Fan-Favorite Max Series Gets Season 2 Release Date After Nearly 2-Year Wait

Following a nearly two-year-long wait, Jake Adelstein and the Tokyo Vice squad are returning to Max. The streamer on Tuesday released a new trailer for Tokyo Vice Season 2, also revealing that the ’90s-set Japanese crime show will return for its second season with a two-episode season premiere on Thursday, Feb. 8.

Loosely based on American journalist Jake Adelstein’s book of the same name, a first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, Tokyo Vice is set in 1999 and follows a fictionalized version of the journalist after he relocated to Japan and joined the staff of a major Japanese newspaper, becoming their first foreign-born journalist. He goes on to plug into the Tokyo Vice police squad and descends into the neon underbelly of Tokyo. Per Max’s official synopsis, “Season two of the series, filmed on location in Tokyo, takes us deeper into the city’s criminal underworld as Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) comes to realize that his life, and the lives of those close to him, are in terrible danger.”

Along with Elgort, Tokyo Vice Season 2 stars Ken Watanabe as Hiroto Katagiri, Rachel Keller as American expat Samantha, Rinko Kikuchi, Show Kasamatsu, Ayumi Ito, and new series regulars Yosuke Kubozuka as Naoki Hayama and Miki Maya as Shoko Nagata. J.T. Rogers and Alan Poul executive produce alongside Alex Boden, Josef Kubota Wladyka, Brad Caleb Kane, Adam Stein, Ken Watanabe, Emily Gerson Saines, Ansel Elgort, Jake Adelstein, Kayo Washio, Destin Daniel Cretton, John Lesher, and Michael Mann.

“We had Max’s blessing to end season 1 with an episode that was nothing but cliffhangers,” Rogers told Entertainment Weekly. “I was writing season 2 while we were shooting season 1, so it is the same story that we’re following. Everything that was left hanging at the end of season 1 will be settled – if not immediately, then over the course of the season. Some right away, some later on.”

Tokyo Vice debuted on Max in April 7, 2022 and was well-received. The series holds an 85% critics score and 88% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Season 2 kicks off with a two-episode season premiere on Max on Thursday, Feb. 8, with new episodes airing each Thursday after that.