‘Tokyo Vice’: Meet Akira, a Male Host & Polina’s Supposed Boyfriend

‘Tokyo Vice’ is a crime drama television series adapted from Jake Adelstein’s book of the same name, created by J. T. Rogers. The show explores the underworld of crime and corruption in Tokyo, following the experiences of an American journalist as he navigates the complexities of Japanese society. ‘Tokyo Vice’ has had a plethora of interesting characters since season 1. One of the most hated characters during the show’s first season was Akira, and there’s a good reason why. Let’s see who Akira is & what ultimately happened to him.

Akira was a fairly minor character in season 1 but an important one for Polina’s and Samantha’s story

Akira, played by Tomohisa Yamashita appeared in only 4 episodes of Tokyo Vice Season 1, but he was a massive part of Polina’s story, the best friend of Samantha Porter.

Akira worked the same job as Samantha and Polina being a male host, and his job was basically to get women of all ages to spend as much as possible on him and drive up the business for the club. Akira was also involved in some truly heinous jobs with Tozawa’s men, but this would be revealed only later. Akira and Polina at some point started dating, but the relationship never seemed fair, Polina was spending ludicrous amounts of money on Akira trying to keep his attention from wandering and basically trying to buy his affection.

If you’re just about now thinking that Akira was playing Polina, you would be correct, and the worst part is Polina was not his only victim. During their anniversary, Polina and Akira had drinks with his friends in the club where Akira was the host, and Polina amassed a massive amount of debt trying to buy his friends’ drinks. What Polina did not realize at the time was that Akira was not celebrating their anniversary he was working.

Akira was playing women, possibly leading them to slavery

Polina never managed to save any money due to the fact that she was spending most of it on Akira, so when it was time to pay the debt she was unable to do so. This coincided with her mysterious disappearance as she was seen entering the limo never to be seen again. When Samantha and Sato started inquiring regarding Polina’s whereabouts, Akira was naturally their primary lead.

After some coercion, Akira revealed that it was his job to prey on naive and/or desperate women in order to drive up their debt to the club. Once it became evident that they couldn’t cover the tab, they would be sent to Yoshino where some kind of sex slavery business was taking place led by Tozawa. It became evident that Polina was now forced to become a prostitute in order to pay off her debts. Naturally, Akira argued that it wasn’t his fault, he was only doing his job, his manager at the club actually handled the prostitution bit, and Akira’s job was only to seduce and flirt with the women.

Akira managed to cheat Samantha out of her seed money

Akira shows up yet again in the final episode when he approaches Samantha and tells her that Polina has been kidnapped and that the kidnappers are asking for 10 million yen to release her. Samantha at this point has no idea that Polina has been killed on a yacht and won’t find out until it’s too late. Samantha doubts what Akira is saying but in a desperate attempt to have her only friend in Japan back, she hands him the money.

Akira runs away with the money and Samantha now doesn’t have enough to cover the last payment for her club, which forces her to enter into a deal with Ishida. Samantha does manage to ultimately open “her” club and she names it Polina, in the loving memory of Polina. What ultimately happened to Akira we don’t know. The character still hasn’t made an appearance in Season 2.

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