Netflix’s "Tokyo Swindlers" is a real-life story about high-stakes falsehoods that should be on your to-watch list. But its success also reveals some truths about Japan through the storytelling.

While Walt Disney’s "Shogun" was carrying the torch for shows about the country, winning 18 Emmy’s in the process, I first missed "Tokyo Swindlers" when it hit this summer. But as it increasingly appeared in memes on Japanese social media, I realized the show was becoming something of a phenomenon, topping ratings domestically and appearing for weeks in Netflix’s most-watched shows globally. It might be the best example to date of how streaming services are enabling Japan’s small-screen creators to find the kind of creative success that has long eluded them, both at home and abroad.

But while its high-profile cast and "Ocean’s Eleven"-style heists might draw the mass audience, what piqued my interest was the fact that some of its most audacious moments are based on actual events. It’s a considerably more realistic depiction than the majority of Japanese crime fiction arriving on foreign shores, which often tend to be outlandish yakuza tales.