Tokyo Vice: Don't Ever F**king Miss - Season 02 - Episode 01 - RECAP

I was not around Hive when Tokyo Vice Season 1 came out, never had the chance to cover it so I'm starting on season two, lot have happen but the story continues right where it was as a fact the first scenes does give you the vibes of wtf happen, you need to watch season 1 to get the idea of whats going on. Tokyo Vice is a drama series about a North American, Jake Adelstein; who goes to Japan trying to make his name as a reporter, thing that is extremely hard to do in Japan specially as an outsider, through time he gets involve into a some what love story with an Scort, Samantha; who works at a very luxury bar run by the local mafia, Jake doesn't have the cash and means but he talks a lot, is funny and create a friendship with Sato a Japanese uprising gangster who also likes Samantha.

With this short description you might imagine in what kind of trouble he will get into, at the moment he is investigating the mafia and people around him are starting to die or get hurt badly.

Jake and detective Hiroto are after Tozawa, Jake was given by an anonymous source a tape where a men kills a girl on a yacht room, what looks like an escort service, but there are a couple of things out of place, it seems confusing because the girl, who Jakes knows, Polina; is arguing with a man that looks from the yacht service, she mentions how the other guy hit and push her, the other man loose it and throws her on the floor and start stumping on her, looks like she dead.

The man on the video above, that looks like working as yacht service is the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the yacht is use for luxury escort service and its register under one of Tozawa mistress, Tozawa is a mafia boss that Jake and detective Hiroto are after but he always finds a way out. On the other hand Samantha decided to open her own club and she was giving the blessing from Chihara-Kai yakuza, Sato was suppose to be her direct contact but she has no clue of the recent attack by Tozawa and Sato was hurt badly after when getting into his car by a traitor called Gem, so Samantha is concern that Yakuza now sending her other men to supervise the club, they wont be as patient as Sato.

Its a lot of recap and nothing necessarily new to the story, its a very some what slow pace for the episode if you saw season one, Yakuza look after each other and most of the time ppl dont care about them even the police, it obvious that still at the hospital they are in danger since the killer could come back to finish his job so other Yakuza members pick up Sato from the hospital after his legit brother went to their place looking for him since no body at home can get a hold of him, Yakuza knew there was something wrong so they find him and take him back to their place so they could let him recover and eventually identify the killer.

Going a bit forward with everything happening, Jake is ready to take the tape to his editor so they can go public, this is a big deal since at that time a reputable Japanese Paper wont publish unless they have enough proof and grounds, at the Meisho; they still discuss if this is enough to publish, they all agree to proceed since the girl has been identify and missing on top of the clear shot of the Vice Minister, now all they need is the Vice Minister input before they go public; probably should have done it after making copies and securing the evidence because giving him the chance to comment before that is like putting him on alert and let him do what ever is in his power to get rid of the tape.

Just like that its exactly what happen, the episode at times become predictable but still interesting, Japanese are very strict and Jake still can't get a hold to this part of their culture, he still living the American way, speaking when ever he wants and what ever he wants, he even tries bribe the Vice Minister offering to go slow with him on the publication if he agrees to betray Tozawa as he thinks he works for him, this ends up as an insult for Vice Minister and the Meisho, paper where Jakes work for; that's just not how they do things in Japan, specially not at a reputable paper.

Exactly what I though happen, Vice Minister or Tozawa got rid of the tapes, burning down the office, lucky for the rest of the building firefighters manage to put it out before it extended but all the tapes are gone, original and backups, the same night after the Vice Minister was interview.

Since the Tozawa attack things between clans are not exactly in good terms, when Gem find out that Sato is still alive he tries to bribe Yabuki, second in command of Tozawa; Tozawa is out of the country at the moment, he is very sick but not many people know about it. Gem goes to Yabuki either to switch sides or offer him intel on the Yakuza in exchange of protection, he fear that Sato will look for him, Yabuki sees a great opportunity to make peace with the Yakuza, he is a business man over a killer, he knows having the Yakuza as enemy is not good for business.

Certain events happen in Hiroto life that got him out of balance, he had to send his family away because of death threats most likely from Tozawa since he has been investigating him closely, also a the recent death of fellow detective Miyamoto and his boss find out about their secret investigation on Tozawa putting him off duty, Jake just notify him about the fire at the Meisho, all this makes him go rogue and pays a visit to the Vice Minister getting him to speak the truth about why he was working for Tozawa.

Even though the first episode was more talk than anything else there were certain events that were satisfying for example Yabuki giving up Gem, the burn down of the tape room it was stupid form them to keep all takes inside the building, dealing with a mafia boss there is no safe place so better keep multiple copies but they wanted to do it the right way, the Japanese way playing by the rules but for Tozawa there are no rules the rest was pure drama, I didn't mention how Samantha went out to drink and grief Polina death at some point I thought she was going to get hurt, kidnap or who knows she really went wild that night, Polina was a trouble maker on season one, I'm kinda glad her character is out of the picture.

Tokyo Vice is a great police drama series, I remember stumbling to it and fall for it since first episode, I really can't find anything wrong about it, the series does generate certain scenes that make you feel angry at times which is a good thing.