Characters of the Yakuza series
[2] Yakuza 5 continued this trend and features five playable protagonists including Haruka Sawamura, a ward of Kiryu's whose story arc is devoid of combat mechanics.
Several days later, Kasuga regains consciousness and finds himself in the Yokohama district of Isezaki Ijincho, where he is unwittingly embroiled in a conspiracy involving multiple yakuza families and their connection to Japan's political figures.
A former homeless person, Akiyama owns Sky Finance, a loan company, as well as the hostess club Elise, which he started up using the money he gathered that fell from Millennium Tower in 2005.
After serving 25 years, a few days before his scheduled execution, he is suddenly transferred to a secret prison off the coast of Okinawa, where he meets Goh Hamazaki, who persuades him to break out together.
Although he did not make an appearance in Yakuza: Dead Souls, his name was mentioned by one of the Tojo Clan members stating that he was in China on business during the events that took place in Kamurocho.
In Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Joon-gi Han is the leader of the resurgent Korean criminal group Jingweon Mafia who has acquired the host bar Stardust as his base of operations.
A former body double to Joon-gi Han from The Song of Life appears in Like a Dragon as a member of the Geomijul, a splinter group to the Jingweon Mafia operating out of Isezaki Ijincho.
He is the strategist and second-in-command of Seong-hui, the Geomijul leader, who joins Ichiban Kasuga's group following a period of upheaval within Isezaki Ijincho's criminal underworld.
An employee of the soapland proprietor Nonomiya who runs a hostess bar he owns as its mama-san, she joins Ichiban's group to help with their investigation into the suspicious circumstances behind his apparent suicide.
He holds a deep respect for Kiryu, and in Yakuza 2, accompanies him to Kansai to settle a score with Ryuji Goda, the patriarch of the Omi Alliance's Go-Ryu Clan and the man who sent him to prison for 5 years as part of a set-up.
Yuko (錦山 優子, Nishikiyama Yūko) was Nishiki's younger sister raised with him, Kazuma Kiryu and Yumi Sawamura in Shintaro Kazama's Sunflower Orphanage.
Infuriated with his failure to participate in the raid of the Ueno Seiwa Clan, he orders Majima to be tortured in his private chambers where he endured a year of pain and suffering by Shimano's personal hands.
He experienced a great deal of shame about this, to the point that he was once in such distress about his inability to walk that he had to be restrained from hitting his legs, a sight that inspired Sawashiro to join the Arakawa Family in order to watch over him.
With only 10 members in his family, Hamazaki rose to the top ranks of the Tojo Clan after taking over Yokohama from the Japanese branch of the Snake Flower Triad 4 years ago.
It is shown that Hamazaki was secretly working with the Snake Flower Triad leader Lau Ka Long, who survived the events of Yakuza, in order to accomplish this.
Goda stages a coup while Kiryu is in Osaka attempting to broker a peace deal, and kidnaps Jin and Daigo, wanting to start a war between the Tojo Clan and Omi Alliance.
In the final chapter of the game, it is revealed that he is a Korean whose real name is Daejin Kim, a survivor of the Jingweon massacre in 1980, and that he faked his death in order to start a war between the Tojo and Omi.
This in addition to losing Haruto to the Jingweon Mafia causes Yuta to languish in despair, eventually setting fire to the Saio Triad headquarters in an attempt to commit suicide.
In the events of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Lau is revealed to have somehow survived being shot in the head and has since been working as an underground weapons dealer in Ijincho under the name Chau Ka Long.
Sudo only appears at the start of Yakuza 3, where he reveals to Date that the people involved in the Jingweon incident were promoted to keep their mouths shut about Kurahashi infiltrating the police force.
Concerned about the threat to his Private Secretary, now the CIA is after him for disclosing the plot, Tamiya sends Kiryu back to Ryukyu to save the lives of both Toma and his long-time friend, Joji Kazama.
When the CIA learn Toma betrayed Minister Tamiya for his rival Suzuki, thus threatening the Black Monday project, Joji Kazama is sent to Ryukyu's Canal Grande hostess club to assassinate him.
After Hiroshi Hayashi and his men invade the transformer room, Tsumura attempts to stop Kage finding out Daigo Dojima's location by hacking the computers, but Kaoru Sayama beats him.
He is Renta Kamiyama's younger brother and is himself a fighter, using a pair of kali sticks in Kamurocho's "Weapon Master GP" underground fighting tournament under the nickname "The Weaponmaster".
As a result of the early games being only in Japanese, Caroline Almeida Santos from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and Philippe René Marie Humbl from Universiteit Brussel praised the characterization of leads, with special focus on Majima's tone whenever he talks with somebody he cares.
Greszes was of the view that Nishiki's inferiority complex, borne from being unfavorably compared with Kiryu by his adopted father and other members of the Tojo Clan, combined with a series of personal tragedies culminating in his sister's tragic death, led him to become cold and unfeeling instead of grappling with his own intense pain and sadness.
[22] Conversely, Peter Glagowski from Destructoid said that Kiwami 2 tries to build up Goda as a menacing villain with an interesting backstory, but paradoxically does not afford him adequate screen time; as a result, he found the character to be unconvincing as an "ultimate threat" to Kiryu.
Majima's idolatrion for Shimano's clan reflects a similar trend in Japanese movies which embodies the concept of manliness in the same fashion as how Kiryu and Nishikiyama which to become yakuza like their guardian Kazama.
[25] USGamer appreciated playing as Haruka in Yakuza 5 due to the change of pace Sega provided after multiple types of fighters in the narrative and felt that her long distanced relationship with her adoptive father was the most appealing area of the game.
[30] In his review of Like a Dragon, Espcapist Magazine commended it for how "a likeable protagonist and a bit more of a lean into the usual wackiness it has successfully charmed the nurses into keeping the life support machine plugged in.
