Heard about Tokyo Vice when the first season came out last year, but it came back to my attention when reading up on Heat, because Michael Mann incidentally directed the series' first episode.
It's a good Japanese-depicted-by-Americans crime show, yakuza, police and the odd balance between the two. Wild to think it's based on a memoir (though the veracity of events has been questioned).
I don't know how realistic the depiction of Japanese work culture and hostess clubs is, but watching the show is somewhat of a culture shock. Same with the yakuza-police relations. Yet, surprisingly, some of the characters I relate to/understand the least are Westerners (e.g. Samantha). Maybe because while the Japanese characters seem to behave based on a completely different value set than I'm used to, at least it's consistent. Some of the Westerners' actions seem incoherent at best (or I just didn't get them).
In a similar vein I liked Giri/Haji (Joe Barton, 2019) much better, though I don't really remember why because I watched it over three years ago.
6/10