The Ultimate Yakuza Iceberg (やくざの氷山)

An absolute iceberg of all the knowledge I could ever implement into a tierlist. This knowledge starts from Yakuza 0 and ends at Lost Judgment from years of playing the game and being active within the community. Some are factual, others are jokes, but they all are contributed to the series in general. This document is meant to lean toward the more informative side. An iceberg goes from very commonly known information to obscure depths in which aren't widely known.

The Ultimate Yakuza Iceberg

Iceberg written down and organized by: DRAX (me)
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR YAKUZA 0 - LOST JUDGMENT, PROCEED AT OWN RISK

I KINDLY THANK DEVILLEON7, REDLYNE, AND FLAMBINGO IN WHICH I REFERENCED THEIR ICEBERGS / ENTRIES THAT THEY MADE, SO I CAN MAKE THIS DOCUMENT, AS WELL AS THEIR EXPLANATIONS! THEIR ICEBERG VIDS ARE ALL ON YT AS I QUOTED MOST OF WHAT THEY SAID! I’LL LINK THEIR VIDEOS AT THE END OF THE DOCUMENT.


! For those who don't know the Yakuza abbreviations, I’m going to list them below, so that nothing is confusing !

Y0 = Yakuza 0
Y1 = Yakuza 1
Y2 = Yakuza 2
YK = Yakuza Kiwami
YK2 = Yakuza Kiwami 2
Y3= Yakuza 3
Y4 = Yakuza 4
Y5 = Yakuza 5
Y6 = Yakuza 6
Y7 / LAD = Yakuza 7 / Like A Dragon (same game)
LJ = Lost Judgment
Y8 = Yakuza 8 (unreleased)
FOTNS: LP = First Of The North Star: Lost Paradise
RGGO = Ryu Ga Gotoku Online

Other context:

Yakuza remastered games are Y3, Y4, Y5, YK, YK2
Spin-offs are: Ishin, Dead Souls, Kenzan, RGGO, FOTNS, Judgment, Lost Judgment, Kurohyō, Kurohyou 2, Streets of Kamurocho

TIER 1 - THE SURFACE

The famous “dame da ne” music video / song
(most famous karaoke song by a long shot, mostly by its trending popularity through memes in 2020. The song transcends past Yakuza at this point, and to the majority of the internet, it is the funny sad Japanese guy song. There are up to 4 characters who are able to sing Bakamitai. (Kiryu, Akiyama, Saejima, Nanba)


24-Hour Cinderella
(sung by Majima, famously in Yakuza 0)


Karaoke
(memed by many, i.e., Bakamitai, 24-Hour Cinderella, Judgment, Machine Gun Kiss, etc.)


Dancing / Friday Night (Y0)
(another one of Yakuza's most iconic tracks, Friday Night was featured in Yakuza 0 as the main disco theme)


RGG STUDIO / LIKE A DRAGON
(the name for the Yakuza series in Japan, and the company name in general)


Table slam scene from Yakuza Kiwami 2
(the context behind this scene, is that Sayama, (Kiryu’s love interest at that time) records a message, in which Kiryu plays, where she basically explains how what she's going to do next may end up killing her, and Kiryu slams his fist against the table next to Date in the form of anger and despair)


Mahjong minigame
(a tile-based game developed in the 19th century in China. It is often known for how difficult this minigame can be. Mahjong can be played in: Lost Judgment, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Judge Eyes / Judgment, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Yakuza 6, Yakuza Kiwami, Yakuza 0, Ryu Ga Gotoku Ishin! Yakuza 5, Kurohyou 2: Ryu Ga Gotoku Ashura-hen, Yakuza: Dead Souls, Yakuza 4, Yakuza 3 (Remaster), Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan!, and Yakuza 2)


Lord Of The Night
(the title Majima was given in Yakuza 0, where he was the manager at the club, “The Grand.” It was a nickname later going by the Mad Dog Of Shimano. Majima was given this nickname due to his extreme proficiency in the nightlife business)


Mainstream games
(Yakuza 0,1,2,4,5,6,7)


Judgment (死神の遺言) games
(a “spin-off” series made by the same company, RGG, and it’s an action-adventure detective game that follows twisted crime running deep beneath the surface of Tokyo. As of now, there are two Judgment games: Judgment, or (JUDGE-EYES) and Lost Judgment)


Goromi
(Goromi is the persona Majima takes on as part of the Majima everywhere system, where he disguises himself and acts as a hostess. While usually Majima everywhere encounters result in a battle, this one leads to a full hostess chad minigame, which ends in a battle, of course)


Facial rigs
(the animations used on the face models. Some animations are more or less expressive in older games, but by the time in dragon engine, the mouth animations / expressions are not pushing the emotional expressions at all as far)


Nugget and Omlette
(Nugget and Omlette are two chickens used in the side business substories of Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 7. In Y0, Nugget is obtained upon getting a turkey in the bowling mini game, who can be used as a real estate royale minigame manager. In Yakuza 7, Omlette serves as the mascot of Ichiban Holdings and as a summon in battles)


Minigames
(one of the biggest draws of the Yakuza series, besides the excellent stories, is the aspect of virtual tourism in Japan. Pretty much every city featured in the games has its own set of unique minigames - ranging from cabaret clubs, bowling, hunting, golfing, fishing, diving, disco, baseball, boxing, joining a biker gang, and more. Each of these usually has different tiers of difficulties and challenges, making them even more in depth)


“Kiryu never killed anyone”
(a common characteristic attributed to Kiryu is that he's never directly killed anyone in cold blood or otherwise. While some heat moves are pretty deadly looking, he canonically hasn't killed anyone, and some characters even bring it up to him)


Majima / Majima everywhere system in YK
(after the massive success of Y0 and especially after the story, Sega decided they wanted to do something special on the remake of Yakuza 1, for Majima was originally more of a side villain. With this, they decided on the Majima Everywhere system, an unavoidable system in Kiwami in which you fight Majima in different outfits and styles to regain your strength after 10 years in the joint)


Facial models taken from real actors
(These games tend to use the likeness of real actors, typically because those actors are very famous locally. Yakuza 0 in particular has a chalk-full of them for some reason)
Examples include:

• Hitoshi Ozawa as Kuze
  
• Riki Takeuchi as Awano
  
• Hideo Nakana as Shibusawa
  
• Arata Iura as Tachibana
  
• Shingo Tsurumi as Sagawa
  
• Keiji Fujiwara as Nishitani
  
• Habu II as Mr. Libido
  
• Takeshi Kitano as Hirose
  
• Takuya Kimura as Yagami
  
• Koji Yamaoto as Kuwana
  
• Eri Kamataki who played - well, Eri Kamataki (she got into Y7 after winning a contest as “Ichiban’s female co-star.” She was one of 5 winners)

Tiger Drop
(the tiger drop is by far the most iconic move in the Yakuza series. The move itself is a counter hook, you can perform it just before an enemy lands their attack. It's featured in pretty much every Yakuza game and even the Judgment series under a different name and is busted in all of these if you know how to use it correctly. It's also used by Komaki and training missions if you want to be on the receiving end)


Kiwami remakes
(Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2 and its assets reused)


Mr. Libido
(Mr. Libido also known as, ‘walking erection’ is a bit of a meme character from Yakuza 0. In the actual game, he's only there to accept items for his side activity with telephone cards, but he does actually make an appearance in the main story, albeit it is missable. He’s a famous icon when it comes to memes because of his naked figure, save for his white underwear)


Kuze
(Kuze is one of the central antagonists of Y0, being the first of the three lieutenants Kiryu takes on as the game progresses. Kiryu fights Kuze a total of five times, each with a different move set in a different location)


Yakuza 0 on PC
(Yakuza 0 on PC was the first of the Yakuza games to receive a port all the way back in 2018, which paved the way for the rest of the series to release on PC as well. Alongside the releases on Xbox and game pass, this massively grew the audience for the series in the west)


“Real Yakuza use a gamepad”
(when first loading the game, it gives you a preview of this message, referencing how the game was originally supposed to be played using a console. However, in the Judgment games, it switches the message saying, “Real detectives use a gamepad”)


Oni Michio
(in Yakuza 6, you can take on the role of town mascot Omichio with his charming hasaku face, steamy Onomichi ramen hat, cute fish pouch, cool boots vital for any fisherman, and his bold and trendy Ono shirt. He became the pride of Onomichi. He also makes small cameos in Judgement and Yakuza 7)


Kiryu is a virgin
(one of the lead directors and producers on the Yakuza series Masayoshi Yokoyama, fully believes and is of the opinion that Kiryu is likely a virgin throughout the entire series. His reasoning stems from Kiryu not moving on from Yumi, who died at the end of Yakuza 1. Some other supporting evidence is in 5 when a girl has been trying to get with him for six months and at one point, literally getting naked in front of him. He just brushes it off and essentially tells her to buzz off)


Ichiban Dragon Quest obsession
(so this one is impossible to miss if you played Yakuza 7, but Ichiban is obsessed with Dragon Quest. It's also the canonical reason for the turn-based combat and everything that comes along with it)

TIER 2 - THE TIP

Yakuza Kiwami 3
(if RGG studio were to continue making Kiwami versions of games, Yakuza 3 theoretically would be next in line unless they did Kenzan first which did release before it. However, with the release of the remastered collection a few years ago, I have my doubts this will come to fruition, at the very least not in the near future)


Ichiban and Nishiki share the same VA
(voiced by Kazuhiro Nakay)


Ishin and Kenzan
(a spinoff taken place hundreds of years before Yakuza took place in the main series. Kenzan takes place way back to the Edo period (1602) and Ishin in the Bakumatsu period that ran between 1853-1867)


Dead Souls
(Dead Souls is a zombie shooter spin-off game in the franchise and is effectively what killed the series upon release in the west, leading to Yakuza 5 not receiving localization for years. Truth be told, the game really isn't that good either, especially with terrible optimization stemming from it only being available on PS3. It isn't a bad game, it's just not up to the standards of the rest of the series. But that being said, it is notable for being the first game to have Majima as a playable protagonist. It was released in 2011 and focused on the characters Kiryu, Majima, Ryuji, and Akiyama in an alternate universe)


Kiryu and Ichiban parallels
(they both have a boss they owe their lives to / look up to. They both end up taking the fall for a crime they didn't commit so someone else can get away with it. This someone else just happens to be their brother figure in both cases. Kiryu and Ichiban spend a long time in jail. Kiryu spent 10 years, and Ichiban 18 years. After they get out, they figure out their brother figures have done some crazy ♥♥♥♥ they shouldn't have done, and now the journey to set things straight with them begins. Kiryu meets Date, a detective who ends up being a lifelong friend, and Ichiban meets Adachi, an ex-detective, and they also become friends. The color of Ichiban’s suit is an inversion of Kiryu’s suit color, etc.)


Amon clan
(a secret organization of assassins that we still don't know much about. The first encounter is Jo Amon, a hidden boss you can unlock once you complete every substory in the game. Upon completion of whatever that is needed, Amon will contact the player requesting a meeting in a specific location. Then he will serve as a super boss, with copious amounts of health and insane damage. There is also a never seen before Amon in Judgment who is called “Shin Amon,” which might be a pun because “Shin” is translated into “new”)


Yakuza 1 dub
(Yakuza 1 on the PS2 had an English dub, a really bad one. Though most Japanese PS2 titles often had their cultural divergence on their sleeves, Yakuza felt the need to match a vast misunderstanding of American tastes. Nishiki went from a nickname to his actual name because the former is easier to say in our tongue. The script is about as edgy as a 2015 4chan raid and makes near complete mockery of the original material just listen to it, it's godlike. It was the very first Yakuza game on the PS2 that had a fully voiced dub featuring famous actors such as Mark Hamill as Majima, Michael Madsen as Shimano, Bill Farmer AKA Goofy as Date, Debi Derryberry AKA Jimmy Neutron as Haruka, and so on and so forth. The dub was notorious for dropping F-bombs almost every chance they could get and has some blaring syncing issues. Lost Paradise had a dub, Judgment and Lost Judgment had a dub, and LAD had a dub. They also brought back Kiryu's original dub VA in LAD)


Rubber bullets
(Saejima goes on a mass murder spree, but the bullets he ends up shooting are rubber bullets, therefore making him “innocent”)


Sent to America
(It originates from Sayama, a character in Yakuza 2, deciding to go to the U.S. for her career after the events of that game. You get to see her at the beginning of Y3, but after that, you never see her again. But hey, she sends you text messages whenever you complete a list to congratulate you)


Asset recycling
(i.e., Kuze’s QTE in Y0 and Nishiki's QTE in YK. In Y3, a heat action, “essence of smoking” is re-used in Y5. Hangman first appears in Y6 and makes his way to Judgment. Kamurocho from each engine is re-used, with slight alterations (new shops or anything related to the main story). The same hand PNG in shogi from LAD has been there since Y3, ETC.)


Shinji, Ryuji, and Daigo in Y0
(Shinji was only 16 at the time and attempted to attack Kiryu after mistaking him for a Yakuza because he grew a hatred for them for taking advantage of his family. For Ryuji, he's 12, and he's going around stealing the pants off of high schoolers. One hilarious thing is that Majima, who's a middle-aged man, gets to fight Ryuji, and Ryuji has the same HP as a normal boss. Daigo is a 12-year-old boy. Seeing how he's Dojima's son, Kiryu refers to him as ‘young master,’ similar to how Ichiban refers to his boss. The substory just tells you how much Daigo wanted to do all the adult things he shouldn't be doing. He was the straight definition of a spoiled brat the entire time. Daigo learns to be more humble after being saved by Kiryu, however)


Secret Koreans
(Joke about Yakuza 2’s love of having Koreans as the secret villain)


“Kazzy”
(Kazzy is Kiryu’s nickname from his closest allies and to his family members. He actually writes into a radio show under the alias as Judgment Kazzy in Y0. So, he fully embraces the nickname)


Kiryu is immortal
(I find it funny because Kiryu can be stabbed by poisonous knives, shot numerous different times in his body, get beaten half to death, but somehow, he's still kicking. Unlike Kiryu, many side characters do not survive these. Some instantly die after being shot once or twice)


An enemy named ‘Sega’
(Yakuza characters have a bunch of random surnames that could appear over their health bars. One of which is Sega. Yakuza 6 actually has a completionist list specifically to beat an enemy named Sega, as well as other games too)


Akiyama loan shark system
(In Y4 and Y5, Akiyama is a pretty mysterious dude, and still is, really. It is revealed over the course of Y4 that he gives out loans to people who can pass very specific tests to judge their commitment. These loans are interest and collateral free, as well as unlimited in their amount)


“I peacocked your mom”
(upon arriving Sotenbori for the first time and being harassed by a thug, Kiryu canonically responds with the greatest line in video game history)


Michael Jackson and Steven Spielberg in Y0
(As Y0 was set in the 80s, two of the biggest names on Earth at that time are Steven Spielberg and especially Michael Jackson. Yakuza 0 placed these two as “Miracle Johnson'' and “Stephen Spining.” The substory goes where Kiryu has to help the two make a music video, and then Kiryu has a dance battle with the king of pop himself)


BE MY BABY / Adult baby patriarch
(be my baby is one of the most iconic substories in the series where Kiryu is invited to a club and meets with a woman who tries to change him into a diaper. Upon refusal, he accidentally knocks over a false wall, revealing a room full of Yakuza members in diapers. They take offense to Kiryu not joining in with them, and then Kiryu promptly beats the ♥♥♥♥ out of them, and teaches their boss a lesson that he shouldnt force his kinks onto others)


Debolah
(Debolah is a nightclub located in therete square that makes an appearance in Y0, 1 and K2. In Y0, Kiryu has his iconic encounter with Awano here directly after the motorcycle fight. In Y1, a ton of things happen here. Most notably a boss fight with two gangsters. And in Y2, Kiryu can pick up a total of 78 bouncer missions)

TIER 2 - THE TIP (PT.2)

Dragon engine physics
(one of the common complaints and talking points in the dragon engine games, especially the earlier ones, is the physics. Y6 introduced a brand new engine which introduced a physics system to ragdolls in fights. This completely changed the dynamic of the games, and in games such as K2 and Y6, NPCS are sent frequently flying across the map, leaping to the sky, bouncing off of walls, and other similar wonky things. As RGG studios progressed through the dragon engine games, this conversation has mostly died down because in games like LJ and 7, it's pretty much fixed with the issues)


Sotaro Komaki
(An old man who trains you to improve your abilities. Yakuza 5 is the last time we see him; what he does after that remains unexplored)


Heat is real and visible to everyone
(several characters in substories comment on being able to see Kiryu's heat aura meaning that its physically, actually there, as is not just a gameplay thing)


Hannya man isn't Majima
(a joke in YK where a man in a suit with a hannya mask approaches you with Komaki as part of his training. The man with the mask refuses to speak, and doesn't introduce himself with a real name, remaining anonymous. But, Kiryu caught on a bit, realizing that he looks familiar. However, Hannya man will continue to deny his identity even though we all know he is Majima)


Kiwami 2 filter
(while a few Yakuza games have filters over their games, Kiwami 2 has the worst one by far, adding a puke green filter over everything that's impossible to turn off without modding the game. It sucks especially as bad because Y6 looks so good without the filter)


Mama in Earth Angel
(the Mama in Earth Angel is named Ako Okano. Previous to starting Earth Angel, Okano is a founding member of the motorcycle game, “Black Thunder,” alongside Yuya. Fun fact, Okano appeared in every mainland game in the Judgment series, with the exception 6, due to the Champion District being blocked off)


Majima never kills
(canonically, Majima hasn't killed anyone despite a big dagger and a baseball bat being the weapons of his choice)


“God's right hand” Oneshot Y7
(god’s right hand is a move used by one of the final bosses of Yakuza 7, Tendo. Without using any items or a specific skill, this move is a guaranteed a one hit kill, even at defending and at full health, often messing up speedrunners who try to complete the game)


Money made you stronger in Y0
(pretty self explanatory, in Y0, you can invest the money that you receive into upgrading your abilities, therefore making you more powerful)


Toshihiro Nagoshi
(Toshihiro Nagoshi created the series and did so partly out of a dissatisfaction with how video games handled Japan's criminal underworlds. For the most part they hadn't, while other artistic mediums had done it justice already. There was a clear void and he wanted to fill it, and with the interest of both Hajime Satomi Sega Sammy CEO and Sony, Nagoshi was able to get the first game off the ground despite Sega, “expecting something different” from him. The rest is history. Nagoshi has had a hand, usually a big one, in every game since with his influence being omnipresent. One notable example you probably haven't heard of is Kiryu's name, Kazuma Kiryu. He is named after someone dear to Nagoshi and someone he chose to honor. That presence isn't going to last much longer though, since in October of 2021 after three decades, he was announced to be leaving both Ryu Ga Gotoku studio and Sega as a whole for NetEase, a chinese company known for phone games. Nagoshi joins NetEase as the CEO of a little outfit he just started, Nagoshi Studio. Apparently they're going to develop high quality console titles that'll be released globally so, it seems that more or less he's going to be doing the same ♥♥♥♥ he always has just somewhere else, good ending. Lost Judgment seems to be his last proper contribution to the series, though I wouldn't be shocked if half the ideas we see in Yakuza 8 are from him)


Secret homeless society in Kamurocho
(West Park was originally intended to be a public green space, as well as Kamurocho's subway access point. By 1988 however, the subway station had closed. This meant that the park had also fallen into disuse, becoming a makeshift village for Kamurocho's homeless population)

• Yakuza 0: Kazuma Kiryu takes refuge in a homeless man's shelter in West Park when Dojima Family members are prowling Kamurocho looking for him.
  
  
• Yakuza/Yakuza Kiwami: In the years between 1988 and 2005, a disgraced former police officer known only as The Florist of Sai decided to start employing West Park's homeless as agents for his new clandestine information-gathering business. Its headquarters and base of operations were set up in a secret pleasure district known as Purgatory, in West Park's disused subway station. Additionally, the original entrance was sealed off and replaced by a secret door in a toilet cubicle.
  
  
• Sotaro Komaki's training takes place in West Park. During the game's closing stages, Kiryu and Haruka Sawamura use a ramshackle cabin in the park as a safehouse whilst Kiryu, The Florist, and Makoto Date plot to storm Shangri-La.
  
  
• Yakuza 2/ Yakuza Kiwami 2: Between 2005 and 2006, Majima Construction demolished West Park to make way for Kamurocho Hills. The homeless population were forced out, and moved to Dragon Palace, as well as a number of underground sewers.
  
  
• After Kamurocho Hills was demolished following the events of the game, the name West Park was once again given to the former construction site. However, the homeless had not moved back in, and the area was made up of little more than a concrete pad with a builder's hut and the entrance to Purgatory. This is because West Park was still under control of the Majima Family, who were using it as a hideout.

• Yakuza 3: Kiryu comes to see Majima in West Park. He sees the lone builder's hut, which has a Majima Family sign on it. He enters to find nothing but a chair and table with a rotary-dial telephone on it. Next to the table is a note telling visitors to dial 007. Apparently not receiving a reply, Kiryu steps out to find the hut now surrounded by hundreds of Majima Family men, along with the patriarch himself. Majima invites him into Purgatory. When Kiryu returns to the surface, he unlocks the builder's hut as a hideout, as well as a store run by a Majima Construction worker near West Park's entrance.
  
  Kiryu can receive training from Mack Shinozuka here, as well access the House of Extras in Premium Adventure mode.
  
  After Yakuza 3, construction of Kamurocho Hills would resume, with its great opening happening in April of 2011)
  
  
  Hidden coin locker keys
  (there are locker keys scattered through several maps within the game including Sotenbori and Kamurocho. Sometimes, however, you cannot reach the keys through hand, so you'd have through first person to scan them)
  
  
  Majima kidnaps a child in the first game
  (before Majima became more of an anti-hero than a villain, he did some devious ♥♥♥♥ in the first game. Part of the main story in the first game involves him kidnapping Haruka just so he can have a swing at Kiryu. Its played off as “haha, funny Majima antics” but he still kidnapped a child)

TIER 2 - THE TIP (PT.3)

Joon-Gi-Han
(Joon-Gi-Han is a single identity passed through at least four different people, all with close ties to the Jingweon Mafia. I say four because three have been shown, and none of them are the original. The one we've gotten to know best is named Yeonsu Kim, who was unwillingly transformed into a Han in his abusive father's desperate attempts to free them both from ostracism for being biracial. His predecessor is a fairly prominent character on Yakuza 6, at least before getting clat to the end of a very awkward long battle. Contrary to how the story fumbles him, he is stated to be the most respected Han to date. The Han you likely haven't heard of is featured in Wanderings Of The Golden Dragon, the latest stark of Ryu Ga Gotoku Online, starring Ryuji Goda. He's tasked with assassinating Ryuji, fails, and is promptly sacked for being, “defective.” These characters don't last long)


Nishiki drove out to the forest to save Kiryu
(Kiryu is saved by Nishikiyama and he promptly asks Kiryu to get in his car to hide from Dojima family members who are searching for him. Nishikiyama drives Kiryu to the woods with intent to kill Kiryu to save him from the Dojima family and The Hole. Nishikiyama bursts into tears, unable to kill Kiryu, telling him he is nothing without him. Kiryu takes Nishikiyama's car and goes back to Kamurocho to finish what he started against Nishikiyama's wishes, informing him that from this point onward, they are no longer sworn brothers. As he drives off, Nishikiyama looks up towards the sky and yells with rage and misery)


Lost Judgment DLC
(LJ was the first game in the series to receive some full on story content in a DLC pack. While other games like 7 and the original Judgment have had some minor extras as DLC, LJ has a full fighting style, multiple substories, and an entire campaign starring Kaito locked away as DLC)


Unlocalized games
(while I'd say that the west currently has every Yakuza game worth owning, there are a few that are stuck in Asia. Kenzan and Ishin are set in the Edo and Bakumatsu periods of Japanese history, and placed the faces and voices of Yakuza characters onto ancient Japanese figures. Each and in particular is stated to have some of the best combat in the series. Kurohyō 1 and 2 are PSP spin-offs with entirely new cast of characters, focusing on Kamurocho's underground MMA scene, and Ryu Ga Gotoku Online is a gacha game. Series producer Daisuke Sato once stated that he'd want Kenzan and Ishin localized, but that because they're old they'd have to be remade. He also left Sega when Nagoshi did so, rip. There have been fan localization projects for Kurohyō 1 and 2, but I honestly have no idea how far along those are)


“Little baby Iwami”
(a line Kiryu has said, mocking Iwami (Yakuza 6’s final boss), presumably pissing the man off. This line is also constantly memed on the internet, whenever Iwami is mentioned, people also refer to him as “little baby Iwami” as a form of disrespect because who actually likes him, lol)


Cheat items to minigames found in lockers
(if any of you have played the other games, so many of them have cheat items that let you beat gambling minigames, usually in the coin lockers. Yakuza 0 didn't have these, so if you wanted to beat the gambling minigames, you had to do them legit. Not so in Kiwami. Items for all four casino games, all four Japanese gambling games, shogi, and mahjong exist in the game)


Fake Kiryu
(In YK2, there is a substory where an overweight man is impersonating Kiryu, and his other friend is mimicking Shinji. When Kiryu passed them, however, they strangely didn't recognize him even though they are dressed exactly like them, and Kiryu then proceeded to beat them up to teach them a lesson)


Underground
(could either be referencing Saejima’s underground manhole, the underground Purgatory, or the Yokohama underground Dungeon in Y7)


How Majima lost his eye
(He is missing his left eye, which was gouged out for insubordination in 1985 by disobeying Shibata by refusing to not go with his sworn brother Saejima to assassinate the entire Ueno Seiwa Clan. His eye wasn't taken by Shibata himself, but rather from one of his goons, where he was chained up and chose to disrespect the man in charge of watching him saying he’d “rather go blind than bow down to you, ♥♥♥♥♥,” then gets stabbed in the eye with a knife. His eyelid appears to still be intact, presumably due to Majima keeping his eye open when it was stabbed)

TIER 3 - THE UPPER BODY

Tanimura’s actor scandal / Tanimura’s VA change in remastered
(he is voiced by Toshiki Masuda, but in the original release on the PS3, he was voiced by Hiroki Narimiya and was molded to look after him. Sometime after the release of Yakuza 4, Narimiya was accused of drug abuse, cocaine, and other things. Everyone in the industry turned their backs on him and fell for it. But what actually happened was that a close friend of Narimiya went to sell his cocaine story to the press, making this situation more devastating. The entire situation can be read here: https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/comments/9qsn1r/why_tanimuras_actor_isnt_appearing_in_yakuza_4s/


Popularity surges
(didn't have much popularity in Japan at first and hit an all-time low when they released the English version of Yakuza Dead Souls. When Yakuza 5 was released, however, it was a hit and the biggest to date)


Mr. Libido real
(Mr. Libido is a real person, modeled after “Habu.”)
Link to video of him on set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS7_XGOsivA&t=873s&ab_channel=龍が如くスタジオ公式


Ichiban has schizophrenia
(mainly from how he views his fights as RPG battles because of his love of Dragon Quest. All of the things you see in Y7, like the class outfits, the class weapons, and the moves you do, are obviously not real in the game's universe because it only shows up when you get into the fight. It could be the trauma he has or his childlike liking for games; who knows)


JAV idols
(real actors involved with the adult life industry. They are most commonly seen as hostesses. Real-life names are used when they are NPCs. Nearly ever telephone card and hostess is played by and typically named by and modeled after real Japanese pornstars)


Mark Hamill voiced Majima
(Mark Hamill, commonly known for his role as Luke Skywalker, voiced Majima in the PS2 Y1 english dub)


Saejima Yakuza 4 scene with Haruka
(shortly after Saejima escapes prison, he lands at Kiryu's orphanage where the first person he meets is Haruka who drags him inside after seeing him knocked out on the shore. After he wakes up, he has a small conversation with her about where he's at, and then we get a cutscene that makes so many people uncomfortable. I’m not going to go in-depth about what happened, but if you really want to know, here's the scene upload to Youtube: (https://youtu.be/Y6HslpF3b5Y) Now let me make things worse for you by reminding you that Kiryu was watching this previously stranger to him over his daughter like that, and decided to keep observing. You're welcome)


Kiryu is gay
(commonly referencing joke theory how Kiryu doesnt like women sexually because he keeps denying sexual pleasures, especially in Y5 where a woman was taking her clothes off, and Kiryu just set her aside. Also, because of the very obvious Majima lurking behind his shoulder in YK. Kiryu has never been in a long-lasting relationship with a woman, and there is dialogue in Y5 where his boss has heard that people think Kiryu is gay/virgin (it's not explicitly said)


Localization-specific jokes
(mainly translations, bugs, etc.)


Yakuza speedrunning
(people speedrun all of the Yakuza games, including spin offs and the OGS. The more famously known speedrunner is a man named Froob, and it’s actually a very competitive field in which speedrunners have to write documents to assist them in speedrunning these games since there is so much knowledge and information to hold in each game)


Old boss fight styles get reused in the coliseum
(as a way of having a bunch of cool fights in the coliseum, and to save time and money, there are boss assets reused in the fights. They reused so many in the coliseum that it will be likely to list more characters who didn't get their assets stolen)


Cat shoes
(The cat shoes are an equipable item in the series which gets you way better financial luck and makes enemies get way more pissed off. Along with it, every single footstep you make it replaced with a cats meow)


Akiyama origin story
(Akiyama was a whiz kid graduating with a business degree at the top of his class landing a job at an investment firm, which he also quickly rose to the top of when he started dating his co-worker. Eventually, getting engaged but was fired in 2005 after getting framed for embezzlement. He spent all of his money trying to prove his innocence but failed, which led to him becoming homeless and his fiancee leaving him for the man who framed him)


Yakuza 4 betrayal streak
(around the end of Y4, Kiryu has been betrayed by Kido, who happens to be working for Katsuragi. Then Kido betrays Katsuragi, then it is revealed that he's been working with Arai. Then Arai shoots Kido, where it is revealed that he's working with himself. Then Kasturagi revealed that he saw the betrayal coming and kills Saejima's sister. But she betrays his naive thinking that he had a master plan by also killing him. This chapter this takes place in is literally called chain of betrayals)


Real brands / Real shops
(pretty much every Yakuza game aside of FOTNS has a bunch of real life brands within their cities. This ranges from items such as Mountain Dew, shops like Don Quijote, and of course, Club Sega. The Yakuza wiki has a full page of every product placement in the series)

Link to all brands placed: https://yakuza.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_product_placements


Haruka kidnap count
(Haruka has been abducted several times throughout the canon series. She first got kidnapped in Yakuza Kiwami by Majima, so he could Kiryu to fight him, then by Lau Ka Long. In Yakuza Kiwami 2, she was taken by Sengoku. In 5 she was kidnapped by Kanai, and by Sugai in 6)


Osaka Castle
(Y2 has a really weird moment that isn't ever referenced or acknowledged in the entire series past when it happens where a giant castle splits in half and a golden replica of that same castle rises from the ground to replace it. The castle is filled with ninjas and tigers. The only real explanation for this moment is that Kiryu was ZONKED due to blood loss and painkillers because he got stabbed earlier in the same chapter. Because otherwise, this is the most insane thing that's ever happened in any of the games by far, keep in mind this in in the main story of the game, it is not a side quest)


Original Yakuza 2 cut content
(one of the biggest things removed was an extra area called Shinseicho. In chapter 11 of Yakuza 2, the game takes you to this area for a specific objective, and you never return to it again. In Kiwami 2, this objective is done in Sotenbori instead. Another thing that was removed was Club Adam, a host club story where Kiryu could become a host and learns to keep customers company. And some small changes like boss music changes such as Hayashi not having his own boss theme and Koji Shindo giving a brand new track that's different from the original)


“Beautiful eyes”
(the line Joji mentioned towards Kiryu in Y3, also uncanny because he’s one of the first Japanese characters in the game who spoke English)


Y6 live chat
(Kiryu talks to a bunch of women online and a meme is implemented here where he tries to type out “boobies”)


Y6 ghosts / ghost photographs
(In Y6, you'll come across pictures of characters from other games on the floor. Upon taking a picture near the picture, their faces will appear in the pictures you've taken. They are mainly of the deceased such as Kazama and Nishiki. In Y6, it was a substory where Kiryu deals with fighting real ghosts)


Bob Utsunomiya
(return of the Joker 2019 character in the games, where he is pretty much exclusively there to be a special item and reward vender)

TIER 3 - THE UPPER BODY (PT.2)

Kiryu in Tekken
(Kiryu had a massive push to be imputed in Tekken. Katsuhiro Harada, the producer of Tekken said he was taken aback from the demand, and negotiated with the creator of Yakuza and said that Kiryu wouldn't appear because he doesn't want him seen beating up women)


Kiryu in Monkey Ball / Mafia City / Everybody Golf 6 / R6S
(Kiryu isn't a stranger to cameo roles and other franchises. His first appearance outside the series was in Everybody Golf 6 where he was a playable golfer. He's next been in Project X Zone 2, where he and Majima were playable fighters and featured heavily in the story. His next cameo appearance was in Monkey Ball, where he's a balled monkey. His latest appearance was as an ultimate costume as Echo in R6S. One final notable crossover is in the game Binary Domain developed by RGG studios where there were a couple of Yakuza skins. None of these collabs even compare, however, to the Mafia City collab. Yakuza had an official partnership and collab with Mafia City, the game where people memed the ‘level 100 boss’ or ‘that's how mafia works’)

Link to more info about Mafia City collab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w29yeIRmjgM&ab_channel=devilleon7


Fakers substories
(in both Yakuza and Judgment, there are many substories involved with total posers who are impersonating the main characters. This is some of the most memorable substories within the game, and of course, it resulted with fists)


Yakuza 3 substories are bad
(this one's subjective, but there is the distinct transphobic substory that got removed and another being the substory named early honeymoon, which was weird enough that it didn't make the cut in the original english release. It did get added to the remaster but it's still weird regardless)


No change in the plan
(reference towards Mine attempting to speak english over the phone, speaking to Andre, because Andre only speaks english. It was one of the first times you see a significant Yakuza character try to pronounce or use english in the main story aside from Joji)


Hostess minigame in Judgment
(there is a short segment in Judgment’s main story where you can turn Saori into a hostess, dressing her up and learning how to converse with other men as part of the job)


Insta win in coliseum tournaments by hitting people off the map
(In Breakout SP, this is only available once you reach the 30th rank or higher. In this single match, you'll face your opponent in a ring with destructible walls. Three solid hits on any of the walls will remove it, and either character can slip right out given a chance. Since this match can go really quick, I suggest using it to increase your Coliseum rank. If you have trouble getting your opponent out, don't forget that throws tend to work on just about anyone if you mash hard enough. Once your opponent is prone on the floor, try to walk into them to push them towards the edge, then smack them as they try to get back up to finish them off)


FOTNS: LP
(Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, known as Hokuto Ga Gotoku (北斗が如く, Hokuto ga Gotoku, lit. "Like the Big Dipper" or "Like a North Star") It series as another spinoff for the Yakuza games. In Japan, it is a video game produced by Sega. The game was released for the PlayStation 4 on March 8, 2018 in Japan. It is a 3D action-adventure game by the developers of Sega's Yakuza series (known as Ryū Ga Gotoku in Japan) and features the voice cast of the Yakuza series portraying established Hokuto no Ken characters. Yakuza characters Jo Amon and Sotaro Komaki also appear in the game. The story takes place in an alternate universe, as Kenshiro wanders into the post-apocalyptic haven of Eden in search of his lost love Yuria)


Majima’s Kansai accent is fake
(Majima Goro speaks with a Kansai accent, way back to Y0, which is usually considered to be a more casual form of speech overall. Majima uses this accent consistently in every single title that he appears in, but this does slip momentarily on one single occasion. Saejima even acknowledges it, mentioning Majima's accent multiple times, and at one point saying his "accent is slipping" and at another point says his accent has improved)


Yakuza challenge battles
(also known as “climax battles” are challenge fights you can start from the main menu. These are just tests of skill that aren't relevant to the overall game. Usually they are just boss rushes, fights with a certain restriction or time limit)


Daigo's responsibility as chairman
(Daigo's responsibility as a chairman is to keep the clan intact and functioning while keeping the cash flowing. This is difficult however due to being in prison and in a coma. Overall, the position was more forced upon him by Kiryu)


Millennium tower redesigns
(there are a few minor layout differences with the Millennium tower in the series, but overall it's one of the more consistent buildings, maintaining a consistent interior and exterior for the most part. With that being said, Kamurocho Hills has changed drastically over the course of the games)


Rare heat actions
(certain heat actions in the series requires such specific circumstances and locations that it’s entirely impossible you see them at least once per playthrough or not at all)


Hana weight loss
(during the time of Hana’s departure in the middle of Y4, and in the games epilogue, she loses a lot of weight, purely due to fasting)


Saejima enjoys being locked up
(joke referencing how almost every game we see Saejima in, he’s always in prison, for example: Y4 and Y5. But for once in Y7, he isn't being chained away behind bars)


Monkey Ball
(Nagoshi created Super Monkey Ball as a petty attempt to prove to the Sega CEO that they didn't have to hyper focus on expensive blockbusters to turn a profit. What started as a cute little arcade game about little monkey fellas rolling to goals, turned into a series of console games about little monkey fellas rolling to obscurity as the series experienced a harsh decline in quality after deluxe. Released for the franchise's 20th anniversary, Banana Mania was more or less a remake of deluxe with added content and developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. That added content includes bonus characters for the game's story mode and Kiryu is one of them. Bananas even turn into Stamina and bottles when you pick him)


Charismatic photo
(item obtainable in the series which increases the encounter rate for street fights to an absurd degree. When equipped, it's guaranteed that you'd be in non-stop street fights. Many people actually ask online why they are in so many street fights, being completely oblivious that they have the photo)


Protagonists going broke every game
(self explanatory, but especially directed at Shinada where he had the most impact to the point where he couldn't even afford a meal)


Y5 Akiyama full part
(unlike most protagonists in Y5, Akiyama’s segment in 5 is not as long. In fact, the game presents it as though Akiyama is part of Haruka's side story, as Akiyama only really had 2 chapters to himself)


Haruka’s fighting style
(I don't know if this is either referring to Haruka’s story moveset in Y5 in her idol battles, or the Ryu Ga Gotoku Online special trailer, where we see her kicking some goons along with other protagonists, but either way, it's still cool that she gets to contribute with battles of all kinds.

Link to her in the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8D8xjYPcZ4&ab_channel=devilleon7


Disbanding of Tojo clan
(In Y7, by 2019, it has collapsed entirely under the combined pressure of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force and the Omi Alliance)

TIER 3 - THE UPPER BODY (PT.3)

Shinada wealth consistency problems
(due to the fact that you can get money very quickly from substories and such, it no longer makes sense in dialogue when he says he has no money in Y5)


RGG Online
(official mobile gacha game for the Yakuza series. The story focuses on Ichiban, but it isn't the same as LAD. You are able to obtain many characters, dead or alive. This game was released in November 2018, and it's still up and running)


Majima’s jacket in Y3 (low poly)
(one weird oversight, or perhaps just a bad design choice in Y3, is where Majima’s jacket straight up looks terrible. It's almost comparable to the PS2 games for its texture work. There is a mod to fix it, and the side by side just compares how bad it is)


“Broken bones system” in Judgment
(mortal wound reference only in Judgment. This system basically just had it so if you took a serious hit from something like a sword or a gunshot, you will permanently lose a chunk of your health, unless you went to a doctor or used a very expensive or rare healing item. This was cut from LJ and any other game because it just wasn't fun)


"10 years in the joint made you a f*cking p*ssy"
(English Nishiki VL in Yakuza 1 that’s played when you fight him as the final boss, it’s memed on the internet)


Ishin bath house fight
(In Ishin, there is a particular scene where Kiryu (Sakamoto Ryoma) and Ryuji (Saigo Kichinosuke) have a….passionate manly bathhouse fight, the two wet and naked.

Link to full scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSxP3fowQ84&ab_channel=LiterallySatan

TIER 4 - THE LOWER BODY

Y3 cut content
(4 minigames cut out: Answer x Answer (a never seen-before minigame taken out because it revolves around the knowledge of Japan), massage parlor, shogi, and mahjong. Hostess minigames and dress-up were also taken away, but the substories for them were kept. Instead of meeting the hostesses in a host club, they were scattered amongst the city, like restaurants. Most of them were cut due to time constraints. One hostess was completely removed from the English release. A total of 22 substories were removed from the English release. The remastered version released in Japan and English completely removed Answer x Answer. Also, the hosts were replaced by Yui and Kana in the remastered version. And about 3 substories were also removed across all releases. These 3 substories were controversial. versions, they deemed the substories inappropriate and took them out since they were highly transphobic. BTW. Sega has a reputation for transphobia in the Yakuza series. I.e., Yakuza Kiwami substory 35, and how they generally model the characters, trying to make them blatantly manly. The only justice they made was in a substory in Y3, where they had a more accurate and positive representation of a trans woman, which Kiryu finds at a bar and respects.

Yakuza 3's original localization is about the bleakest we've ever gone, returning are the altered character names in colloquial slang. Yakuza 3 was particularly low budget, and the localization seems to be the biggest corner cut. Luckily, the game was entirely relocalized for the trilogy remaster and most of what was caught has since been re-added. Some things were left behind though, and among them includes this character, Michiru. Though the game insists on referring to them as either he or it, that only makes them a caricature of two things at once. I really hope I don't have to spell it out for you. Michiru is a sex-crazed maniac who attempts to and can potentially sexually assault Kiryu, a clear stereotype of both the gay men and trans women. And it makes for some of the most egregious ♥♥♥♥ I've ever seen in my life. “Some things that were considered okay at the time are not as good as the current moral values,” said Nagoshi. This series has always been and will likely always be written by old Japanese guys, and to this day that still bleeds into the script sometimes. Let's be real it's not like they know how to write cis women either, but what shocks me further is the fact that Michiru isn't the only example of, “trans representation” you can find in Yakuza 3. Ayaka, modeled after real trans personality Ayana Tsubaki, is handled with relative grace. This is like the complete polar opposite of what what earlier represented. It’s baffling that it's in the very same game)

More info on the cut of transphobic substory: https://www.thegamer.com/yakuza-3-remastered-transphobic-sidequest-removed/


Sam Lee
(replaced the model for Lao Gui in Yakuza 0, likely for three reasons. One, for recognition, is that a famous actor is in the game. Two, the original VA didn't speak foreign mandarin. Like Joon-Gi Han in Y6, where he doesn't speak perfect Korean. And lastly, the Chinese didn't want Lao Gui’s messed up face to represent Chinese people. Sam Lee a popular Hong Kong actor. This was done apparently because our Lao Gui’s Chinese is really bad. Too bad for a Chinese speaker to take him seriously. Getting a famous actor to do it was likely just a cherry on top. Side note, but when Yakuza 0 first dropped in the west, Lao Gui actually still had Sam Lee's voice this has since been patched)


Hamura's likeness changed controversy / Hamura’s original model
(Hamura’s face initially took after his VA Pierre Taki. However, after being arrested under suspicion of the possession of drugs, more specifically cocaine, RGG pulled out every copy of Judgment from the stores. This was around April 2019; at the time, only the Japanese release had been out, and the English release was set for June of the same year. This caused worries about whether the game would be delayed, as they now have to replace Pierre Taki. And surprisingly, no delay was in sight, and it was going to be released in June as originally planned. Square Enix also removed his voice work from Kingdom Hearts 3, and Sony Music stopped supporting his band, Denki Groove)


Meaning of each character's tattoos
(all the Yakuza tattoos had an insane amount of time and effort poured into their design and meaning. Kiryu’s represents justice, strength, balance, and wisdom, Majima’s represents being wild, dangerous, and full of sorrow, and Nishiki’s represents a constant uphill battle, as the koi is swimming up the stream to become a dragon. Dragons are a big deal in the Yakuza, and as such, the series. Generally, the bigger and more painful the thing the more devotion it's meant to convey. Dragons are rulers of the sky, quite literally top dogs. And while they're out there, they represent the permanent divide between Heaven and Earth, giving life to the concept of immortality and by extension, patience. Pearls are symbols of purity and longevity which is why Kiryu's dragon both covets and matches one with its silver sheen as does Kiryu himself in his silver jacket. The sanskrit character seen within the pearl simply calls back to 1968, the year of the monkey, and the year Kiryu was born. Tendo's dragon is blue, like the dragon fought at the very end of Dragon Quest 1 on the Famicom. Though this dragon is depicted as purple everywhere else. With Ichiban being a massive Dragon Quest fan, as Tendo served as Y7’s true final boss, this fight could be an intentional callback. Ichiban's dragon isn't a dragon. It's a dragon-koi. The koi to dragon legend depicts a koi swimming to the very top of a waterfall, and being transformed into a dragon as a reward for its tenacity. Ichiban's tattoo represents a transformation not complete, but imminent. In Ryu Ga Gotoku Online's version of events, both he and Sawashiro decide to get dragon koi tattoos in representation of the fact that they both helped to match Arakawa. One day though, in Y7 it simply waved away as a concession Ichiban had to make due to not being worthy of a true dragon when he got it. Beyond dragons we have Saejima’s tiger. Tigers, being viewed as rivals to dragons who are equally as powerful, but in different ways. Then there's Mine's tattoo of a Kirin. They are incredibly protective creatures that only appear when a powerful and benevolent leader needs the most. My personal favorite though is Majima’s hannya. The hannya being a woman turned demonic after having been consumed by rage or sorrow. A hannya mask depicts differing emotions depending on what angle you look at it from. It's either laughing, angry, or depressed. Then, there's the snake on his shoulder, a common representation for rebirth or drastic chains since they shed their skin)

Link to all tattoo meanings thread: https://twitter.com/NateMing/status/1257491706171158529?s=20&t=oGONN_7PrSlnvSilQSzqgw

Link to Majima’s tattoo meaning in depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eRxlnFwyvY&list=PLIWGEEYpnKpf99nF_NWFwMIAhyxqqtr2C&index=2&t=2s


Substories are canon
(i.e., in Yakuza 6, Kiryu blocked the piss coming out of Haruto, claiming, “I'm not falling for that again,” in reference to Yakuza 4, where a baby lets out a big one on Kiryu's face)


Original man in black
(man in black is a Jeongwon mafia member whom you fight multiple times in the course of Y2 and YK2. Most commonly known as the most annoying guy you fight in the game. In the OG version, the man in black is nowhere near as annoying as he is in YK2, mainly because he doesn't have knife boots)

TIER 4 - THE LOWER BODY (PT.2)

Kimura (Yagami actor) blocked / blurred out in official IRL photos
(Johnny’s is so protective of their agents, that the photos of Kimura couldn't even be found on their said website, as they were not listed. They were also taken out of magazines and social media accounts. Kimura wasn't on his own until 2019)


Nagoshi is / used to be Yakuza
(A meme based on his appearance)


New Serna doors mystery
(the inside of New Serna has a fairly consistent layout. The front door leads to an elevator, the backdoor leading to a staircase, and the other 2 being safe rooms assuming for them to be closets to bathrooms. One part that is absolutely not consistent is the actual floor and location of the back entrance. In every game, the back staircase in Serna is a different spot)


Ace Attorney in Yakuza
(during the story in Judgment, you need to clear a case of a missing pastry in the law office. The characters will point their index finger across the screen and shout “objection!” just like in the Ace Attorney games)


Amon dance battle
(in Y5, Haruka has her own Amon, Noa Amon, where she challenges you to a dance battle)


Karaoke started from Y3
(despite karaoke being one of the iconic minigames in the series, the game didn't introduce karaoke until Y3. This was somewhat rectified with the Kiwami games having karaoke, but the original PS2 Yakuza games didn't. Releasing Y3 marked the first time Karaoke was released in the series with songs such as “Kamurocho Lullaby” and “Saturday Night Lover”)


Real Yakuza opinion on the game
(back when Y3 came out, a reporter got in contact with real members of the Yakuza and got them to sit down and talk about the game while playing it. They found Kamurocho to be dead on to what the real district was once like, found the characters to be realistic, to real life guys they know, but really ♥♥♥♥ on Kiryu's drip including his tattoo. Overall, they were favorable to Y3, and of course, this is an interview for over 10 years ago and only on one game in the series, so the general opinion might be different these days)


Majima’s allergy
(referencing Majima’s sneeze in Dead Souls. Dead Souls has a fakeout where Majima is bitten by a zombie and begins to turn, with his eye turning red and everything. It's revealed that the zombie who bit him had dentures though, and his eye was only red because of allergy season, and he's allergic to pollen)


Cut licensed songs
i.e.

• The final battle with Mine, “Fly,” is cut out with “looser” for the Japanese version.
  
  
• Yakuza 4 originally had an intro name called “Butterfly City.” In the English release, we got an instrumental version of “For Faith.”
  
  
• In Yakuza 5, the intro was named “Bloody Moon”; in English, we got an unreleased track.
  
  
• Yakuza 0’s intro is played by a song named, “Bubble” in English; there is a new version specifically made for the release.
  
  
• The Yakuza Kiwami intro played a song named “Bleed” meanwhile, the English used “Vertical Point.”
  
  
• For Dead Souls, the intro was “Mutation,” and in the English release, it had a custom-made one for it.

ALL LICENSED SONGS REFERENCED HERE FOR MORE: https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/comments/jj5nqs/list_of_songs_we_lost_due_to_licensing_issues/


Akiyama in Yakuza 1
(a missed opportunity that fans talked about. When you learn more about Akiyama in Yakuza 4, you learn that Kiryu is a hero to him because the tower explosion in 1 that helped Akiyama go from rags to riches. At the end of the first game on the PS2, there is a particular homeless man that they focused the camera on when the money had just started to rain. Akiyama was still not a thing in the series, so naturally, this was just a random homeless guy passing by. But at the end of Yakuza Kiwami, they showed the same homeless man but what got fans talking is how they could have placed Akiyama in the scene instead, which was going to make so much more sense)


Wrestlers in Yakuza
(the Yakuza games have a ton of cameos from real world Japan pro wrestlers. The biggest cameos being the entire lineup of bad guys from the YK2 Majima construction storyline. These wrestlers are: Keiji Mutoh, Masahiro Chono, Riki Choshu, Genichiro Tenryu, and Tatsumi Fujinami)


Majima’s history with his wife / Majima’s aborted child
(Majima and Park were married, but things didn't work out between them because Park was an idol at that time. And Japan, generally speaking, idols are supposed to have this spitting image of cuteness and purity. So, if word got out that they were involved romantically with some Yakuza, that would be bad for them. I.e., the IRL idol was forced to shave her head on camera and was also forced to apologize after it came to light how she had a boyfriend. Calling this a harsh act towards the agency is underselling it. Going back to Majimas and Park, the two were romantically involved which was of course kept under wraps, but Park got pregnant with Majima’s child, and she aborted the child to continue with her career, which upon hearing out, Majima hit her. Majima thought he wasn't doing the relationship any favors, so he had a divorce. After that, the agency found out about the marriage, and she had to quit the industry eventually)


Dead Souls limited edition
(Dead Souls is the only game in the series to receive a special edition in the west. It came with a steel bookcase and a special item pack. This item pack gave you guns, items, and a couple of outfits for hostesses, nothing special)


Digital only Yakuza 5
(Yakuza's international popularity is relatively recent prior to Y0, you could say it hardly got off the ground outside Japan, and it shows in the localization efforts. There are altered character names, removed mini-games, Japanese colloquial slang swapped to that of more western familiarity, etc. Prior to Y0’s explosion in popularity, the series hardly had the confidence to just let its nuts hang and it's because it hadn't proven itself yet, to the point that Sega nearly gave up after Dead Souls of all games flopped, and Yakuza 5 almost didn't come here. When it did, the localization was such a beast of a task that it came three years late and was made digital only to cut costs - not to mention the fact that the PS3 was on its last legs in 2015. Collectors wouldn't get a proper PS3 box until the release of the remaster collection. Now this part is a little flimsy, and probably completely wrong but i'm including it anyway. 5 was apparently released as a result of the #buildingthelist initiative. It seemed to be a widespread effort to get certain Playstation games localized, kinda like operations Moonfall and Rainfall from a few years prior)


Lau Ku Long is alive
(Lau Ku Long is a villain who made his first appearance in Yakuza 1 or Yakuza Kiwami as the head of the snake flower triad. Kiryu confronts him late into the game to take Haruka back, and he doesn't show up again until Y3, when he comes back for revenge and now takes Rikiya hostage to force Kiryu to fight him. After their fight, Kiryu attempts to save Rikiya, but Lau holds him back and orders his men to hurry and kill Rikiya. This is followed by abrupt gunshots that kill both Lau’s men, and then Lau himself gets shot in the head, killing him. Or did it? In Y7, a certain substory takes you to a Chinese part of Yokohama where you try to seek a legendary weapons dealer. After going through a set of tests, you meet the man himself. Looking familiar; his name is “Chau Ka Long.” Ichiban introduces himself and says he's from the Tojo clan, and Chau stops to think for a bit and brings up Kazama and Kiryu. Knowing that Lau has a history with Kiryu, we also know that there was a scene in YK where Kazama breaks into a triad hideout to save Kiryu and has his leg injured in the process. How Lau survived a clear headshot that wasn’t a rubber bullet is beyond me, but Kashiwagi surv

TIER 4 - THE LOWER BODY (PT.3)

Yakuza movie Y0 fortune teller
(substory in Y0 serves as a pretty amusing fan service. She claims that she can see the future, and there are three main things she will tell you about. His future, his family, and his career. When choosing his future, he asks her to tell him what's going to happen 10 years from now in which she says he will get heavily blamed for someone else. And as you know, that's exactly what happens in Yakuza 1, where Kiryu takes the fall for Nishiki shooting Dojima. She also mentions the word Millennium in reference to the tower that did not exist in Y0. When you choose the family option, she brings up wrestling a viper in Okinawa, in reference to the battle Kiryu had with Rikiya in Y3. Then she says there would be a child who trusts him deeply. This, of course, is Haruka. Then, she drops the bomb on Kiryu, stating how the he’ll raise 8 kids, which Kiryu refuses even to imagine, but we all know the truth that he raises in the orphanage. When she mentions his career, she mentions a city called Fukuoka and being a taxi driver, and this is indeed what he does and where he would go in Y5. Lastly, she says he would bump into a young man when he was going, and their fates would meet sometime down the line. And what do you know, Kiryu runs into kid Ryuji)


Today Is A Diamond double meaning
(karaoke song exclusive to Yakuza 6. The song is very bright and has an upbeat tone and imagery, but if you didn't know the lyrics, you couldn't have guessed it was depressing. This is a song where for the majority of it, the speaker is begging someone dear to him to wake up so that the two can spend some time together. On a deeper level, waking up here is not waking up from sleep, but rather from death or a state similar enough.

• The Haruka theory is ok to consider in the game version, but the full song outside of the cutout version has a specific lyric where it is intended to be directed toward a love interest. That line is, “because i'll flirt with you like a grown man” obviously, this rules out the Haruka category theory, but, there's a line right before that where he makes it seem like he's singing about Yumi as his love interest as he mentioned to Haruka being with them on this vacation saying “together with our dear one.” the cherry on top is when the last line of the song is just “maybe I should sleep too” where he contemplates joining them, a bit suicidal)

Kiwami 2 haunted cursed tape
(this is a substory in Yakuza 2 / Kiwami 2 in which you meet a frantic man near the Champions District. This substory, interestingly enough, differs from both versions)

• The man passes a videotape to you and rushes off doing so. Now, in the original, he tells you again and again that you should avoid watching it at all costs, but in the Kiwami version, he gets into a state of hysteria and tells you that you should watch it because it has some 18 plus erotica stuff bro, trust me. After taking the tape and attempting to watch it, Kiryu finds himself watching a jumpscare of some pale lady on the screen. Upon heading out, he is approached by an old man who tells him that he senses wicked spirits around Kiryu and tells him that he can perform an exorcism on Kiryu for money. In the original, you are able to pay the man or choose not to pay. Paying him will let him perform a half-assed exorcism, and buzzes off. And in the substory catalog, where it says the exorcism was completed, Kiryu thought he was scammed. But if you don't pay, the old man says that Kiryu has a horrible fate coming to him. While going to the palace where you first met the first guy will trigger an event where Kiryu says he feels like someone is watching him. And there she is, the lady in red from the videotape stalking you. The camera angle you see her in the street is from the uncanny valley since you never see this specific angle from any Yakuza games. Upon following her from the turn she takes, you see that she has vanished, but she left a message saying they'll be waiting at a certain place. When you go there, you get jumped by a lot of men with masks. After defeating them, it will reveal that one of them was the exorcist from before. Kiryu says that he didn't expect that woman to also be in on that whole scam, and that's when the old dude strikes with the heebie jeebies saying, “What? What woman?” he admits that he came here because he got tipped off by an acquaintance of his that is a rich guy who would be coming here. He gives you money as compensation for the trouble, and the substory ends there, wondering who that woman was. In the original, we never see that woman again.
  
  
• In Kiwami 2, how they handled things, from when the exorcist asks you to pay up, unlike the original, with K2, you cannot say no to the payment in this part. So he asks you to meet him at a certain place once you have the money. You also meet the terrified man from the beginning, and he asks you if you've watched the tape. Kiryu says he did, to which the guy thanks him for it, and says he's finally free from the curse. In the original, you don't see the guy again. While heading toward that specific location with the money, it shows you a scene similar to the original where the ghost lady is standing in the middle of a road. She runs away, and you follow her, but she vanishes at the turn she takes. But unlike the note in the OG, the exorcist approaches you, and it's here where you can pay or not pay. But if you choose not to pay, the substory remains on hold until you do. Once you pay, he chants at you and gives you a blessed stone, asking a lot of yen for it. After that though, the exorcist sees the ghost lady behind Kiryu, and his act falls apart, admitting everything on the spot, returning your money, and running like hell. We see the ghost lady just about to touch Kiryu, but Kiryu accidentally drops the tape, breaking it, and she disappears, and the substory is completed. In other words, his clumsiness saved his life.
  
  
• In the OG version, who left that message telling Kiryu to find the exorcist? If it was the ghost lady, was she trying to save Kiryu from this scam? Because she wasn't human, we can rule her out of being a part of the scam. And if it was the exorcist, why would he leave a message in a random corner of a city where Kiryu normally wouldn't even think of going? The part about the message remains a mystery still, and also the fact that the ghost never appears after the part where Kiryu follows her. This makes the substory very vague. Although having said that, this vague nature of it might just be a good thing because it leaves you wondering what just happened and why it happened because this is the one horror-themed substory among the hundred of substories that are either goofy or scams. Also, going back to the K2 version, I wonder if Kiryu was clumsy with dropping the tape or if the ghost wanted to break him free of the curse. The ghost wanting to save him from the curse of all people doesn't make sense)

TIER 4 - THE LOWER BODY (PT.4)

Haunted Printcircle
(In Yakuza 5, playing as Akiyama, you may come across a couple of high school girls talking about the haunted printcircle at Club Sega in Sotenbori, saying that if you take a picture there, a ghost will show up behind you. You'll see a guy with a ghost-face-looking mask photobomb your picture when you play along. Akiyama chases after this guy, and when he captures him, he apologizes for pulling this prank. He says he does this to scare people and get money, and he takes off the mask and you get a good look at his face. You later run into the same schoolgirls and talk to them about the ghost. They show you a picture of the printcircle ghost, and it's the same guy you've spoken to. But, without the mask. Akiyama says he just chased this guy down and got him to stop, which shocked the girls because this guy was dead for three years. During one of his pranks, someone got pissed with him and chased him down, and he got run over by a car. Akiyama has an existential crisis, and the substory ends shortly after. But this substory makes us ask the obvious: do ghosts exist in the Yakuza universe? Well, more than likely since this is not the only ghost substory in the series)


Nagoshi as Jingu
(in Like A Dragon the movie, the same movie that covers the events of Yakuza 1, Kyohei Jingu is played by Toshihiro Nagoshi, the ex-general director of RGG Studio. You gotta respect how involved this man wants to be with these games, he is the reason they exist after all)


Kashiwagi in LAD - how did Kashiwagi survive Y3?
(In LAD, Kashiwagi appears as the bartender in the “Survive Bar.” In one of the substories in the game called “the lone survivor,” he offers Ichiban a drink after seeing him beaten up and claims that he knows what he's been through, and goes on to say at one point in his past, he was attacked by a helicopter and doctors said he wouldn't pull through, but he miraculously did. He also says that he named this bar “Survive” to remind himself how precious life is)


Beta Yagami in Yakuza 2 files
(hidden somewhere in the files of Kiwami 2 well before the release of the first Judgment game, there is a model looking similarly like Yagami. This model could have been a placeholder to work with Takuya Kimura)


Slurs in the original Yakuza
(mainly referencing Kiryu saying “r*tard” and many “♥♥♥♥♥” as they could implement into the game. Also, in the older games terms like okama is used, which is a slur used to describe trans women in Japan)


Kurohyou
(also known as blank panther) is about a violent teenager framed for a crime he did not commit in the first game. The game has 2 more Japanese release exclusives, this time only being available for the PSP. These games had you play as a new character in Kamurocho, and were unique for letting you customize your moves and your fighting style. A small team came together and created a full fan translation patch for Black Panther 2. The first game takes place in Kamurocho, while the second game takes place in Kamurocho and in addition, Sotenbori. Kurohyou takes place in 2010 in the Yakuza canon, and 2 takes place in 2012. Judgment and Kurohyou are similar in the sense that in Judgment, you see the game from a detective's POV, while in Kurohyou, you see it from a teenager's POV. This game never saw the light of day outside of Japan. However, there are English patches that will let you enjoy the game to its fullest)


Saejima toilet stall scene
(In one cutscene from Y4, Saejima attempts to enter Purgatory through the bathroom entrance, only to find a guy…well, answering nature's call. But what is so weird is the extent of the guy's jaw drop and how he keeps the exact same face throughout the entire scene. The more you look at it, the creepier the guy’s face gets. It's one of those things that are so unnecessarily creepy, only to be fallen down the uncanny valley subject)


Hamazaki duck scene
(much like the Saejima toilet scene in Y4, this isn't anything hidden but rather into the uncanny valley factor. In a cutscene shown in Y3, Hamazaki is shown to be trying to intimidate a Chinese restaurant to get them to regularly pay protection money. He waves a clever to scare the guy, but then he eats the dead duck's head off the table, resulting in a very uncanny chewing and crunching sound effect. It has to be one of the weirdest ways of asserting dominance)


Putin in Yakuza 0
(one of the NPCS in Y0 looks oddly similar to Putin, the substory location from where he appears obviously being a reference)


Takashima and Kei Ibuchi
(In the OG Y2, Takashima looks completely different, representing a younger, handsome male. But in the Kiwami version, they decided it was best if he looked like his VA, Hakuryu. The original Takashima bears a resemblance to Kei Ibuchi from the Majima saga from YK2)


Date solo game / Playable date
(In Yakuza Kiwami, In the climax battle proving grounds 10, you can play as a drunk looking Date. You must beat all 3 goons in front of you within the time limit. He would have the brawler-style icon of Kiryu. His style is very clunky and very difficult, but with a little control, you can deal with it with no problem)


Kiryu’s scrapped Yakuza 6 outfit
(Kiryu intended or planned to have the blue jacket, jeans, and white shirt outfit. It's one of the more casual outfits that Kiryu has ever worn)


Ryu Ga Gotoku 1&2 HD
(way back in 2012, exclusively in Japan, Sega re-released Y1 and Y2 in HD on the PS3. These titles have never actually made their way towards the west since PS2)


Game Japanese names
(It's pretty well known that the series in Japan isn't called Yakuza, but rather Ryu Ga Gotoku, or Like A Dragon. A less known piece of trivia is that some of the games still have subtitles above that. Some examples include Y0 being named Like A Dragon 0: The Place Of Oath, and Yakuza 4 being named Like A Dragon 4: The Successor Of Legend. There's a few other ones, and one actually made its way to the west, with Y6 being called Y6: The Song Of Life)


Real Obatarian age
(the Obatarian is a middle aged woman making her first appearance in Y0. Her age is never stated directly, but based on her title, which is a Japanese term for describing a specific type of middle aged woman, we can assume she's around 40-50 years old. She’s still kicking 20 years later as she's physically in K2 for a substory. Along with this, she's in the karaoke leaderboards in Y6 as well as in Y7 where she's referenced, adding another 10 years to her age)


Yakuza 3 boxart scandal
(the first original Y3 boxart was so bad, being one of the worst in the series by far. The other thing it could be referring to is that upon the re-release of Y3 remastered, the cigarette in Kiryu’s mouth was removed due to the Japanese government cracking down on smoking for the past decade. This got carried over to the English version as well. It's common practice to release games with slightly altered box arts in different locations, and often dodgy attempts to appeal to those demographics. This stuff happens with film too. John Boyega gets cut out of shiny Star Wars posters because Melanin is evil over there. When it comes to games though, these tend to range from a bit strange to god-awful and while the series is generally innocent here, Yakuza 3 is one of my favorite examples of the latter. Just look at this: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/yakuza/images/7/7d/Y3_Cover_GR.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190726152724 what about this screams west to you? Nothing. The Japanese one at least had a cigarette in it, that's pretty american I think)


Low poly rats in Y4
(within the sewers of Y4, if you look closely, you could spot the animation of the low poly rats scurrying around in the sewers)


Sharks
(there are many of sharks within in the series, in the fishing minigames as well as the spear fishing minigame)

TIER 4 - THE LOWER BODY (PT.5)

Other Sega soundtracks in stores
(as Yakuza recycles some of its assets lying around, Sega also gave the ok to use some of their songs to appear in random shops i.e., Silver’s theme - Sonic ‘06, Catch me if you can - Sonic Riders)


Johnny and Associates
(talegent agency representing Takuya Kimura, who plays the leading character in Judgment. Over the past few years, Sega has been negotiating with them to release the series on PC because they want increased sales. But reports have said that Johnny’s is refusing to budge, not letting it happen. As a bit of context, these guys are super tight with their image rights, and they are super slow to adapt to new forms of media, only adapting to YouTube in 2018. This dispute between Sega and Johnny's has resulted in Sega possibly canceling the franchise, as Takuya was such a huge pull for the series. And also plays Yagami, the main guy. This dispute was years ago, but hasn't been mentioned ever since Judgment finally got released to PC. We don't know exactly what happened with the agency, if they came to good terms or not, but people are just glad that Judgment is finally ported in general)


Where is the Florist after Y4?
(after Y5, the Florist straight up disappears from the series. Probably because he's too much of a writing crutch, obviously his inclusion in 6 would have been a quarter of the game with 5 minutes long, because Kiryu wouldn't have to find Haruka and Akiyama on his own. As in Y7 and in LJ he still hasn't returned, so I bet on him being gone for good)


Kiryu dies at the end of Y5
(starting off with this, obviously future games have debunked this, but lets go over this as if Y5 was the last one. Now near the ending of Y5, Kiryu was shot by Kurosawa in the gut. He wraps this up, and is mostly stabilized until the very end, where his wound begins bleeding again, and after a lengthy battle of Aizawa. After the credits roll, he begins to bleed out in the street, with the game cutting black once he collapses. He is woken after being found by Haruka, who stays with him until the games closing screen. Now her finding him is already a bit suspicious because Haruka went from doing a concert in Tokyo Dome to happening to find Kiryu on some random backstreet somewhere in Tokyo. And Tokyo is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ huge place. Kiryu even comments on this, asking if he's dreaming because her being there is so absurd. But upon here, it cuts black for the first time as Kiryu collapses. That was it for him. Then he died. This isn't even that far-fetched unless Kiryu called Haruka or something. There is genuinely zero chance she would have found him. None if this isn't even taken with consideration of how Haruka would have been swarmed by media and fans after what she said in the ending, and she didn't have any form of transportation, she didn't have a car or anything but would have also had to keep Kiryu alive and stable long enough for him to get medical attention.

With that being said, stamina drinks can canonically heal people, as seen in Y0. This could only reference how Kiryu is superhuman as even a bottle to the head in YK2 didn't phase him at all, along with the many shots he's taken from Lao Giu in Y0, the stab he received in Y3, the poisonous stab he also received in YK2, the fact that he punched a stone sculpture in half and didn't flinch, took several beatings from an iron pipe and still was conscious, etc.

ALSO this is probably why he can fight those pirate ghosts in the Onomichi cemetery


Where is Tanimura after Y4?
(he is nowhere to be seen after Y4, but considering the actor's conflicts, he most likely would never be mentioned again. Tanimura is probably still on the police force after 4 although he never appeared again even near the end of 5 when the Omi Alliance and Kanai was fighting the 4 protagonists of 5 (although they split up later and it was only Akiyama and Kiryu remaining)


Majima grabbed inspiration for his persona from different people
(I would agree that he has drawn inspiration from the likes of Lee, Nishitani, and Sagawa. However, I would disagree that he was inspired by Lee in the way that he was mentioned. Majima would go to any lengths to protect his loved ones, but only so far as not to risk himself or the lives of his loved ones in his process. While Lee was willing to resort to doing dirty things to protect Makoto, he was still extremely cautious. He was careful not to take too many personal risks as he understood that he could only protect Makoto if he was alive.

• As for Nishitani, I don't think Majima was inspired by his lust for pleasure. No, Nishitani was all about high risks and high rewards. He had a devil may care, you only live once attitude. He took on a great deal of added risk and paid no attention to the possible consequences. Hell, he is aware that Majima messed his men up single-handedly on two occasions. Yet he still shows up to the Grand without protection, acts like he owns the place while Majima is away. He then overextends his capabilities and calls the cops on himself before challenging Majima to a one-on-one fight. And in the end, he willfully receives a mortal injury to protect his precious rival- which inspires Majima to do something similar for Kiryu in the future. If Majima inherited anything from Nishitani, it's his recklessness and incomprehensible courage.
  
  
• I'd also like to suggest that he drew plenty of inspiration from Awano too. Lee, Nishitani, and Sagawa were the zenith of personalities; personalities that would effortlessly thrive in the world of Yakuza. Then, you have Awano, who started off as an indomitable brute, only to unwittingly deteriorate into a hedonist. If anything, Awano was a reality check. He was a cautionary tale, a possible fate for someone like Majima if he didn't change his ways. Awano’s death demonstrated a need for a new persona. a personality that would better his status as a Yakuza, as his normally compassionate nature literally cost him a great deal in 0. So he adopted the most competent qualities of Lee, Nishitani, Sagawa culminating in the Mad Dog Of Shimano. I feel this explains how he is able to drop the Mad Dog personality so quickly when he is facing Kei Ibuchi in Yakuza Kiwami 2. I mean, he drops the act so easily in the middle of a time period when he was the absolute craziest)

Where is Shinada after Y5?
(Shinada probably went back to his regular life in some way after the events of 5 and never appeared again)


Judgment 2
(not exactly certain what they was referencing, probably because Judgment came out with another game named “Lost Judgment” instead of “Judgment 2”)


What was Hamazaki doing in Y3?
(during Yakuza 3, Hamazaki was portrayed to be very cruel and sadistic. During his introduction, he bombs a Chinese restaurant and was implied to have planned the assassination of Osamu Kashiwagi, but we dont see him doing much else)


Tanimura is hiding from the Amon clan
(in Yakuza 5 all of the same Amon members return, but since Tanimura is absent, Shinada is the one who ends up fighting Sango)


Omelette is related to Nugget
(Nugget is a genetically modified lab chicken, gene spliced to provide her with hyper intelligence and an exceptionally long lifespan in excess of 30 years. After escaping the ADDC, she came under the care of the Mach Bowl girl, posing as her pet, while looking for an exceptional individual to make use of her unique talents. She found that in a man named Kiryu. After being impressed by his bowling skills, Nugget took a job at his real estate company, becoming one of the top property managers in Tokyo. After Kiryu lost his business when the bubble burst, she wandered around a bit, taking various odd jobs. In 2016 she ran for office and won a seat on the local council. She is now fighting to get every Wild Jackson in Kamurocho shut down)

TIER 4 - THE LOWER BODY (PT.6)

Komaki is immortal
(since Komaki has been around since the Edo period, I'd say he's fairly immortal, as he's nearly in every Yakuza game. At a conservative estimate, Komaki looks like he is 60 in Yakuza 0, meaning that he would be 84 in Yakuza 5 and still fights like that? He can't be human)


Kiryu is suicidal
(there is a good analysis on this from the Tumblr post by majimemegoro, where they state: on the surface, Kiryu is a classic example of the video game player protagonist: quite serious and not too smart, a tough guy inclined to solve problems with his fists, but with a heart of gold. But paying close attention to his characterization over time and in substories reveals that he is not only a delightfully complex and realistic character in his own right, but also a brilliant deconstruction of the trope. His taciturnity is balanced by a vibrant interest in the world and people around him, and an eager willingness to engage. He gets quietly but easily excited by trivial prizes and accomplishments. He likes games. He has a slightly unintelligible moral outlook that he sticks to with boundless tenacity. His shortsighted battle-readiness causes him to run into grave errors that repeatedly nearly get him killed. His zest for fighting collapses into suicidal ideation, his participation in shallow machismo contests concealing a longstanding desire for death, for suffering to end. His impulsive, at times genuinely stupid behavior is a result of this suffering becoming habit and coalescing into self-destructive behavior that simultaneously apes and genuinely serves a real purpose.

• His own suffering makes him gentle and generous to others, and makes him a fierce defender of the value of life. He continually offers the hand of friendship to fallen and humiliated enemies, even when this desire to forgive poses in turn a risk of death.
  
  
• Most importantly, where other video game protagonists become the unwilling protector of a young person they grudgingly come to love, Kiryu willingly and deliberately devotes himself to seeking out and protecting vulnerable children. And he loves them so much, and he loves them openly and obviously and tenderly and with acts of kindness, and he sometimes makes choices that hurt them, but these choices always come 100% out of his love for them, and not out of the vulnerability he feels about his image as a macho man. His love is never presented as a source of weakness, only as a source of strength.
  
  
• Another analysis by them, is the one specifically targeting Kiryu in Yakuza Kiwami 2: For me, Y2 is the story of Kiryu trying to die. We see him go to meet with the Omi when everyone is telling him it's certain death. we see him trying to get Kaoru to take his life as some kind of stupid reparation for his negligible involvement in the death of her parents at the age of twelve. (TWELVE.) We see him pull a knife out of his gut wound. Then at the end theres a) the fight with Ryuji and b) the fact that he doesn’t take the chance to leave before the bomb goes off. There might be other examples but i can’t remember. So over the whole game we watch Kiryu trying to die, at first in the service of “worthwhile” projects, in the service of utility and honor, but none of it pans out and we see his self-destructive behavior gradually become more pointless, e.g the knife. But he's still alive.
  
  
• Then in the ending sequence at the top of Kamurocho Hills, we reach the - in a way natural - conclusion of that. Kiryu is left with the absolute thinnest justification for seeking death, a sort of existentially (in the sense of the specific philosophy) valuable activity that is valuable/honorable/meaningful at all only because he decides it is. Only because he can’t see beyond not wanting to live. Only because he knows that going out with dignity in the midst of a crisis is a “good” way to die. So he gives up on even pretending to have altruistic motivations and he admits to himself at least on some level that, yeah, he wants to help people, but he also wants to die. And people have been helped - the day has been saved as much as it could be - so now he can die.
  
  
• I think that's why he stays to fight Ryuji. On some level it is absolutely a shallow machismo contest, but it's also Kiryu grabbing onto the only thing he can see that has meaning. It's also Kiryu getting a way out that will feel strong and dignified and almost metaphysically important. It’s suicidal ideation masquerading as thymos. Physical combat makes an apt stand-in for meaningful activity because it is inherently tied to life and death: physical combat can make a division between life and death, and life and death are important, so fighting Ryuji must be important too, right? And then he can die, right? and then-

And yeah, he’s going to be leaving Haruka behind. He doesn’t have a justification for that. But I think he really can’t see beyond just wanting things to stop.

Is it selfish? Yes, in a way. Is it psychologically compelling? I say absolutely)


Yakuza in Persona 5
(we've got Joker as Kiryu, Ann as Majima, Makoto as Saejima, Ryuji as Ryuji, Yusuke as Akiyama, Haru as Haruka, Futaba as the Florist, and Morgana as Sonic)


Ichiban’s first design / Beta Ichiban
(reference to Ichiban’s first look in the reveal for Y7, where he actually looks like a crusty old man)


Where is Arai after Y4?
(Arai goes on to serve time in prison for the murders of Ihara and Shibata, but he is never mentioned ever again)


Haruka knows Kiryu is alive
(RGG online release trailer, where Kiryu comes out of the shadows, and Haruka looks at him, surprised)


Reused interiors from old games
(the games have some completely reused interiors like Smile Burger and Kiwami being straight from Yakuza 0. But generally it comes down to all of the games reusing Kamurocho. In reality, most of shops and locations have very slight adjustment)


Haruka is Sohei Dojima’s daughter
(To quote the original theory: “Haruka is born bafflingly quickly after the Dojima/Yumi incident... What if Nishiki actually wasn't on time to shoot Dojima...and she was discovered to unfortunately be pregnant soon afterwards? Neither Kazama nor Yumi would want anyone to put two and two together, so he quickly sets her up with Jingu.”)


Diago in drag (Dead Souls)
(substory where Majima asks Diago to dress up as a woman and to act romantic with him so they can lure zombies in and kill them like a classic Hollywood movie)


Fart hoodie
(there is a fart hoodie on one of the NPCS in Yakuza 2 on the PS2)


Kiryu set up Diago for failure to kill the Tojo clan
(Kiryu's inability to commit one way or the other to the Yakuza life probably killed the Tojo clan. The specific moment the clan died was when Kiryu dragon dropped into the back of a taxi and ran away from being chairman. He literally put nothing in place, no help to this clan that's just been seriously ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and is lacking any proper leadership. And then poor Daigo has to try to pick up his scraps and every time he asks for help or even advice, Kiryu has absolutely no interest in it until Daigo comes up with some machiavellian way to rope him into the plot. And then, he'll usually show up, wreck half the Tojo clan in the process, yell at them, and then run away again without fixing the mess)

TIER 4 - THE LOWER BODY (PT.7)

Diago is an incompetent leader
(Daigo is honestly one of the most tragic and unfortunate characters in the entire series, because he by rule of narrative is forbidden to be successful, or else there's no reason for Kiryu to get involved.

• Y3: Is shot and sits almost the entire game out.
  
  
• Y4: Contributes to the conspiracy, but only ultimately because he's succumbing to the machinations of the villains, which include internal allies he should be able to manage, and the jerk police.
  
  
• Y5: Gets close to doing some minorly interesting stuff in forging alliances, but the main reason he's doing so is because he's being betrayed from within. If he was a more capable leader, he wouldn't have to do this. Then gets shot anyways for good measure.
  
  
• Y6: Is arrested and sits almost the entire game out.
  
  
• Y7: Gets muscled out by the jerk police and then basically is like ♥♥♥♥ it)

Judgment and Yakuza in the same universe
(both Judgment and Yakuza happen in the same fictional district. Kamurocho is the region where players spend most of their time in both games. The region is based on the entertainment and red-light district of Tokyo named Kabukicho. There are new NPCs to interact with and quests to be found in every new game)


Kiryu has killed people
(Kiryu used a citizen as a human shield to block all the bullets being shot down on him, brutally killing the innocent man in Yakuza Kiwami)


Majima one shot heat action for Shibusawa in climax battle
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNG7PnOsHHE&ab_channel=devilleon7
Go to the timestamp of 13:17. Instead of fighting Shibusawa, you could quite literally instantly eliminate him by kicking him off the boat, draining all of his HP)


Is Mine and Oda gay?
(joke to how they both would do anything for their superiors, Tachibana and Daigo)


Kiryu isn't a virgin
(If you have a mindset that every substories are cannon to the games, unless Kiryu was simply having sleepovers in love hotels with the phonegirls Y0, he has definitely canonically ♥♥♥♥♥♥)


The Fixer
(The man at the end of Y6 that fakes Kiryu's death, in exchange for Kiryu's silence)


The Mad Dog was a form of dissociation
(to compensate for Majima’s compassion which has no place in the Yakuza / The irony of Majima’s facade was for him to wear it to protect himself from being utterly broken by life and its unfair circumstances)


Sera’s fighting style
(His fighting style is unique compared to all bosses in Y0. His style also emphasizes balance, with his combos and attacks almost never breaking his upright stance and posture, making him difficult to knock down. His main combo is a right haymaker, a left elbow, a right haymaker and a right shoulder bash (which can follow up into a trip kick and an abdomen kick). He also counters every player's move, punishing them for trying anything more than a distant poke, which will do so little damage that they will be stuck with this ♥♥♥♥ for a long time. Also, don't forget to add the two-hit combo, where first hit will turn to grapple-combo, which will eat a significant chunk of their HP and second hit will stun them. Add for a more fun a chance to do this combo again and again for stun lock till they die! After all, non-ending stunlock = non-ending fun)


Nobody is dead
(this entry is a joke, like how some characters like Kashiwagi came back after getting shredded by a minigun, or Ryuji coming back in Dead Souls)


Yakuza 1 Majima tattoo
(before Yakuza 1 where they decided that Majima was going to be a full on major character in the franchise, they haven't really designed a full tattoo with him just yet, leaving him with a completely different tattoo compared to other games in the series. This is fixed past Yakuza 1 and in the Kiwami remake, and it's only visible for the original PS2 Yakuza)


Japan retailer exclusives
(some Yakuza games have retailer exclusives only obtainable in certain stores, and the goodies that come with them are very limited so you'll likely not see them released elsewhere. I.e., PS4 theme background, Clan pins, steel book, phone wallpaper, Majima construction cleaning cloth, Omi and Tojo pins, a Majima mousepad, Ryuji's tattoo, t-cup, a Majima phone case, an art card, and Majima karaoke CD)


Kamurocho true location
(Kamurochō (Japanese: 神室町) is a fictional district of Tokyo from Sega's Ryū ga Gotoku media franchise, known internationally as Yakuza. It is modeled after Kabukichō, Tokyo's renowned red-light district and entertainment precinct situated in Shinjuku ward)


“I’m not cold anymore…”
(this is a phrase from a sub-story in the Y0, possibly another ghost substory. You meet this lady in a back alley, and she tells you she's cold, and you have to give her Oden soup, and guess what she tells you now? “I'm not cold anymore.” As thanks, she gives you a videotape and says nothing else. When you try to play it and see what's on it, it's empty. Well, except for a very static noise where a woman is groaning that she’s cold, and that's where the video ends. Once you up and leave, you see this scene where the lady is in the room, stating that she's not cold anymore)

TIER 5 - THE DEPTHS

Komaki time traveling
(Sotato Komaki is a master of martial arts as he appears as an NPC in the very first Yakuza game on the PS2. Particularly after you finish the underground colosseum segment of the story. And if you talk to him, he’ll tell you that he has seen you fighting in there, and he’ll go on saying how Kiryu is a diamond in the roof, and could be much stronger, and offers to teach you some moves that could be deemed as helpful. One example is the famous “Tiger Drop,” a move that is no stranger to most Yakuza fans and one of the most effective counterattacks. Komaki shows up in several Yakuza games after that: In Y2, 3, 4, 5, and even 0, which has a younger version of himself. And in 5, we get to meet his grandson Sousuke. He never shows up after Y5, so we don't see him in Y6, LAD, or even the Judgment games. This naturally made a lot of people wonder what had happened to him. The short answer is likely due to development, time constraints, deadlines, or something along those lines. But, if you want an entertaining part of it, Komaki was seen after 5, but not in a mainline game. He makes a return in FOTNS of all places. You get the substory from a guard and are told that an old man wants to see you. When you meet him, he wishes to test the might of Hokuto Shinken and asks Kenshiro to give him everything he has. Once the substory is over, he mentions heading to the nearby coliseum. This occurrence could have been RGG wanting to add a Yakuza touch to the game, so they threw him in, or, Komaki could be a time traveler, leaving thousands of Yakuza fans questioning his whereabouts. Either way, it's funny to think that he could have just jumped between dimensions because he wanted to find another tough opponent)


Ryuji spinoff
(In January of 2021, a couple of very interesting screenshots emerged online, seemingly from 4chan. These screenshots show Ryuji in a tank top, and tagging along with him is Joon-Gi-Han. To most people, this may be completely random, but whether or not this is real - this is based on the Ryuji story that is exclusive to RGG online, and what's confirmed as canon where he does meet Joon-Gi-Han and ends up going to Onomichi, which is the city shown in the screenshots. The costumes are also on point with how they look in RGG online. However, at this point, it's been over a year since these screenshots surfaced, so there is a good chance it's an elaborate fake. But, we have a small update on the Yakuza 8 - rumors are going on that he will return to Y8, and that's what those screenshots were about)


Arase in Y3
(Arase is a villain you fight in Yakuza 1 or Yakuza Kiwami. He was working under Nishiki and was responsible for the death of Reina and Shinji. We haven't seen Arase die, and we haven't seen him return, so where is he now? Well, in Y3, you are able to see him again, but not in the main story. About halfway into the game, you are introduced to hitman missions or honest, loving association, an organization founded by Kashiwagi. The last hitman mission takes you to the top of Millenium tower, where you get to fight the leader, who turns out to be Arase. He explains what he's been up to and how he wants to take revenge on Kiryu because of their fight in 1; he's been disowned by the family for his failure and goes on about how his life has become a living hell ever since. After the fight, it's hard to tell if all is well and forgiven, but basically, Arase’s mind is more at peace, knowing that Kashigawa tried pretty hard to get to join them to start new and to put his skills to good use. Arase gets on good terms but tells Kiryu that he still hasn't forgiven him. In the fight, they sue an old remix of his track called AMP point)


Kuroda and Nagoshi in Y5
(2 NPCs have a striking resemblance to both actors. In Y5, the colosseum guy who approaches you looks like Kuroda, but a tweet confirmed they didn't intend for the NPC to look like him. Nakai, the manager for T-set, looks like Nagoshi. From the series writer, neither was intentional)


Yakuza canon in FOTNS universe / FOTNS LP parallels
(the Japanese cast of FOTNS is mostly comprised of voice actors that voiced characters in the Yakuza games.

• The most familiar is: Kenshiro, voiced by Takaya Kuroda, who's the voice of Kiryu
  
  
• Shin is voiced by Kazuhiro Nakaya, Nishiki and Ichiban’s VA
  
  
• Yuria is voiced by Aya Hisakawa, Kaoru's VA
  
  
• Kisana is voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro, the voice by Makoto
  
  
• Jagre is voiced by Kenta Miyake, the voice of Yuya
  
  
• Toki is voiced by Shunsuke Sakuya, the voice of Kashiwagi
  
  
• Rei, voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa, is the voice of Shinada
  
  
• Ren is voiced by Rie Kugimiya, the voice of Haruka
  
  
• Raoh, voiced by Masami Iwasaki, is the voice of Ryuji
  
  
• Jagi is voiced by Hidenari Ugaki, the voice of Majima
  
  
• Targa is voiced by Yuichi Nakamura, the voice of Joon-Gi-Han

Kiryu in SF5
(while not actually being added to Street Fighter 5, there is a very high quality mod replacing Ryu with Kiryu. On December 7th, it was announced that Virtual Fighter 5 ultimate showdown was getting a Yakuza costume pack for some reason. Apparently, it was made in the Dragon Engine making these very easy to port over. Among them which included: Kiryu, Ichiban, Seong-hui, Goromi, Saejima, Majima, Adachi, Nishiki, Ryuji, Mine, Zhao, Akiyama, Date, Saeko, Joon-Gi-Han, Sayama, Nanba, Haruka and the Florist, etc.)


Arase’s redemption
(not only does he make an appearance in Y3, but he also shows up in Dead Souls. You meet Arase in there where he has a bunch of sustories dedicated to him, and he eventually becomes a zombie killing buddy you can have alongside you. Fun fact: Arase can meet Gary Buster Holmes in Dead Souls)


Yakuza 6 demo
(Y6 was supposed to be released worldwide outside of Japan in April 2018, and in February, Sega released a demo for the game that was around 30 GB. The file size may seem like a lot, but that's because the demo had you download the full game, but it was heavily restricted. The intention was that when the full game came out, you would be able to use your demo save file and carry it over to the full game. Whenever you went to an area where it was meant for the full release, you were supposed to get a message preventing you from proceeding any further. However, word started going around about how people could continue past this restriction and play the full game, essentially getting the game without spending a single dollar. Naturally, the demo was taken down not much longer after reports of that happening)


Yakuza 6 ALPHA demo
(the very first demo of Yakuza 6 we got is intriguing for many reasons. First of all, this was Japan exclusive. You could get it if you bought the Japanese release of Yakuza Kiwami at the time, which had a code in it for the demo. This demo is where Kiryu's blue casual jacket outfit comes from, and while it is a demo for 6, the events of the demo are entirely exclusive to it, you don't see them in the final game or anywhere else. What you do see, however, are characters that ended up being in Yakuza 6 in another form. Ed makes an appearance and a guy ends up being one of the main villains of Yakuza 6's Clan Creator. Haruka makes an appearance at the very end as well, and it also had a couple of sub-stories that you could do)

Link to footage of demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13o4N36lcjM&ab_channel=devilleon7

TIER 5 - THE DEPTHS (PT.2)

Binary Domain
(Binary Domain is a third person shooter game made by RGG studio and it has nothing to do with Yakuza by itself. The only thing it has in common with the Yakuza is that it takes place in Japan and there are a few Yakuza character appearances in a DLC for its multiplayer mode. The DLC was free, and you'd be able to get Kiryu, Majima, Akiyama and Ryuji. The chunks of characters were specifically taken from Yakuza Dead Souls as those four characters are the main characters in there. Unfortunately though, this DLC is exclusive to Japan)


Real gacha game commercials in Sega places
(in the Club Sega buildings, they released one or two real life ads for gacha on the walls)


Akiyama thug look alike
(in the ending of Y0, there was one thug that stood out. The blond-haired man harassing Makoto almost has the same face model as Akiyama but with a few tweaks on the Yakuza suit. The hair is the exact same hair but blond. Again, more asset reuse!)


Lao Gui bug
(when Y0 was first released in English, Lao Gui had an audio bug that made him sound different when you were to fight him at the end of the game. His audio was fine prior to the fight and after the fight as well. It was only when you fought him that he had Sam Lee’s audio instead)

Video on bug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NitNAkaMMvQ&ab_channel=devilleon7


Upscaled butcher knife
(In Yakuza Kiwami 2, the butcher knife is standardly sized. However, in LAD, the knife is bigger and thicker than an entire arm, which is pretty weird)


Judgments Sadako
(In Judgment, you get requested to visit a haunted apartment, then you come across a ghost-looking lady, later trying to catch her because she is running away. Once she was caught, it turns out she was doing it as an act to prove to her landlord that the apartment was haunted so she and her BF could get cheap rent)


“The dragon's path” comic / manga
(official interactive webcomic that covers Kiryu's story from Y0 up until the beginning of Y6 and has a total of 10 chapters. This was promoted before the release of Y6, appealing to people who wanted to get up to speed without having to play any or much of the previous games. However, the webcomic is no longer available on the official website)


Forget me not
(forget me not is a substory in LAD. The reason more than anything why this was added as an entry was the implications and the discussions that come out of it. If you don't know the sub-story, it's a little quest where Ichiban meets a girl in a white dress. She tells him that she remembers him from years ago, how he saved her life in Kamurocho and she never got a chance to say thank you. Ichiban is surprised as he doesn't remember her at all. The two spend some time together, and it doesn't take long before you catch on to what's going on. This girl doesn't exist. At least in the present time, she doesn't. Maybe it's a ghost of some life that Ichiban once saved on a normal day for him. Maybe his mind is making things up, knowing what we know about him. It's really hard to say, and this uncertainty is what makes the sub-story so good yet so disturbing)


Kurohyo manga
(the Kurohyo games in addition to having a TV show also have a manga for them. It's
pretty obscure and honestly I don't know much about it myself, but it does exist and there's multiple volumes for it)


Baba is still waiting for Saejima
(In the ending of Y5, particularly after beating Baba as Shinada, we get to see a cutscene in which after everything that's happened within the course of the game, Baba reaches a breaking point and is about to shoot himself. He is interrupted, though, by his close friends and thus saved. They convey a message from Saejima telling him that Saejima knew all along that Baba was acting out on someone else's orders and that hell is waiting for him at the Abashiri prison so the two can get along together on better terms now that everything is over and they can atone for their crimes together. But, as we all know, Saejima is in Y7, not in prison for the first time in forever)


Why Majima is obsessed with Kiryu
(Kiryu came out of Y0 with an unbroken spirit and a stronger resolve, which is the very reason why Majima is so obsessed with him because Majima admires how the events didn't change Kiryu as a man, while the trauma forever scarred Majima, changing him and how he perceives life)


RGG poor stereotypes
(makes lesbians look like predetors (Rina), makes trans women look like predetors (cut Y3 substory), makes trans women overally masculinized, makes transgender people misgender each other even though they are both trans (YK substory), makes the majority of women meek, innocent, and petite, ETC. Come on Sega, this isn't Family Guy. It’s the 21st century now, do your research)


Impossible / popstar price rank in Y0
(only can be obtained by Miracle Johnston. In the dance battle finale of Miracle Johnston, he achieves an absolutely perfect score, possibly higher than the max of what's possible. Either way, it's impossible to beat him. When he kicks your ass, he also achieves a unique rank named “popstar prince.” This is the only time in the game where it is achieved. The rank itself is referenced to the real life Michael Jackson, being known as the king of pop)


Hangman / Redman
(Hangman is for better or worse is an entity shrouded in mystery. You first meet him in Yakuza 6 as Kiryu while tagging along with Someya in a now desolate Shangri-La which at some point was a luxurious love Hotel. Someya tells you that for one reason or another, this place is now inhabited by junkies and basically very vile people. And it's Kiryu’s and Majima's fault. Which, I mean, she's not wrong. As you go in further you meet a terrifying leather clad muscular dude who is more monster than a human really. His attacks are pretty powerful and he's vicious; this would not be the only encounter with him in the series. Hangman makes a return to another love hotel in Judgment where Yagami would now have the pleasure of meeting him in an even more horror-like setting. We never really know what or who Hangman is beyond what we see, and honestly it's probably best off that way. While we're on this topic I should probably also mention Redman, a reskinned Hangman in YK2. Although he's not in the story at all he's just someone you fight in a couple of different mini games and you'd eventually be able to recruit him for a client creator)


Watase spin-off coax
(In November 2020, a screenshot depicting a younger-looking Watase logo that says “Asura Ga Gotoku” Or, “Like a Asura” surfaced online. The tweet was released from Yokoyama, a key writer and now executive producer and director of RGG studio, but the tweet was deleted not long after, which sparked a controversy, but Yokoyama denied the existence of such. An article stated how Yokoyama admitted he was amused being the subject of western rumors, so we suspect he was doing a little trolling after all, who knows)


Shangri-La
(reoccuring location in the series being a major location in 1, 2, 6 and 7. While it mainly serves as a cool battle location, for the first three games, in 7, it is revealed that Ichiban was born and raised there)


'Yume'
(The main theme of Yakuza 5 and is mentioned many many times in the game)


Yakuza 4 western box art
(The fact that 'SEX' 'SEXY' etc appear in multiple places in the background)


Live-action movie sequel
(also known as: Ryu Ga Gotoku Gekijouban. It explores the events of the first Yakuza game, which mostly contains the same foundation, but some things are different from how the story plays out. i.e., Majima more actively hunts down Kiryu, Majima wears the eyepatch on the wrong eye, etc.)

TIER 5 - THE DEPTHS (PT.3)

Kuroiwa didn’t gouge out any eyes
(an interesting revelation that you come to learn by the end of Judgment - for the whole game, you are led to believe that Shono only did the testing for AD-9 but not any killing and that Kuroiwa was the one who did all the bloody work. Shono was a perfect example of frail on the outside but a monster on the inside when he injected himself with the serum, resulting in his eyes turning into an abnormal color of blue. And Kuroiwa, a deranged serial killer, reacting to that information in front of him was like, “Damn dude. Shono, you are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up bastard.”)


Akira Yamaoka
(Akira Yamaoka is a coliseum fighter in Y2, YK2, and Y5. He's one of few fighters that share Kiryu’s moves in it, which means he could tiger drop you. He shares the same name as the real life composer in Silent Hill games, but there isn't any real connection there. He wears a white suit and a fedora and is one of the more toughest opponents there)


Masato and Ryo Aoki are different people
(joke theory that Masato did actually die whilst Ichiban was in prison and Aoki was just someone that Masato told info to)


Sayama original VA
(Sayama's original VA was apparently really unpleasant to work with and that's why she wasn't a reoccurring character and was recast in K2)


Ryo Takashima in Kiwami 2
(one of the main antagonists in Y2, being one of the young gun bigshot in the Omi alliance. In the remake, RGG studio decided he should be a real, scanned in actor, completely changing his likeness. Now this really messes with the story because in the original, hes supposed to be this young guy at the top compared to everyone else, but replacing him with an actor in his mid 60’s ♥♥♥♥♥ with it. There is currently no reason as they felt the need to change this, but there are mods in the PC version of K2 where they try to restore his original likeness)


Katsuhiro Harada in Yakuza Kiwami 2
(one of Ryujis goons looks very similar to Katsuhiro Harada, producer of Tekken.This goes further because the guy has actually seen it and tweeted about it)


Saejima’s bullets were not rubber
(https://youtu.be/-si9r2berO4?t=506 Look at timestamps 8:46, 8:52, 9:09, 9:11(!), 9:17(!), 9:24(?), 9:29(!),9:44, 10:35(!). What is weird about this scene is the blood and lack of blood. The shots with no ! are shots that blood splashed out of somebody, the shots with ! have no blood splash but a black bullet hole, and the ? is when a guy just falls over and blood splashes everywhere for some reason. And you can argue the red comes from the ramen soup, but some of those shots are definitely human bean juice there. And yes, rubber bullets do leave a mark and they do break the skin, but the way the skin broke (ie big splash) seems to indicate a real bullet.

• This is even more frustrating because of this scene. https://youtu.be/oxQ84KpH_i4?t=1428 No blood and no residue from the shot. Now you can argue that tech has changed in 25 years, but it's just strange that rubber bullets in the scene have no residue at all now. Is the tech so good now that rubber bullets just sting a bit and that's it? So rubber bullets now do no damage? Was it like this 25 years ago? And don't tell me the people that got shot have squibs. Those are remote-controlled, air-powered, and they are definitely not wireless (radio controlled) especially in the 80s.

This criticism is a little hyperbolic but it does highlight a problem)


Dead Souls is a game in Judgment
(There is an arcade game in Judgment called "Kamuro of the Dead," which is a crossover of Yakuza: Dead Souls and SEGA's The House of the Dead series.

Link to gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyt8hzDnndY&ab_channel=TheGamingCircle


Yakuza 0 PC inventory swap bug
(odd bug in the PC version of Y0 that's gone unpatched for a while where very rarely inventories can be messed up and corrupted with items being moved around and re-named. This could be turning guns into food or consumables into side quest items)


Y3 quiz minigame
(it featured questions relevant to Japanese culture. It was cut from the PS3 version of Y3, and never making its way to any Yakuza 3 remastered, leaving it the only substory not making it to any substories in the west)


Haruka’s trust
(Haruka's trust is a common mechanic in all the games in which small Haruka is with you. She asks you to do things, you do them, the bar goes up, you get a reward every time it hits the top. This mechanic is in Yakuza 5 too, despite its plot making it impossible. It's for premium adventure only though. Some of the conversations here are adorable)


Joji is “The Fixer”
(Joji is the secret fixer that helps Kiryu fake his own death at the end of Y6, which is how Kiryu ends up with the Geomijul in Ijincho. Lau and Kashiwagi end up in Ijincho too, even though they were both supposed to have died in Y3. Joji was the one who shot Lau, so if Lau survived then Joji would have had to have been in on it. Kashiwagi getting relocated by Joji makes sense as well, Joji might have even been asked to look out for him by Shintaro)


Joy
(the confusingly pretty doctor lady from Yakuza 0 when fixing Makoto is named Joy in the files, which at first glance might seem like a Pokemon reference. You know, nurse Joy. Turns out, Joy spelled j-o-i translates to female doctor in Japanese. For some reason the series is full of these strangely detailed female NPCS who don't even have names, like why they look so good, there's no reason for it)


Kamurocho Hills re-reopening
(from Y0-1 Kamurocho Hills is a small park named West Park, predominantly used for the homeless as a camp. In Yakuza 2, the hills is a particularly built skyscraper. Its construction is being held by the Majima construction company. In the time between Y2-Y3 the project was canned, and the entire construction site was leveled, leaving only a concrete pad. Within Y4, the hills resumed development, and are nearly completed and in its entirety. By the time of Y5 and above, it's finally open for business. Despite all of the buildup and it being a large plotpoint in most of these games, Kamurocho Hills is not an accessible in any of the other games)

TIER 5 - THE DEPTHS (PT.4)

Questionable Kiwami 2 alterations
(this segment was originally going to be about both Kiwami's, but Kiwami 1 is far more innocent and has too few questionable changes to be worth an entry I think. Shimano shakedown's are really bad, probably the worst thing about that game, but everyone knows about that. Kiwami 2 though, is about as sloppy as a remake can get without being outright worse than the original in every way with it’s most egregious changes making it the most soulless Yakuza game yet. From minor changes like the removal of background NPCS or reflective floors from the Ryuji fight, to the complete yoinking of evening. You know, the time of day evening, it's just gone. There's also Shinseicho, the third area. One set during an investigative point in the story that's rendered boring as paint when done in Sotenbori. Hidora's weren't a super common thing in the first two Yakuza games, but YK1 at least had the sense to diversify the palette a bit. Kiwami 2 was red. All red everything, just like Y6. Takashima has aged about four decades since the last time we saw him, completely ruining the entire purpose of his character. What was a young calculated Yakuza showing the boomers whose boss, is now just another one of them. The green filter gets a lot of ♥♥♥♥, and while it does ruin a few scenes, it also enhances others, making the ending sequence before the fake out look about as bleak as it is. The original game had no issue with this though. A few of the remixes are also really good. Outlaw's Lullaby is about as faithful as you could get. Bad Fortune Flower is great too, and while Amon originally only use Shindo's name here he's given the best version of Fiercest Warrior that exists. Speaking of Shindo, though his theme is completely replaced. While the replacements are pretty good in its own right, it doesn't compare to The Grudge. One song paints him with a threatening aura, the other portrays him as a cultured milfhunter who just wants to get laid as much as his predecessor did. Yet another character butchered by a single change. Then, there's Hayashi, a one-off nobody from the original now back with a vengeance and given a theme that screams vengeance. Kiwami 2 just gives him the generic boss theme, painting him is just as plain as he was when he first beat him. Again, the entire purpose of a story decision was completely forgotten. These music tweets extend beyond fights too. The jazz theme that the stab scene was deliberately synced to, is now replaced with this insufferable j-pop song that overstays its welcome. Then there's Silent Night, the song that foreshadows the bomb fake-out. That night was silent, because there was no explosion. Instead we get the j-pop song again)


Underplayed songs
(the series has a real bad habit of this, playing really good songs once and in scenes that don't really warrant them. For example, Nervousness in Y4, Ideal For Violence in YK, Fog in Lost Judgment, etc. Side note, but there are a ton of unreleased songs too. Really, just look up “Yakuza unreleased OST” and you'll find a ton of songs that don't even have names sometimes, it's weird)


Time travel is real in Yakuza 4
(when you're fighting your way to get Kido and your client register back in Yakuza 4, you come across a guy with silver hair, wearing a white lab coat and a gaudy brown shirt working on some elaborate looking machine... He does attempt to tell you about it but you get cut short. The guy looks so much like Doc Brown it's gotta be a sly reference to the film, Back To The Future, therefore making time travel canon)


Genda and Matsugane were in a relationship
(In Judgment, it's loosely implied in the sub that Genda and Matsugane raised Yagami as a platonic couple of some sort)


Obscure Yakuza 5 characters in Yakuza 0
(Haruka’s dance teacher, Ogita, is seen as you can face him in a dance battle with Kiryu)


Tanimura hits women
(Tanimura was the 1st character to actually fight a woman in any of the Yakuza games, going against Nair)


Shenmue and Yakuza take place in the same universe
(Shenmue could be and often is viewed as the spiritual predecessor of Yakuza. Both
are set in dense asian settings and feature a tourist emphasis on interacting with said settings in mundane yet under adapted ways. But while these elements are only about a third of what Yakuza has to offer, in Shenmue they are in the game. It's effectively a life sim with a story in scuffed combat Nagoshi actually worked on Shenmue, and very closely with its creator, but was so dissatisfied with how the development was going he jumped ship and found an amusement vision. Though close to the end of said development, he was called back in to serve as producer)


Tachibana haunts the Millennium tower
(the Empty Lot is directly where Millennium Tower stands. The alley entrance appears to be where the bar Bantam exists, and knowing that Tachibana gets buried in the Empty Lot, the tower might be cursed)


WII U ports
(back in the dark ages of the WII U days, Sega decided it would be a good idea to import Yakuza 1 and 2 onto that flop of a console. Unsurprisingly releasing an almost 10 year old game onto a user base with over a million in Japan did not exactly do too well financially. In a review, a head of the Yakuza series said it was released more as an ‘experiment’ to test the response and say that there isn't a single Yakuza game released to a Nintendo console since. Its safe to say that experiment was an overall failure)


Jo was lying to Ichiban
(Why didn't Ichiban suffer the same condition as Masato did? Ichiban was a lot longer in that locker since Akan put him there first and Jo did put Masato there later. Masumi also took Masato out first and then Kasuga took Ichiban out. I expected them to explain this later but I finished the story and there wasn't any explanation. Of course it could be that Ichiban had more blankets on him or something. But who knows if Jo Sawashiro was just lying his ass off to Ichiban)


There are more fights with bears than Kiryu in the whole series
(there are 3 fights with Kiryu and only 2 with bears, but if you count fighting the bears inside the coliseum, then this is true)


Haruka and Yagami have the same moves
(it’s safe to assume that some of Haruka’s dancing animations are reused for LJ dance minigame)


Megumi is Mr.Shakedown’s daughter
(substory where you help out the little girl who's tryna raise money for a hospitalized brother but in the mission you both meet and save her dad. However a YT vid is going about calling her Mr.Shakedowns daughter when she really isn't. In defense of the video poster he probably meant it as joke, but people clearly aren't taking it that way)


Yakuza 5 on PS3 European release
(super delayed transaction of Y5. Since Dead Souls killed the series in the west, Y5 was the next game, which meant it was affected the most by far. It took 3 years and a huge push from Sony themselves to get the game in the west. And even then it only released digitally)


Ichiban loves baby milk
(at the end of the baby don't cry substory, which is essential the same as the be my baby substory mentioned in YK2, Ichiban takes out that same group of adult babys and soon after, Ichiban and the patriarch have a heart to heart and drink together, enjoying a fine bottle of baby formula. Ichiban very much enjoys the milk)


Tanimura died in Little Asia fire
(theory that Tanimura died in the fire in Y6 and that's why we don't see him)


Phoenix Wright defended Majima in court
(in Project X Zone 2, the story features a few parts of dialogue gags how phoenix Wright has previously defended the toko Clan, more specifically Majima in the past, telling him not to punch the judge)

TIER 5 - THE DEPTHS (PT.5)

All dishes in restaurants are items
(referring to the fact that there are various items glitches. It was learned that every menu item in restaurants, at least ones in pre-dragon engine games are actually an item that could be earned through points)


Kiryu is a sexist
(couldn't find much about this entry, but like a lot of people's mindsets during that time in Japan, many men also viewed women as weaker in a state)


Ryuji is alive
(joke on how he is still kicking in the spin-off Yakuza game, Dead Souls)


Walking black NPC only in Y3
(Y3 only having a black street NPC)


Unknown families in the Tojo clan
(there is many unknown families that just disappear and reappear in random times between the games. The most amount of names comes in the Majima saga where an earning shard of families is listed)


Install screens
(back during the PS4 era, booting up a game usually brought you to a screen where it read, “installing game data. Please do not turn off the system.” Not the Yakuza games, though. The Yakuza games went a little beyond and brought you something more like a short cinematic. It was input for Y5, Y0, Y4, Dead Souls, and Ishin. Games like Y3 and Kenzan did not own one. On the PS4, installing a game takes way less time than it did on the PS3. But, you can access the install screens in Y0 and Kiwami back in replays, on the very last cutscene)


Kuze canonically enjoys getting head by transwomen
(From Kuze's VA Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WnWzHqpoYc&ab_channel=笑う小沢と怒れる仁志%2F小沢仁志 Sure enough. Google translate says the title reads "Fell in love with a new half" (which iirc is Japanese slang for trans woman). Apparently he says that trans girls like being cuddled more and he once got amazing head from one once)


Yakuza-themed consoles
(The first one started with the Japanese release of Y3, which had Kiryu’s tattoo on the console itself. Then there was the Y5 super slim PS3 with several clans and family crests. It also had a sticker you could put on the controller and a USD with pre-loaded Y5 wallpapers and a towel. A special release also had both Kiryu and Majima’s tattoos on the back. It came in two colors, black and white. Every console release after this had an option of black or white. There were also Y0 PS4s with Majima’s and Kiryu’s tattoos on them separately, and those also came in black and white, so that's a total of 4 different versions. Kiwami had a PS4 theme after it as well. The Y6 PS4 had Kiryu’s tattoo, while the K2 PS4 had Majimas's tattoo. Lastly, the FOTNS PS4 which was only available in black)


Karaoke didn't exist until Yakuza 3
(Yakuza 3 invented karaoke and it did not exist before the game released)


Unused karaoke songs
(backing track for Haruka’s song “Get To The Top'' in Dead Souls, etc.)


Joji Kazama isn't real / Joji is Shintaro
(Joji Kazama is not his own person. Joji is Shintaro Kazama.

• #1: These two look and sound exactly the same. Identical twins exist, but only weirdos do the ♥♥♥♥ where they try to look exactly like their twin.
  
• #2: Kiryu says that Kazama never mentioned anything about him having a brother. They are trying to pull a Mizuki straight over our heads. Remember who created a fake identity for Yumi? Kazama.
  
• #3: Kazama was "dead" for 4 years after Yakuza 3. 4 years is enough time to create a new identity, join a U.S. organization, and distance yourself from everyone you know. Joji Kazama is Shintaro Kazama)

Kuze, Ryuji, and Joon-Gi-Han all know each other (RGGO)
(based on Ryuji’s story in RRGO, the actual Ryuji story is placed in 1999, where Joon-Gi-Han is trying to recruit Ryuji into the Jingweon Mafia, tagging around him in a road trip after Ryuji got kicked out of the Omi alliance. Skipping forward a bit, Kuze, who appears to be released from prison in the same year, was sent to the Tojo to try and take out the two, trying to prevent an alliance form the Omi and the Jingweon Mafia)


What happened to Bacchus?
(in Y1 right before you find Haruka, Kiryu steps into the bar Bacchus, and finds himself looking at several dead bodies, all of them shot. At the end of the bar he finds Haruka with a gun. At no point is it explained what exactly happened here. My best guess is that the owner maybe knew too much - someone from the Nishiki family was sent to kill him, and then ended up just killing everyone else to get rid of witnesses. What I mean by knowing too much is before you go to Bacchus, Reina tells you that Mizuki has a bar named Ares, and the owner of Bacchus has connections with other bars and is likely to know about the whereabouts of it. Knowing that Reina is in cahoots with Nishiki, I do feel like this might be the most plausible explanation. Reina pretends to help Kiryu while also staying in contact with Nishiki to try and hinder his progress)


Kiryu's VA had his own band, “Goodfellas”
(If you want to ironically listen to Kiryu's karaoke songs on the rack, you'd be happy to know that Takaya Kuroda, his VA, actually has a band of his own, Goodfellas. Founded recently and practically on a whim as he just kind of thought ‘why not’ one day, they haven't released a whole lot, but I imagine the list is going to grow with time)


Mark Hamill doesn’t remember voicing Majima / interview
(Mark Hamill was the very first voice dub of Majima in the English dub for the very first Yakuza game on the PS2, which came out in 2005. There's even a video on YouTube where you get to see him on the job for a full 15 minutes in the interview. The thing is though when asked about that role on Twitter he said he doesn't remember anything like that. Understandable though, who knows how many roles he had to play since that time)


Kuroiwa was an alley
(Kuroiwa was initially planned to be an ally to Yagami instead of being one of the main villains. We know this because there are unused voice lines for when Kuroiwa was meant to be an optional friend event the more you progressed in the story, and he would also help in fights as well.)

TIER 6 - THE PIT

Syntax error
(re-occuring sign of a bar in Champions District that you can see in multiple games. It's one of the only places that kept its place throughout the series. You get to see it in YK, YK2, Dead Souls, Y0, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y7, Judgment, and Lost Judgment, and even in the Kurohyou games. However, it's not in OG1 OR OG2)


Kiwami Mine
(Mine’s files are in Yakuza Kiwami, and you can find a picture of his model in YK on Wikipedia. Having his files in the game isn't too strange because RGG has a history of leaving an abundant amount of files from other games for whatever reason, so I'd assume Mine's model was either for testing purposes or they simply forgot about it. But, there is one thing that concerns a certain MIA agent, in which both the agent and Mine look alike)


Y0 and Ishin companion apps
(remember the PlayStation vita? Well, that thing had some companion apps for Y0’s Japanese release as well as for Ishin. The very basic gist of what they are is they were a few minigames from those games jam-packed into an application where you could farm for some in-game money and make some small progress for when the game came out. The best part about these apps, though, is any game mode where you were able to see the actual game. In Y0’s app, you could make money fighting in the underground Coliseum, and in Ishin’s app, you could do this village farming minigame, craft weapons, and do dungeon battles. This kinda makes me wish we see more Yakuza handheld games, full-on games, and not just applications)


Nagumo's VA real Yakuza ties
(Hiroyuki Miyasako, who voiced Nagumo in Y6 and Kanda in Y3, is a 52-year-old comedian. He, along with 11 other actors, was fired from his talent agency after the discovery that they had attended a party hosted by someone linked to organized crime. This came to light in June 2019, but the actual party was 5 years before that year. It was discovered that the group hosting the party was involved in money transfer fraud and Miyasako along with a bunch of other comedians, were providing entertainment for the people there and were paid for it. Those are the facts, but the question is, was he truly guilty of anything at all? Actors like this are fired even if they were aware of such a connection. In July 2019, a month after the scandal, the agency went on to accept the scandal and condemned Miyasako's part in the Yakuza in a press conference. Nowadays, Miyasako has a Youtube channel that has over 1 million subscribers and he uploads on it regularly)


Jo Amon is dead / Jo Amon is a dimension-hopping time traveler
(much like Komaki, Joe Amon is dead. Joe amon's last appearance is in Lost Paradise. He serves as the secret boss for the game. However, unlike Komaki, Joe might have a much more incriminating reason as to why he never showed up again after Y6. After you're done fighting him he disappears into thin air behind your back. So until we see him come back again in a Yakuza game somehow, I think it's safe to say that Joe time traveled to the North Star universe only to get his ass murdered by Kenshiro in there)


The chicken of Dojima
(this is a bug in Y5 with Kiryu in particular. In any given fight, as long as you have heat mode, going into his rage state and pressing “triangle” and “circle” in that order endlessly can result in a goofy animation mix where he flaps his arms up and down like how bullies would mock you of being a “chicken”)


Tattoo competition
(with the release of Y3 back in 2010, Sega had a contest going on where contestants had to write down in 25 words or less why they thought they deserved to win a real-life Kiryu’s dragon tattoo which costs a whopping $9,000. The winner was a man from Liverpool, Australia by the name of Fari Salievsk)


Kiryu and Majima in PXZ2
(Project X Zone 2 is a tactical RPG game for the 3DS that boosted a significant amount of crossovers from many different games. That included iconic characters such as:

• Jin, Heihachi, and Kazuya from Tekken
  
• Chris, Leon, and Jill from Resident Evil
  
• Dante and Virgil from Devil May Cry
  
• Kiryu and Majima from Yakuza Dead Souls specifically
  
• Kite and Haseo from the Dot Hack games
  
• ETC.

One of the game's selling points is seeing your favorite characters interact with each other. You can find many of those said interactions on Youtube)


Joon-Gi-Han is immortal
(Joon-Gi-Han is one of the main villains in Yakuza 6. The Jingweon Mafia shows up again after their last appearance in Yakuza 2 and he's their new leader. He also took control of Stardust and changed it, or should I say turned a part of it into something that offers “extra services” let's say - if you've played or watched the game you'll know that he ends up dying afterwards by a clean gunshot to the head, so he's dead. Right? Yeah, well, before its release of Yakuza 7 or Yakuza Like A Dragon came along, it dropped a trailer where we see Ichiban fighting Joon-Gi-Han. This left many, many, people with a combination of feelings. Some people were dumbfounded, others amused, and others agitated. As we all now know that Joon-Gi-Han we see in Y7 is a body double that failed to take the place of the original at the time of his death. It's a pretty convenient excuse to bring back a character that was popular, but it also does make sense for a crime boss to have a body double. Guess what though those two are not the only Joon-Gi-Han’s that are out there. There is possibly a third one that many don't know about mainly because he's in a game that only a tiny fraction of the fanbase plays. That's right, Yakuza Online. That game is a gigantic beast of hidden lore by itself. Yakuza Online has three story modes - one that covers the story of Ichiban, which is Yakuza 1 retold, and the third one is a brand new story featuring Ryuji and Joon-Gi-Han as his partner. Your first question will probably be “is this even canon?” Yes, there's a blog by Dojima's Dragon Girl who took the time to translate all of Ryuji's story, and according to them, this story is canon.

Here is the blog for it translated: https://dojimasdragongirl.wordpress.com/2020/04/05/ryu-ga-gotoku-online-the-golden-dragons-wanderings-chapter-one/

Yakuza Online takes place in 1999, so that leaves us with a couple of interesting questions: could the Joon-Gi-Han of the story be the same as any of the two that we know? I think it's very unlikely, given that this is 17 years before the first and original Joon-Gi-Han even came to be. And second, with this Joon-Gi-Han existing, is the original Joon-Gi-Han in Y6 really the original one? If Joon-Gi-Han was a thing even in 1999, just how far back did the origins of this man go?)


Majima canonically published a song / Majima no Majirock karaoke
(the PSP spin-offs the Black Panther or the Kurohyou games happen to have the popular karaoke minigame in it. Though it differs greatly from what we've come to expect now. Unlike Yakuza where you start out normal and work your way to a dramatic imaginary scene, you go through a slideshow of static images seeing Tatsuya “singing.” In Kurohyou 2, there is a song called Majima no MajiROCK sung by Majima. This implies that at some point Majima took the time to somehow record the song and publish it in this universe and now Tatsuya gets to sing it. Also one little fun fact about the song - they made physical discs containing a video clip of the song where you see cutscenes of Majima in Kurohyou’s art style as the song plays. The disc was either some kind of pre-order bonus or just an extra that you'd get if you ordered the game)


Dead souls poster
(in the beginning of the movie A Fairly Odd Christmas, there's a shot taken in Japan, and in it you can see a poster of Yakuza Dead Souls)

TIER 6 - THE PIT (PT.2)

T-posing Haruto
(this is a bug that happened to some Y6 players, where Kiryu holds a t-posing Haruto in his fans like some sort of weapon. This entry is self-explanatory)


Tanimura gets better hands in Mahjong
(because in Y4 Tanimura plays mahjong a lot, he gets better hands and is more 'lucky' when you play with him in mahjong)


Makoto's watch
(in Yakuza 0, Makoto has this watch. It's broken, it used to play a remix of 24 hour Cinderella, but it doesn't anymore, it can't sing like it used to. Majima himself is all but broken at this point. Saejima is locked up, and he's a slave to Shimano and Sagawa. Makoto decided to ditch the watch, to leave it behind as a memory right as Majima made the decision to protect her, a decision that he believes falsely is against Shimano's wishes. This is what Shimano wanted him to do, because you know he's like 5head 2000 iq. A little over halfway into the game, Majima meets Makoto again, and tries to get her to fork the lot over to Shimano, he tries to coerce her, but she's a bad ♥♥♥♥♥ and she doesn't want to do it. His goal is to remove her from the situation, he wants to protect her in a way he's found his purpose. He spends the entire game up until that point trying to figure out what to do with his life because his life is ♥♥♥♥ at the moment. And the very next day when he finally decides to make some moves and he expects to see Makoto again he takes the watch out i don't know if it's still broken or if he fixed or replaced it at this point but the point is, he's at the very least thinking of doing something with it at the very same point that he finally understands what his purpose is. And at the end of the game, when he adopts his Nishitani jr persona, the watch is either fixed or replaced, i'm gonna go with fixed. It can sing like it used to. It's not broken anymore. He's not broken anymore. You see where I'm going, they're the same. Cut to Kiwami 2, they meet again. Majima has been crazy for like 97 years now and Makoto's watch still works, but it's got this ugly strap on it, it's unrecognizable. Makoto preferred the old strap because it was, “more sophisticated.” You could say that “Grand Majima” was more sophisticated, but the strap is just a cosmetic, it has no bearing on how the watch actually works. Majima's personas are like watch straps, and the one he's in right now is alien to Makoto, so he replaces the strap with the old one. Just before Yakuza 3, Y3 is technically the first game that kinda takes him seriously. There are scenes in which he drops the act. In Yakuza 4, there is no act. He's out of character, and then he spends Yakuza 5 basically being exposed and canceled by the writing team. What they did with him there and his lore was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ludicrous, I can't believe they did that. The point here is: Makoto's watch is a physical representation of how Majima changes throughout the story, and that's cool. This probably isn't very profound, i'm sure most people got this)


Gatorade
(In the original release of Y3, on the PS3, particularly in the cutscene where you see Mine boxing in his office, you'll see him drinking from a Gatorade bottle. This was likely an advertisement they didn't have rights to anymore by the time the remaster was out, so it was replaced by a generic tag)


Yakuza 4 cut dialogue in remaster
(In the remastered translation of Y4, after fighting Ihara, you get a call from Hana. She mentions that she is a 'delicate flower', but in the original dialogue, she is worried that the guys outside might r*pe her. You can still hear them say it, even though the text dialogue changed)


Kurohyou secret boss
(the Kurohyou games like other Yakuza games have secret bosses in them. However, for one reason or another these are the two only games in the series that don't have Amon Clan secret bosses. Every other game and even spin-offs like Judgment, Lost Judgment, and Lost Paradise all have Amon secret bosses. Unfortunately the secret bosses for Kurohyou are kinda lame. At least, I can tell you with confidence that the first game's secret boss is. The first game's secret boss is just some buff dude who literally takes over 20 minutes to beat on max level even when you go ham on him. There's nothing interesting about him at all, but hey you know what he does that other secret bosses don't? He says you are the strongest man. Congratulations player)


World war Amon
(in Yakuza Dead Souls after finishing all 60 substories and subterranean missions as well, you'll receive a message from Joe Amon asking you to meet him in the underground tunnels. When you get there you meet him and you get a conversation which is about what you'd expect Joe to say before fighting Kiryu. Then when the two get ready to fight, their conversation is interrupted by a mysterious zombie. This zombie attacks Joe Amon knocking over his glasses, and he puts them on and now we have to fight him. This man is Rasetsu Amon - a member of the Amon Clan from just about a decade ago. The outfit he's wearing resembles the Imperial Japanese army uniform from the early 1900s. This is one of the very few instances of a truly unique Amon Clan member. Another example is Noa Amon from Yakuza 5. The idea of fighting a zombified ancient Amon in modern times as Kiryu is amazing. Rasetsu apparently means some kind of evil spirit)


Living mannequin
(this one has to do with Kurohyou. In Kurohyou 2, you are able to practice some moves by talking to some NPC. Your training opponent is a fighting mannequin that’s alive)


Yakuza leatherbook
(Yakuza leather book has to be one of the rarest Yakuza limited editions. As far as I've looked around, it's almost impossible to get your hands on one if you don't know anyone personally in Korea. The Korean release of Yakuza Kiwami got the leather book limited edition)


Ichiro Tanaka
(Ichiro Tanaka is a boss in Kurohyou 2 and the reason he's so deep into the iceberg - well, hes dressed in erotic gear and does a seductive dance as his intro with a very prominent bulge. He also does sexual moves by shaking his ass or other suggestive implications through the fight. And he has a fire soundtrack)


Kurohyou TV series
(Kurohyou, also known as “blank panther” has a TV show with 2 seasons. The show changes quite a lot of things from the games. Especially in the first season. For example, in the show in season 1, Tatsuya's sister dies in his best friend's hand. Even in the games, she remains alive even after the events of the second one. Season 2 depicts the characters boss’s and fights more accurately, but there are still differences, like Nozaki not being a fight at all)


Fuma
(before Shintaro Kazama was known as such in the English releases, the localized releases for Yakuza 1, 2, and 3 would call him Shintaro Fuma instead, and by proxy, Joji Kazama was Joji Fuma. In Japanese, the readings for kanji can be multiple: Kunyomi is the Japanese reading for them, and Onyomi means the Chinese reading. In this case, the kanji that says Kazama can also be read as “Fuma” Kazama is the Kunyomi reading, while “Fuma” is the Onyomi reading. This decision was made to avoid potential confusion between “Kazama” and “Kazuma” Kiryu. They decided to go back to Kazama starting from Yakuza 5)


Yakuza in Taiko no Tatsujin
(Taiko no Tatsujin is a rhythm Mini-Game where you press buttons to the beats of the songs on time to get a high score, much like how karaoke works in Yakuza. One of the songs you're able to choose is Machine Gun Kiss and there are miniature versions of Yakuza characters taken from Dead Souls that show up in there as well. This might be the same minigame that does show up in Yakuza 5 but Machine Gun Kiss as a song selection is not available in that version machine gun kiss is only available on Taiko no Tatsujin portable DX which is on the PSP)

TIER 6 - THE PIT (PT.3)

Kiryu’s parents
(Kiryu’s parents were never at any point of the game seen. Not even for seconds. As long as we've known him he's been an orphan, and it is revealed at the end of Yakuza 1 that Shintaro Kazama was the one behind the death of his parents, but we never even knew why they had to die. It's something that doesn't necessarily need to be explored but it is a mystery and it will probably remain that way)


1st chairman of the Tojo clan
(details of the founder of the 1st chairman were very sparse. What we do know about Makoto Tojo is that he founded the clan, had a love for Japanese gardens, and possibly executed multiple men in the garden behind Tojo HQ. A fun fact is that any lore bits about him in Y6 loadings screens as well as anyone else are exclusive to the western versions of the games, as the Japanese loading screens have no trivia at all)


Forgotten Yakuza side villains are dead
(belief that any side villains that appear in the earlier games are dead. However, this is more unlikely since villains such as Lao and Kashiwagi re-appeared in later games)
Nobody knows what year Majima got married
(the exact date was never given, but in the 15th anniversary book places it between 1989-1992. Now since she was did debut her idol carrier when she was 18, the two are only married for one year, and they were already married by the time of the debut, which supposes the marriage between 1991, or 1992)


Prequel movie
(as of now, there are 2 Yakuza movies. The one people most know about is the one uploaded to Youtube, but there is one other movie that is much lesser spoken about. Like a Dragon: prologue, or, “Ryu Ga Gotoku Joshou.” This movie came out in 2006, and it covers events way before Y0 leading up to the arrest of Kiryu and ends before he is released. We get to see Kiryu, Nishiki, and Yumi as kids in Sunflower Orphanage and how they get to become part of the Yakuza. The full movie is on YouTube if you're interested in watching it)


Ryu Ga Gotoku, the musical (Yakuza stage play)
(in 2015, a stage play for Yakuza became a thing. It covers the events of the first Yakuza, but it also has cameos of Yakuza 2 characters for some reason. It's a long watch about two hours and a half, but the whole thing is on YouTube subbed and everything, so you could just watch it anytime)


Kiwami completion list
(gambeling minigames are really absurd, especially where Haruka requests you to defeat a expert AI in pool, and a certain amount of winnings from chips which is a 50/50 chance without cheat items)


Masato Arakawa is alive theory
(one of the main villains of Yakuza 7 after fighting through thick and thin throughout the whole game and you go Toe to Toe against him. Ichiban tries to convince him to turn himself in, and the turn for his crimes. After eventually managing to get through to him, Masato's actions come back to bite him as a follower of his stabs him after the events of the game. As Masato is dying in Ichiban's arms the scene is in slow motion and we see them speak but we're not told what is being said until after the credits, where it is revealed that the monster told him something along the lines though “starting over from rock bottom? I'll take those odds.” This is the one sentence that led some people to realize is that he may still be alive, but in hiding I think it's unlikely but I think I can see where they're coming from)


Jo Amon voice
(over the course of the entire series, Jo Amon is mute, not literally because he talks in text boxes, but he just doesn't have a voice to go along with it since he's just a substory character. Now this all changed when Y6 changed the way they approached substories, deciding to fully voice him, as he’s given a proper voice)


Kaoru’s disappearance
(after changing the writers between Y2 and Y3, the series producers didn't really know where to go with Kaoru, so they shipped her off to America and forgot she existed. After Y3, she was only in very, very brief mentions, where in Y5 Kurosawa mentioned a female cop working for a Yakuza and how embarrassing it was for the organized crime division of Osaka. She is often forgot about as anytime Kiryu’s love life is mentioned, he only mentions Yumi and how she was his one true love)


Yakuza 7 is a satiric drama about today's Japan problems and reality
(Y7 has a lot to say politically about Japan, particularly on marginalized groups of society such as sex workers, the homless, and immigrants)
Videos to elaborate further: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYB8vVv156A&ab_channel=WritingonGames
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhdZ1AlEEqY&ab_channel=eurothug4000


Daigo can summon spirits
(in Y7, Daigo has a summon where he summons a lot of the dead patriarchs such as: Sohei Dojima, Futoshi Shimano, Osamu Kashiwagi (which we know who isn't dead btw), and Shintaro Kazama. During this summon, all of the men point different types of guns and fires intensely at the subject, calling it the, “Guns of the Forefathers.” This summon could be obtained by first reaching to a certain point in the game; specifically, after Daigo and Masaru Watase announce the dissolving of their respective clans during the story. Once they do, you’ll be tasked with making it through a few fights and listening to some exposition for how the rest of the game’s story will play out. Once you regain control, you’ll be notified that new allies can be recruited via Kamulop, the Tojo clan member disguised as Yokohama’s mascot. These allies are Daigo and Watase, and Kamulop will give you said allies’ Poundmates summoning info if you bring him 50 Tojo Clan Crests apiece for them)


Removed Kuze fight in Y6
(joke entry, reference to this video most likely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvvo8v3nYkM&ab_channel=MaskedSmoker


Mr. Shakedown extermination
(reference to how Mr.Shakedown was never to be seen again after Y0, could he be dead from beating up too many people in the streets of Japan? What happened to him, we will never know)


Kiryu is Korean
(Kiryu could possibly be Korean due to Kazama being an assassin of the Tojo who was assigned to kill their enemies, and set up the orphanage to house the children of those he killed - it’s possible Kiryu was actually the son of Korean mafia but was raised as Japanese like Ryuji. It would also tie in with the “everyone is Korean” plotline. Kiwami Kazama reveals when he’s dying that he killed Kiryu’s parents, and they would have been “enemies of the Tojo Clan” as that was what Kazama’s job was. It’s entirely possible Kiryu was born to Japanese parents or even Korean or Chinese for all we know, but given the Jingweon had been warring with the Tojo for a number of years before 1980 when Kazama and Shimano shot up their base it’s entirely possible Kiryu’s parents were also Jingweon)


Haruka costume in Dead Souls
(referencing to Haruka’s kind of sus outfit in Dead Souls)


Rikiya substory time paradox
(in the Yakuza games, you could go into premium adventure after completing the game. This is where you could go anywhere you want and do anything you want. It's used for completed side quests after completing the main events in the story. Since some of these sub stories involve Rikiya, who died in the main game, this creates a time paradox)


Iwami and Kume are related
(take a look at this Reddit post and read what this user has said, sounds familiar to Iwami in any way? https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/comments/wzth98/kume_appreciation_thread_or_this_guy_is_a/

TIER 6 - THE PIT (PT.4)

Deleted Majima torture scene
(in Y0, we saw a brief scene of Majima’s past within “the hole” that Shimano had placed him in for disobeying. However, what they didn't show is what exactly they did to him while he was suffering. They could have starved him, beat him, stab or cut him, and possibly worse. It was heavily implied worse things as a form of ownership, but I don't want to go too graphic with it)


Kiryu’s VA voiced gay yaoi audio
(The title is self-explanatory. It used to be up on SoundCloud but it got taken down. RIP ✊)


UFOS in Y6 and LJ
(with more talk about strange creatures in Yakuza 6 you'll be able to find UFOs floating in very specific locations. For them to show up though, you will need to buy an accessory called UFO finder from Ebisu pawn shop in Kamurocho. Once equipped, you'll be able to spot these floating objects at a bunch of different locations. As for Lost Judgment, there is a substory revolving around UFOs where students are talking about them as well. For the whole substory it has the narrative where the UFOs are fake and there's this one delusional student that believes in them, because aliens apparently took his dad away when really he ran away with another woman. Though after all is done and you debunk the whole UFO phenomenon, we get to see a very intriguing scene where ass huge ass UFO just looms behind Yagami)


Real Yakuza legos
(like most other marketable franchises, Yakuza had its fair share of toys. One particular funny one if these goofy ass looking fake lego figures)

TIER 7 - THE ABYSS

Chef Tatsuya restaurant's outrage
(in Yakuza 5 there is a certain NPC that you end up meeting as every playable character. Tatsuya, the chef dude. He's based on a real person and he's also a celebrity chef in real life. In 2013 an article popped up about the chef insulting less fortunate people because he charged customers 800 Yen for water in his restaurant without any warning or explanation. Social media was just beginning to take off at the time and people complained about the restaurant online to which his response was “for viewers on the internet must be too middle class to understand the true value of his restaurant.” Yikes. Also, this article was the only one that I could find which is japancrudge.com, and the only other thing that I found about it is people talking about the same article on gamefaqs.com years ago so maybe it's one of those things that didn't become a big deal outside of Japan but who knows)

Link to article: https://www.japancrush.com/2013/stories/celebrity-chef-insults-poor-to-defend-800-yen-water-charge.html


Dead souls is canon
(I know 90% of the time when people talk about Dead Souls being canon, it's just for the memes but for those who don't know, Gary's boot camp is a location you're able to enter in Yakuza Dead Souls, and only in Dead Souls. It's a place where Gary Buster Holmes gives you a bunch of shooting training missions, and beating them gives you handy abilities. BUT once you go to that same area in Dead Souls where that place is present in Yakuza 5, IT'S STILL THERE. Now what the hell is this place doing in Yakuza 5. Of course the obvious answer more than likely is that they just reused at least a part of Kamurocho which are from Dead Souls for Yakuza 5 and forgot to change or swap out to this part. But, it could also be an elaborate Easter egg just to mess with you, or who knows. Maybe Yakuza Dead Souls truly is canon after all)


Hamazaki was planned to be a boss
(this is pure speculation. Yakuza 3 has the survival mode that has you going around Kamurocho to find story bosses and fighting them for fun, going through them by story order until you're ready to fight Mine. Along the way though you're able to fight one character who while present in the story had no story boss fight at all, Hamazaki. He has a generic heavy boss moveset and his abilities and everything which makes me think they really did plan to have you fight him at some point. I mean it does make a lot of sense. As you go through the story and watch that one cut scene in the Tojo introducing the new villains, you see Mine, Kanda, Hamazaki, and even Majima. All of whom you fight, except Hamazaki. If it really is true that he was at some point meant to have a story fight I do wonder why they took that out)

TIER 7 - THE ABYSS (PT.2)

RGGO lore
(it's a given that there's not many people out there that are familiar with RGG Online to begin with. Most will probably just tell you, “yeah I know that there's a gacha mobile game for Yakuza,” but I imagine that's the extent of most people's knowledge. And for good reason. This game has remained unlocalized for almost 4 years at this point, and given that it's just a mobile game, the chances of us getting it in English are unfortunately pretty slim. With that being said however, the lore of this game is an enormous colossal beast. The first question that will most likely cross your mind is “okay well, if we're talking about the lore here is this game's lore canon to the mainline series?” The surprising answer is yes for the most part. For the most part because it seems the only things that aren't canon are the things that conflict with the events of the mainline series. So for example, Ichiban's story in RGG Online while sharing similarities is completely different from the one we see in LAD. Therefore we can rule out his entire RGG online main story as being non-canon. Here are some interesting differences in each of one's story in this version:

• 1: Akiyama plays a role in the story and he and Ichiban become good friends and fight alongside each other. While we're talking about Akiyama, it's worth mentioning that Akiyama might have been planned to be in Yakuza 7 but was replaced by Nick because of the budget. It does make sense when we consider that Akiyama could have befriended Ichiban the same way Nick did, and he would have helped you with the business minigame and in that one scene near the end of his story as well. My best guess is that they wanted to focus more on bringing new characters rather than relying on existing ones. But I also keep hearing that his voice actor is pretty expensive, and that he's been busy with other projects.
  
  
• 2: Mitsu, one of the few characters in Yakuza Online who does end up making it to LAD with almost no changes to appearance, has a bigger role in Yakuza Online. You end up fighting him and then he ends up leaving the Arakawa family and joins Ichiban on his quest.
  
  
• 3: There is a detective character helping Ichiban but it's not Adachi. Naturally, this means characters like Saeko, Adachi and Nanba, are unique to LAD - at least in terms of story. They did end up releasing those three in Yakuza Online and they do have their own side stories, but they're not in the main story.
  
  
• 4: The Omi clan has four prominent figures that you end up going toe-to-toe with. Vincent, Kagami, Mikuni, and Sawashiro. All of whom never made it to LAD except Sawashiro. However, and this is just the theory, Tendo was possibly inspired by Kagami because for one his full name is Yosuke Kagami whereas Tendo is Yosuke Tendo and looking at the both of them side by side does give that vibe.
  
  
• 5: Ichiban meets several trainers from the mainline series such as Komaki and Saigo whereas he doesn't meet either of those in LAD.
  
  
• 6: Unlike LAD where Tendo / Masato are the final bosses, the final boss in this game is Joe Sawashiro and the fight takes place at the top of the Millennium Tower, and it ends in a draw. Masato does not exist in Yakuza Online and therefore there's probably no coin locker baby fiasco.
  
  
• 7: Arakawa's affiliation and role is much more ambiguous in this game. He still shoots Ichiban and “joins the Omi in this game” but we never see him again until the very end of the story, and it's in a phone call. The game ends in a cliffhanger and we never really see whether or not this Arakawa had good intentions. Ichiban is still devoted to him throughout the story though. I've seen someone theorizing that a certain Anonymous character whom we also never see but only here is in fact Arakawa helping Ichiban throughout the story from behind the scenes, and as crazy as it sounds these are just some examples of how different the story is in this game. All of these aforementioned points naturally entail even more events that did not happen in LAD.
  
  
• What’s next is apparently canon and also exclusive to Yakuza Online. “The Golden Dragons Wanderings” Ryuji's own campaign. The Golden Dragon's Wanderings is a story much shorter than Ichibans where Ryuji is the main character, whereas Ichiban's story is 22 chapters and Ryuji's story is only 6 chapters. The Story begins in 1999 where Jin Goda was soon to be the chairman of the Omi. Word spread around that Jin had already chosen who his successor would be. Said successor was going to become the head of the Go-Ryu clan, and the rumors were that it's going to be Ryuji. One day an Omi messenger tells Ryuji to head over to the headquarters because his father, Jin, wanted to discuss something with him. The messenger tells Ryuji that this is likely going to lead to Ryuji taking control of the Go-Ryu clan. However, upon arriving there, Jin surprised Ryuji by telling him that he's been expelled from the clan. Of course Ryuji thought this was some kind of sick joke and didn't take that, so he drew his sword at Jin and that's when he stands up from his wheelchair and beats the ever living ♥♥♥♥ out of Ryuji. Of course Ryuji's reaction is the same as you and me right now. What happens after this is Ryuji goes on something of a self-discovery journey, a soul-searching trip if you will, in which he meets a lot of familiar faces such as Joon-Gi-Han, Shinada, Kuze, Kitakata, and even Ichiban. Long story short the story comes full circle at the end where all the people Ryuji meets shape him into being less of a hothead. So he has a fair rematch with Jin Goda and this is where you see just how much heat Jin is packing underneath. So this time Ryuji wins the battle, thus taking control of the Go-Ryu clan as we see him in Yakuza 2. If you want to read the full translation to the story I highly recommend you check out the Dojima’s Dragon Girls blog because she has done an amazing job translating Ryuji's story in addition to Ichiban's story and more. Aside from Ichiban and Ryuji's stories, the game also brought the entirety of the Y1 story but it's pretty much the same so I'm not gonna talk about that. But, there are character specific stories for many, and I mean many of the characters that you acquire.
  
  
• There are simply too many stories and bits of information to dive into with this game, and I unfortunately don't understand all of them. Remember our good old American antagonist Andre Richardson? Well, if you manage to acquire him, you'll gain access to an interesting anecdote. His story takes place shortly before he runs into Kiryu in Yakuza 3. You see him arriving in Kamurocho looking pretty grim and then he wants to take in the sights - eating good food around town, singing karaoke, (Kamurocho Lullaby by the way) and then he even goes to hostess club just having a grand old time all around the city while carrying a gun, like your usual tourist would. He gets into fights at most of these places he visits, because as you may already know Kamurocho thugs pick fights with just about every person. The hostess club would be his last stop, because it's after that that he gets the call asking him to look for Kiryu and his story ends there. I do hope you have a good idea now of just how much there is to read and to know with this game. It's easy to bash mobile games for being predatory towards its users with how they encourage you to spend money, and unfortunately I do think it's gotten extremely predatory by this point)

Dojima's Dragon Girl blog: https://dojimasdragongirl.wordpress.com/2020/04/05/ryu-ga-gotoku-online-the-golden-dragons-wanderings-chapter-one/

TIER 7 - THE ABYSS (PT.3)

Stolichnaya Vodka in Yakuza 1 and 2
(the original games had Stolichnaya Vodka, which seems to be replaced by other vodka in later games)


Toshihiro Nagoshi’s ‘decease’
(referencing Nagoshi’s departure, in 2021, creator and head honcho behind the Yakuza series actually left Sega to form a new studio with assistance from chinese companies. Or it could be a reference to how he had heart surgery in 2019 and his health was deteriorating)


Takeshi Kitano hates video games
(Takeshi Kitano who plays one of the lead characters in Yakuza 6, has publicly stated and made very clear that he hates video games and thinks they are cringe. You may be thinking, then why is he in Yakuza then? The reason he agreed to do the games isn't because his views have changed or anything


Sins Of The Father Gangnam style remix
(alt name: Inconvenienced store. Look it up on siivagunner's channel.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9H7m8smeWM&ab_channel=SiIvaGunner


RGG Kizuna
(RGG Kizuna was a game developed by Sega and published by GREE for IOS and Android. It was released on March 26, 2012, and it was free to play. It's hard to find anything about this game and it had a pretty short one as well, shutting down on August 31st 2012, the same year as its release)


Y3 poster in GT5 / Yakuza 3 easter egg in Gran Turismo 5
(a poster of the Japanese version of Yakuza 3 can be seen on a building that is supposed to be a Sony headquarters building. Yakuza 3 came out in Japan in February 2009 while Gran Turismo 5 came out in November 2010)


Y0 Walkman
(Walkman was a music device, a lot like the iPad that was sold around when Y0 came out in Japan in 2015. It cost 30,000 Yen which is roughly 250 dollars, and it came with a neat DLC that allowed you to play different music pieces while walking around Kamurocho or Sotenbori. It had stuff like the Japanese intro songs of all the different games)


The return of Shimano
(this refers to a particular video where you see the english voice of Shimano from the PS2 release of Yakuza, Michael Matson, on the job. It's a pretty amusing video and it's on YouTube so I recommend you go watch it. There's a specific bit where he talks about the character, and he says that somewhere deep down, perhaps Shimono is a good fella, and that if the game succeeds we'll perhaps see a game called, “The Return of Shimano”)


Characters more interesting than Yumi Sawamura
(a Tumblr blog that posts characters more interesting than Yumi Sawamura. And by that, I mean literally every Yakuza character that exists. That that is the account. That's the blog, they just post every character that exists while claiming to not be a hate blog, but that's okay I think Yumi slander is justified. She is Wet Bread, she's a Mcguffin, and despite being so integral to the plot of Yakuza 1, she's not even in Y0 she's “away at college.” I think there's a broader point to be made here though, that the writers, the writing team in RGG has always been ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful at writing women, and the one time they kind of got it right with Sayama they immediately ditched her, they just got rid of the character. After Sayama, they just kind of stopped trying until Yasuko and Park in Y4 and Y5, and both of those characters are just - they exist to be the subject of misery porn. They aren't characters, they are sufferers. Yokosawa is the same way, she was created to die. I think about that scene in Y7, where Kiryu shows up, and there's a shot that zooms out and Saeko is the only woman in the room. I understand why that's the case, but it's hilarious to me albeit Saeko herself is a fairly enjoyable character. She has like 10 lines though. They seem to give a ♥♥♥♥, you know they seem to be trying to get better but, in my opinion, they honestly haven't)


Def Jam: Fart For New York
(this isn't anywhere near as interesting as it sounds, the team behind Kurohyō and Kurohyō 2 (or they co-developed it I believe) they're called Syn Sophia, also worked on Def Jam: Fart For New York and as a result, a lot of mechanics and animations from that game are present in Kurohyō)


Nagoshi in Kurohyou TV series
(Nagoshi is the reason why the Yakuza series exists. He was the general director of RGG studios until he left last year. Nagoshi plays a Tojo Yakuza character who isn't good or evil. He interacts with the protagonist as well, not so much in season 1, but it becomes more often in season 2)


Green shadow
(this is a substory for Saejima in Y4, much like the previous substory entries, being this low on the iceberg because of the implications it entails. The substory begins with homeless men near your hideout talking about their food being stolen and some monster-like creature called kappas. In Japanese folklore mythology, kappas are humanoid turtle-like creatures known to love cucumbers and also like to engage in sumo wrestling. After hearing these rumors, approaching your hideout shows you a scene where Saejima finds a mysterious person in his hideout. But upon checking, nothing was stolen. Saejima then sees two homeless men that talk to him about the whole phenomenon. And you are told that there is a kappa hiding in the manhole in Children’s Park. So Saejima says he’ll go check it out. When you arrive there, you find a curious man checking out the same rumor and jokingly mentioning that maybe he should have brought a cucumber so the kappa would show itself. After trying a few things, Saejima captures something - a man in a kappa costume. You'll have to chase him, and once you catch him, he says he's doing this for a TV show. However, Saejima then asks if he was the person who invaded his underground hideout, and the guy says he's never been there. He's only been in the underground mall below the Children’s Park. After the guy walks away, we get a very interesting cut scene where a real kappa merges himself out of the sewer to take a look at Saejima, but quickly closes the manhole, so Saejima doesn't see him)


Child trafficking in Kenzan
(Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan or Yakuza Kenzan is set in the 1600s and one of the things it portrays is child courtesans being trained which is pretty controversial to say the least. A “courtesan” is “in modern usage, is a euphemism for a "kept" mistress or prostitute, particularly one with wealthy, powerful, or influential clients.” The hurricane equivalent in this game does get in there as well. Recently with Ishin being remade and discussions for Kenzan happening more and more RGG Studio said that if they remake Kenzan, they would have to change so much with it that it might as well become a new game. If they think that much has to change then I would say part of that definitely is because of the whole thing going on with the child courtesans, and how that would be problematic to present now)


Empty Tojo
(around when YK first came out, there was a strange bug during one particular cutscene around the beginning of the game. You see Kazama walking into the Tojo clan with his bodyguards. Normally you're supposed to see an army of guys bowing as he walks in, though the bug made it so that there was absolutely no one aside from Kazama and his bodyguards. Pretty weird but it was fixed afterwards)


Kurohyou cameos
(in the Kurohyou games, you're able to see a few characters from the main games, namely Yuya, Akiyama, Hana, Dr. Emoto, and the Florist. You see Yuya at one point in the story in Kurohyou 2 and I think there's a substory in 1 where he shows up as Hana has a chance of showing up when you work as a part-timer in Kyushu No. 1 Star. As for Akiyama there's a bit of an Akiyama everywhere system because you can see him in multiple places including Kyushu No. 1 Star, the bouncer mini game, and also in hostess clubs. The Florist shows up in the main story of both games, and as for Dr. Emoto, you can visit him to heal your injuries)

NOMINEES - STUFF I COULDN’T ELABORATE ON / FIND OR THOUGHT IT SHOULDN’T BE INCLUDED

Before you read further, I'd like to thank you for making it this far into the iceberg! Or who knows, you skipped most of it just to come here. Regardless, you read some of these insane entries, so that's a start. Reminder - if I somehow got any of these incorrect, feel free to correct me, as I'll edit them to more accurate terms. And, if you do happen to know any of these that don't have an explanation to them, feel free to tell me what they reference!


You can actually mute the in-game music in Yakuza by playing a Spotify track in the back and putting it to 0 volume.
(It's a rare feature in PS4 games; only ones I've seen do it so far have been the Dragon Engine Yakuza titles and Persona)


Yakuza 3 introduces the seamless transition from game world to the battle mode for the player's character, as the previous games in the Yakuza series had a black loading screen, before each battle.


Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi said that Yakuza was originally pitched to the public Yakuza on Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. While Sony approved Yakuza, both Microsoft and Nintendo hadn't. This was because Yakuza was aimed at a very narrow audience, being aimed strictly towards Japanese males, when at the time, women and children were also playing video games. Nagoshi also never planned for a worldwide release.


The bits of Korean dialogue that was originally in Yakuza 2 was not exactly fluent to say the least. When the PS2 version was localized for South Korea, Sega brought in native speakers to re-record all the spoken Korean in the game. The re-recorded Korean ended up being used instead of the original broken Korean for the later PS3 and WII U ports in Japan.


Saki Akai, one of the hostesses, is an actual Japanese professional wrestler, actress, and model.


In side case #3, Yagami hides in a cardboard box to sneak closer to the burglar, most likely a reference to the MGS series.

• CyricZ spin-off game

Kiryu in Brazil
(Kiryu's VA used to live in Brazil for a few years)

• Joon-Gi-Han secret karaoke
  
  
  
• Masato and Ryo Aoki are different people
  
  
  
• Yumi in Y0

Tendo is a god in Yakuza 5
(probably referencing to how strong he is but i'm not sure exactly)

• Rebuilding of Ares after Y1
  
  
  
• J&A used to be a real Yakuza clan
  
  
  
• Shinada was arrested after Y5
  
  
  
• Date let Haruka get kidnapped on purpose
  
  
  
• Utabori Imitator
  
  
  
• Soma from Lost Judgment’s actor (Hiroshi Tamaki) plays the Yakuza house husband
  
  
  
• Zombie Majima is from the Dead Souls timeline
  
  
  
• Y6 alternate ending
  
  
  
• Nouveau Riches are employed by Akiyama

https://at.tumblr.com/dottyistired/no-listen-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-listen-majima-is-the/5xgb66q9sz9v


THIS VIDEO LOL
(idk what I should name this entry)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmLrJTpOx4A&ab_channel=ShounannokazeVEVO

LINKS TO ALL ICEBERG VIDEOS I TOOK OFF OF

Devilleon7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bIZSWS-xLc&t=3s&ab_channel=devilleon7


Redlyne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEmnOw-lwE0&t=11s&ab_channel=Redlyne


Flambingo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fukCr2wQhGU&ab_channel=Flambingo


(there were also some Reddit posts I copy and pasted from, but I can't find the links to them at this moment, sorry!)

[Andor]

Kiryu-Cum Me and a friend who is watching always say at the end of each hostess story. Daisuki

[fart monster is not pleased]

Oh, i know. Like i said, lead directors only assumed he was but the meme is funny, yes

[Andor]

Kiryu is not a virgin. I am currently finishing Y4 and it is implied that there was a hook up with each hostess you finish. but the meme about it is funny.

[fart monster is not pleased]

All I know is the price ranges around $130-140 USD based on sales on Ebay, so I recommend saving it as a collectors item because not much people have his book! (only 2-3 were even listed on Ebay in the first place).

[krag4578]

Hey do you know much about the kiwami leather book copy? I just got one, never seeing one before and can't find any info other than this post.

[COMMANDER STEFFA™]

♡

[fart monster is not pleased]

And to where it sits on the “iceberg” it’s about how much the people or the community knows about the information as well, and given that it’s a pretty popular joke, it has to be quoted as “kiryu has never killed.”

[fart monster is not pleased]

Hey, thank you for your input, but im well aware what kiryu did. The "Kiryu never killed anyone" was a sarcastic entry in which the fandom keeps bringing up because its become a meme. It isnt realistic. Trust me, im well aware of Kiryus actions. And that also goes for alot of other entries on here as well.

[Scottey!]

I wouldn't say "Kiryu has never killed anyone". It's false. Most people base this theory on that one scene in Yakuza 5 where Aoyama says "This is not what I heard! They said you never kill"
but to which Kiryu responds: "I was never a saint." - which is always skipped and nobody remembers about that. This needs updating. Kiryu is not a saint and there are canonic events where he did kill. Like that one scene in Kiwami where he pulled a waiter and used him as a bullet shield. Or that one time where he shot the helicopter with a bazooka (Y6).
I get it, it's a pretty good joke to make all these montages where he shoots helicopters (he did that so many times - Y0, Y6 at least) or straight up kills people like that mentioned waiter. It just doesn't sit right if we're talking about an iceberg.
Also, I wouldn't say he killed in "cold blood", because that's also not true. He does this to protect himself and people he loves. Doesn't change the fact he took lives.

[24user24]

i hope someone makes a video on this