# Ikebukuro West Gate Park (2000)

> A cool-headed young troubleshooter in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district tries to keep his friends out of a escalating gang war after his girlfriend's mysterious death.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/4689

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 11
- Episode runtime: 46 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama
- Network: TBS
- Cast: Tomoya Nagase, Ai Kato, Ken Watanabe, Yosuke Kubozuka, Ryuta Sato, Aiko Morishita, Kenji Sakaguchi, Tomohisa Yamashita
- TMDB rating: 7.9/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0331389/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: gritty, wry, melancholic, tense, streetwise

## Synopsis

Ikebukuro West Gate Park (2000) is a Japanese crime miniseries created for TBS and aired as a single eleven-episode season. Tomoya Nagase plays Makoto Majima, a twenty-one-year-old troubleshooter who becomes entangled with the G-Boys, a youth gang in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district, a neighborhood notorious for juvenile crime. Ai Kato plays Hikaru Shibusawa, and Ken Watanabe appears as Yokoyama, with Yosuke Kubozuka as Takashi 'King' Ando among the gang's principal figures. Makoto's engine is simple and concrete: he defuses tense standoffs on the street, talks rivals down, and tries to keep his friends out of trouble. The mysterious death of his girlfriend and an escalating turf war push him beyond what he can manage alone. Each episode moves through the district's gangs, fruit shops, bowling alleys and back alleys, with a mix of wry humor and grim street violence. The tone blends gritty urban crime with youthful bravado and melancholy. Fans of Outrage, Gokusen and The Wire will find resonance in its portrait of youth crime and urban territory.

## Shows like Ikebukuro West Gate Park

- [Ouroboros (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/55231)
- [GTO (2012)](https://ember.film/tv/41825)
- [Last Friends (2008)](https://ember.film/tv/7270)
- [The Journey to Kill You (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/203652)
- [Smoking (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/70009)
- [My Home Hero (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/127250)
- [Unnatural (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/65642)
- [MIU404 (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/88998)
- [Tiger and Dragon (2005)](https://ember.film/tv/34902)
- [Million Yen Women (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/63816)

---

Site overview: https://ember.film/llms.txt