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So the news is that the code number "007" will be reassigned to a character played by Lashana Lynch:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/15/lashana-lynch-new-007-james-bond-daniel-craig
This reminds me of when I rewatched /You Only Live Twice/ (1967). There's plenty about the Bond franchise that is awful, as more qualified writers than I have said, which makes the good bits in YOLT stand out in surprising ways. The movie almost dawdles at points, stopping for a sporting event, a wedding, a funeral. The affective immediacy of cinema puts the viewer "there" in a way that a fishbowl tour wouldn't. "Hey," the movie says, "those people we were at war with not that long ago? They're people. It's all the same, just different."
Yes, it's the one where Sean Connery is "disguised as Japanese", which is awful and cringey and about as dignified as his wardrobe in /Zardoz/. But it also has---
"Do you have any commandos?"
"We have much better, Bond-san. Ninjas."
... Tanaka is genial, willing and able to needle Bond but from a place of genuine respect. Despite the "in Japan, men come first" business (to which Bond replies "I might just retire here"), Tanaka runs a secret service where the women aren't just receptionists.
The Doylist explanation is that Roald Dahl (yes, that one) was told that a Bond movie had to have three "Bond girls", one of whom is evil and succumbs to his charms. He stuck to the formula he was given. And one of them doesn't even get a name in dialogue, which is, yeah. But the overall result is interesting.
... Tanaka himself is like Takagi would be two decades later in /Die Hard/: on paper, a construct of the West's impression of Japan at the time, but in performance, genial and living.
"One thing my honorable mother taught me" --- yep, construct of the West --- "was never to get into a car with a strange girl. But you" --- stepping out to josh Bond directly --- "will get into anything with any girl."