Why Max Canceled Tokyo Vice

Whenever a new streaming service shows up, it brings with it a myriad of exciting new shows that are charged with carving a brand identity for the platform, and offering something unique to stand out from the Too Much TV era. When it came to Max, the one to watch for canceled shows, one of the most exciting titles that not many people watched was “Tokyo Vice.”

This moody thriller with a narratively complex story of crime and journalism boasted Michael Mann as an executive producer, and also the director of the pilot episode. It was a lavish production with unparalleled access to filming locations in Japan. Indeed, the most unique thing about “Tokyo Vice,” and reason alone to watch the show, was that this was the first major American TV show to film entirely in Japan — which not even “Shogun” managed to accomplish. Never before has a scripted production made in the West been able to show so much of Toky: the good, the bad, the seedy, and the flashy.

The story follows Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), an American journalist who moves to Tokyo and begins to investigate the yakuza. It’s loosely based on the 2009 non-fiction memoir of the same name by journalist Jake Adelstein, which was hugely controversial in Japan for dealing with the underground world of organized crime. Sadly, the show was canceled by Max after just two seasons. 

This wasn’t hugely surprising, of course. “Tokyo Vice” virtually adapted all of Adelstein’s book in the two seasons, so anything beyond that would have to be completely original. It seems that the plan was always for two seasons, with any additional seasons depending on how well the show performed. As executive producer Alan Poul told Variety following the cancellation, “We were always told that there was no guarantee of a season 3. So our only desire was for season 2 to be as successful as possible.”

There’s also the fact that “Tokyo Vice” was simply an incredibly difficult production, given that it shot entirely in Japan. Granted, by the time season 2 started filming, it had a major advantage over the first season, as Japanese audiences were by then familiar with “Tokyo Vice” and knew what it was doing and what the producers’ intentions were. This meant that more locations allowed for filming, and permits were granted relatively easily. Still, “Tokyo Vice” was made during and just after the COVID lockdown, which also added safety and bureaucratic concerns that made production harder and likely more expensive.

Showrunner J.T. Rogers told Variety that, across the two seasons of the show, “More of Tokyo is seen than anything that’s ever been filmed, Japanese or foreign,” which truly shows in the second season. There are yakuza duels in bath houses, shootings in night clubs, and more action than the first season, all in real locations, and some even using ex-yakuza members. This, unsurprisingly, wasn’t easy to accomplish. Rogers told Variety that a big challenge was to “get ex-Yakuza who were officially signed off illegally as no longer members of the yakuza as extras. Because that’s crucial. We can never have any dealings with anyone in the yakuza.”

Indeed, “Tokyo Vice” is a miracle, but it is nevertheless unfortunate that the show was not allowed to keep going with a third season. So far, Max has yet to come out with a really long-lasting, original TV show. None of its shows has yet managed more than two seasons (“House of the Dragon” has at least been green lit for a third, but season 4 will be its last). Not even the very popular and successful “The Flight Attendant” managed to avoid the chopping block.