NOTE: This post contains SPOILERS for Yakuza Lover. This article was originally posted on my old blog on 3 January 2023 and has been edited/trimmed for clarity.
The name says a lot
Even when you read the title of the show, Yakuza Lover (also known by its original Japanese name 恋と弾丸 Koi to Dangan/Romance and Bullets) might sound suspiciously low budget. Or maybe like an old forgotten porno. Both comparisons are strangely accurate. But only by watching the first episode will you truly comprehend what Yakuza Lover really is: a cringe-inducing, cover-your-eyes hot mess that is easily one of the most entertaining trainwrecks you’ll ever see.
Imagine this: a show so badly written, badly produced, badly lit, and badly acted that you can’t stop watching. Yakuza Lover is that bizarre case of something sinking so quickly through the floor of “god awful” that it comes out the other side as “unintentionally great”. You have to see it to believe it.
Was Tommy Wiseau involved in this?
For anybody who has seen the disasterpiece The Room (2003), watching Yakuza Lover will bring back some very familiar vibes of the cringe-inducing kind. Love scenes between Yuri (Baba Fumika) and the yakuza lover himself Toshiomi Oya (Furukawa Yuuta) are prime internet meme material. When that one synth track begins, we know the cherry blossoms and dramatic pink lighting are coming.
…and that can only mean a terrible, slow, totally unsexy, sexless sex scene is up next!
Oya: Now I’ll find your sensitive parts.
Yuri: My sensitive parts. Where are they?
Considering the conservative nature of Japanese television, you can’t be surprised at the lack of fornication. This isn’t HBO, after all. What it is, though, is two actors drowning in an atrocious script that prohibits them from generating any chemistry whatsoever. Yet, mysteriously, you just can’t look away. You might cover your eyes from time to time, but you still keep on watching.
Filmed almost as live action manga panels, the show comes across as strange and as hollow as line art. The script has been seemingly unedited from its original manga state, every cliche and unrealistic phrase left to fester. It reads like a terrible fan fiction written by a 14-year-old girl who has never had a relationship.
Such dialogue atrocities make it impossible for any actor to do a good job, but some are worse than others. Baba Fumika does the best she can as leading lady but she frequently has an obvious air of resignation or worse. Yuri is meant to be innocent and naive, but she flinches and recoils away from Oya’s hand too often to ignore. She is usually more of a plank than an enthusiastic lover.
Almost a perfect disasterpiece
Yakuza Lover isn’t all bad, all the time. It’s close, but not quite 100%.
The production is an odd balance of big budget and low budget all at once. The cameras, grading, and hair/makeup do a great job on the visuals. There isn’t much of a soundtrack but each track is well produced, particularly the opening and end credit songs. Key side characters look the part and perform fairly well, particularly Hashimoto Manami as ‘Mama’ the madame-turned-sake-bar-owner. A few choice locations are standout, such as the club or the sake bar.
Yet most sets are oddly bare minimum and definitely not what you’d expect from ultra-wealthy yakuza bosses. Slip covers, IKEA furniture, bland travel posters, and other set decorations scream “film student production with no funding”. Costumes are similarly done on the cheap. Oya’s tacky, plastic-looking, black damask-patterned suit is unforgettable, especially when sitting on his similarly damask-patterned couch.
Blunder after blunder permeates every scene of Yakuza Lover. And they are truly blunders: none of the show’s production missteps could be intentional. An intentionally bad production would be, well, just plain ol’ bad. Everyone on Yakuza Lover is trying and the production team most certainly thinks they are doing a great job. And that is exactly why it possesses that elusive “so bad it’s good” quality so few have achieved.
Yuri: Oya-san’s teeth and fingers are digging into me roughly. But I don’t mind him being rough, because it’s Oya-san. I can take it again. And again.
A hot Japanese mess
Yakuza Lover is an easy show to binge watch with all 9 episodes clocking in at only 25 minutes each. It takes very few brain cells to process what goes on. That said, you have to go into the show with the right perspective. If you watch it as a film aficionado or social advocate, you’re going to hate nothing more.
Does the story perpetuate the glorification of narcissistic “bad boys” who love-bomb innocent women into obedience? Oh yeah. Does it romanticize criminals and the underworld, particularly the Japanese yakuza and their barbaric history? Definitely. Does it reinforce the idea that a woman is only loved by a man for physical appearance and sexual satisfaction? You bet!
But you have to leave all that at the door when watching Yakuza Lover. The show is just too insipid and thus, quite frankly, too inoffensive to give it the social justice treatment.
If you’re up for an unintentionally hilarious, easy-to-watch show that is certainly better with friends (and possibly booze), give Yakuza Lover a try. Whether you enjoy it or not, one thing will be certain: you ain’t seen nothing quite like it and probably won’t again!
