original (formerly HBO Max, what a stupid name change) series starring Ansel Egort as an American investigative journalist working the criminal underworld in the titular city circa 1999. After a longer-than-expected wait, season two finally aired and we’re happy to report that it’s awesome. Let’s dive in.

The season premiere of season two of Tokyo Vice actually feels like a season finale for season one. One of my criticisms that I wrote of that season was that it felt like it just ended anti-climactically, despite the buildup in stakes and momentum. The premiere seemingly sought to remedy this problem and wrapped up a lot of plot points left dangling while setting up new issues and bridging the two together. It was a strong and welcome start.

In fact, apart from episodes two and three, which give the illusion of a whole new narrative as Jake and Ken Watanabe’s Detective Katagiri steer clear of the Yakuza, season two of Tokyo Vice feels very much like the second half of a whole. We even get the payoff to the opening scene from the pilot episode in this season! It ups the episode count to ten episodes, up from season one’s eight, allowing for much more time for the story to rise and develop. The story very much continues the threads set up in season one, from the mystery of where Tozawa is, the place Chihara-kai has in this changing landscape, Katagiri’s investigation into organized crime and Samantha’s (Rachel Keller) attempts to distance herself from the Yakuza while setting up her own nightclub.

Speaking of the pilot, Michael Mann remains an executive producer in season two, but doesn’t direct any episodes this time around. His distinct style is missed to a degree, but the whole of season two feels very uniform and does a great job at showcasing the titular city as well as Japanese and Yakuza culture. The show is about investigative journalism and the show feels like a great peek behind the veil. Unlike the Italian-American Mafia, hiding in the shadows, the Yakuza are out in the open and the show almost makes this criminal organization feel more like a criminal enterprise, complete with boardroom meetings and political aspirations.

An observation about the second season that I noticed would be that Ansel Egort’s Jake Adelstein seemingly has less screentime this time around, making room for the rest of the supporting cast to flourish, especially Show Kasamatsu as Akiro Sato, a jaded enforcer within the Chihara-kai yakuza organization who must now contend with his younger brother’s own criminal aspirations on top of a brewing mob war and a potential love life. With Tozawa missing, the show needed a new antagonist. It was found in Hayama (Yōsuke Kubozuka), a recently released senior member of Chihara-kai who gets promoted as Oyabun’s second in command and proves to be a short-tempered wildcard. Jake’s colleagues at the Meicho also get more to do this time around, from Rinko Kikuchi’s Emi Maruyama’s personal life and Takaki Uda’s “Trendy”, who navigates the Tokyo nightlife with the American government while questioning his own sexuality.

I also found that there was more spoken English in this season between characters who can and theoretically should be speaking Japanese to each other; whether this is for our benefit or Egort’s remains unknown. But Jake is perhaps the least interesting character on the show because he’s so familiar to Western audiences, so to dive into this world and see the other characters more in-depth felt like a better move, with Jake operating as the character ties all the threads together.

Who knows if there’ll be a Tokyo Vice season three at this point, but showrunner J.T. Rogers did mention that he has an idea as to where the show could go should it get renewed. But season two also feels like a natural ending point and should this be the end of it, things feel resolved enough this time around that I don’t feel like I’m missing content like I did with season one. Season two loses some momentum after the premiere, but by episode four, the show finds its groove and keeps up the tension and momentum until the very end. A strong recommendation from me!