The “Yakuza” gangster collection has lengthy been seen as a Japanese “Grand Theft Auto” however Masayoshi Yokoyama, one of many foremost designers of the massively profitable video games, dismisses any such comparability.

“From the start, we decided not to have a game where you can hit people yourself. All fights start with a provocation from the opponent,” Yokoyama advised AFP forward of the discharge of the most recent installment on Friday.

“And the hero never hits women, that’s an absolute rule,” defined the gravelly voiced government producer of the collection. “Our approach is the opposite (of GTA). It’s a completely different game.”

The beat-em-up role-playing sport franchise has been working since 2005, telling the tales of big-hearted tattooed yakuza scuffling with small-time thugs and their ruthless bosses — however above all with their pasts.

The 15 video games launched to this point have been set principally in Kamuchuro, a fictional a part of Tokyo that bears a robust resemblance to Kabukicho, the Japanese metropolis’s real-life crimson mild district.

The new one, titled “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth”, is ready outdoors Japan for the primary time, in Hawaii.

“From the beginning, we targeted a purely Japanese audience who actually go there and we wanted them to say: ‘Ah yes, that’s really how it is!’,” stated Yokoyama, 47.

GTA “offers a very large map where you can act freely, but in ‘Like a Dragon’, you operate in a tight and dense space where you enjoy a story,” he says.

But Yokoyama, talking at Sega’s high-rise headquarters in Tokyo, additionally wonders about what affect violent video games are having on society, particularly “when you see mass shootings on TV, and you learn that the author was playing at home”.

“It’s a very complex problem, but I think we can’t say that video games don’t have an influence, because, unlike a novel or a film, they allow you to have an immersive experience,” he says. “So I think that when creating video games that contain violence or yakuza stories, it is imperative to think about the effects that this can have on players.”

The collection was initially a distinct segment affair in Western markets however, with 21 million copies bought, it now achieves 70 % of its gross sales outdoors Japan.

The collection was by no means known as “Yakuza” in Japan, and the worldwide title of the brand new episode “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” drops the phrase for the primary time too.

“The plots of the games in the series have gradually moved away from purely yakuza themes to focus on social issues and the story no longer only concerns the underworld,” Yokoyama stated.

One of the one references within the new sport is that the hero — the identical as within the final sport, on the run in Hawaii — is an ex-gangster.

“Having the word ‘yakuza’ in the (English) title harms sales in Japan,” Yokoyama stated. “Japanese society is getting tougher and tougher towards yakuza. In the past, we could talk about it on television but it has become a taboo word.”

© 2024 AFP

A person charged with stalking and harassment after his arrest close to singer Taylor Swift’s Manhattan townhouse had been noticed there dozens of instances up to now two months and was repeatedly requested to go away, in line with courtroom paperwork launched Wednesday.

David Crowe, 33, of Seattle was taken into custody Monday night and once more Wednesday afternoon by officers responding to complaints of an emotionally disturbed man performing erratically close to Swift’s residence within the unique Tribeca neighborhood, spokespeople for the New York Police Department mentioned.

Crowe was arraigned Wednesday on stalking and harassment prices associated to Monday’s arrest and given supervised launch. The prosecutor’s request for an order of safety was granted, in line with a spokesperson from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s workplace.

A short while after leaving courtroom, police say they arrested Crowe once more close to Swift’s townhouse and charged him with 4 counts of legal contempt associated to the safety order.

The Associated Press left a telephone message looking for remark with Crowe’s legal professional within the public defender’s workplace.

Court paperwork say an unidentified safety employee had noticed Crowe close to the singer’s residence about 30 instances since Nov. 25. Crowe was requested about 10 instances to not strategy the constructing or to go away, in line with the criticism.

In looking for supervised launch Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Harriet Jiranek mentioned Crowe’s “continued conduct in showing up to this location despite numerous directives to leave shows a clear risk that the defendant will not abide by court orders to return to court. ”

It was unclear if Swift was residence on Monday or Wednesday when Crowe was taken into custody. A consultant for the singer didn’t return emails from the AP looking for remark. Police wouldn’t affirm experiences that Crowe additionally was detained Saturday exterior the townhouse and launched.

Swift on Sunday was within the Buffalo, New York, space, the place her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce, performed towards the Buffalo Bills in an NFL playoff recreation. The Chiefs gained 27-24.

Swift’s Manhattan townhouse has been the scene of a number of break-ins when Swift wasn’t there, together with by some who had been recognized as stalkers.

© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.

Nicole Kidman captivated TV viewers in 2020 in “The Undoing,” as a girl whose husband was accused of homicide. In “Big Little Lies,” she was a girl in an abusive marriage. And let’s not neglect she received an Oscar for enjoying twentieth century author Virginia Woolf, who battled psychological sickness, within the 2002 film “The Hours.”

In her new sequence “Expats,” premiering Friday on Amazon Prime Video, Kidman as soon as once more emotionally jumps off a cliff. At the middle of “Expats” are three girls, performed by Kidman, ‎Ji-young Yoo and ‎Sarayu Blue, who’re every expatriates residing in Hong Kong. Their lives are all altered when the younger son of Kidman’s character, Margaret, goes lacking.

Lulu Wang ( “The Farewell” ) directed and was the showrunner of the six-episode sequence, filmed on location in Hong Kong.

“When Nicole came to me, to make the series, I just felt like she was meeting me at the height of the success of ‘The Farewell.’ But people who know me from childhood know we were immigrants (from China),” Wang says. “I felt like the series had to represent that aspect of my life, like, yes, I’m an American expat in certain contexts, but in another context, I’m a Chinese immigrant. I wanted to really challenge this idea of a bubble that expats have.”

An concept that Wang had was to make the fifth episode some 90 minutes and deal with the home staff, expats themselves and tasked with protecting different girls’s households working.

“Imagine you’ve just met Nicole Kidman and you’re like, ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea for an episode and you’re in the background. What do you think about it?’” Wang laughs.

An govt producer, Kidman wasn’t simply receptive to Wang’s ideas and concepts — they spoke to a real profession ardour, championing others.

“What I want to do at this point in my life and career is support women like this and support the new visionaries and auteurs that are coming up and try to create paths for them,” Kidman says.

“I had never worked with a writer’s room before,” Wang says. “It’s a very sort of solitary task to write usually. Here it was a room of women, helping to develop the story.”

One of these writers on the present was Janice Y. Ok. Lee, whose novel “The Expatriates” impressed the sequence.

“She was so not precious about the book. And the reason, honestly, I wanted her in the room was so that we couldn’t mess things up and so that she would be involved in the process,” Wang explains. “You can’t get higher analysis than having the one who skilled it and wrote it within the room. … We would at all times reference the guide and quote it again to her, and he or she was at all times fairly embarrassed.”

In addition to the ladies in entrance of and behind the digital camera, Kidman is completely satisfied to share her highlight with Brian Tee, who performs her husband.

“I’m so happy he’s gotten the chance to do this and to act opposite him,” she says, including that, as on-screen spouses, they have been bonded by trauma.

“We really helped each other. We were very much each other’s best friend and support system. And because we’re playing a married couple whose child is missing, we’re doing that together,” she says.

To go to these emotional locations as Margaret “was harrowing at times,” admits Kidman, who says she needed to lose herself within the second. “It’s an exploration. … It’s like, put me in the place, put me in the scene, and let’s go off to the objective and whatever comes through will come through.”

Associated Press journalist John Carucci contributed to this story from New York.

© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.