gorogorogoro-chan

The answer to your problems is self-discipline

kamurocho has never looked as good as it did in 1988. that whole yakuza 0 period has such a grimy glamour that the city just moved away from once the millennium tower was built — not as a result of the series messing up the art, but in a very real world way where the real estate developers come in and polish all the life out of a place. it's cleaner and more corporate and probably legitimately safer by the time we get to lost judgment, but man dipping back into the first game in the series really underlines how much was lost along the way. i had thought it was just nostalgia, but the nice thing about this series existing at all period simultaneously is that i *can* return to 1988. unlike the real world, you *can* go home again, and see that, no, it's not just the hazy glow of fond memories, there actually *is* a marked difference in the place

hauling this out of the tags:

this is i think accurate, and it’s notable that after yakuza 4 you don’t play as a kamurocho resident except in the judgment games. everyone ends up in kamurocho, but they’re there as visitors, tourists almost. that connection to the community makes a huge difference—akiyama has is, yagami and kaito have it, ichiban has it very briefly before he goes to prison, but everyone else has spent years in exile. they’re alienated from kamurocho, and kamurocho is alienated from them; none of them spend enough time in the climactic section to rebuild their connections with the place, and that’s part of what makes the place feel so hollow and commercial outside of the judgment series. in yakuza 0-2, kiryu has friends all over the city— systemically in yakuza 0, and narratively in 1 and 2, but by the time you get to 5 and 6 they’re all almost gone except for perennially damseled daigo and date the once and future cop, and neither of those two can really be friends with any of the player characters, since their jobs fundamentally divide them.

i'm not mad that majima and haruka weren't playable characters in infinite wealth, but i am sad about it. kasuga's friends are great, but they're kasuga's friends, not kiryu's. if this is kiryu's swan song, it's softly tragic that he's going out with new friends over old ones

some of this is the result of my particular focus as a player diverging from the intended reading of these games. majima is one of *the* central figures in the series for me, only overshadowed by haruka, but that's not actually how the text of the games understands things. but majima was a major piece of play in yakuza 0, kiwami, and kiwami 2, between being a PC, the central leveling mechanic, and the giant minigame. he is *mechanically* central to the first loose trilogy of games in a way that made him feel emotionally central to the character. i never connected with daigo dojima because his importance to kiryu is limited to one brief substory in y0 and cutscenes in later games, but majima is embedded in the fabric of both sotenbori and kamurocho like no other character. i can't walk down nakamichi street without looking for the giant traffic cone that majima hid under to whip my ass, the same way i first engaged with the minigames because haruka took my hand and told me she wanted to see me win at oichi-kabu. i wanted that same level of ludic interaction as part of kiryu's bucket list, because those digressive moments were, for me, the beating heart of the yakuza series

it's not a bad choice to exile the 'jimas to the frozen north and haruka to okinawa—it has been something like 20 years since majima and kiryu were locked into a relationship closer than love, deeper than death—but man. man. i wanted them back together, if only for a brief moment.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth | ▶ dev. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio

Was absolutely devastated by this scene (fuck Kiryu here btw he was such an ass to them) but I'm still losing my fucking mind over Kiryu bowing his head down to Majima and calling him "Majima no nii-san". It's been decades since Kiryu has left the Tojo and YET.

well I had so much fun making the rdr one that I made a yakuza one too 🤙 behold

fucking dying over here from kiryu saying that he's "had his share of romances" in the past, then dredging up yumi sawamura as his only example. you know, yumi, a woman he never actually had a single date with

the great love of kiryu's life was a woman he had a crush on as a teenager, then went to jail for before he actually got up the courage to ask her out. he spent a decade in jail and barely spoke to her before she blew herself up. that's his share of romances!

this is why people think kiryu is gay or asexual or something, because literally all of his deep emotional relationships are with men. he visualizes an actual literal dog during karaoke more than he does yumi! it's very difficult to read that relationship, with kiryu in his 60s, as anything more than an excuse for keeping himself at arm's length from other women

having these conversations with saeko, who is having her own issues with heterosexual romance and whose own karaoke song ends with her kissing the freer version of herself is sure some kind of choice, i tell you what

Interoffice relationships must be approached with caution, as they can lead to workplace drama and interfere with general productivity. While they are permitted, they are to remain outside the workplace and work hours.

Whenever possible.

average weekday night

it’s what they deserve

text translation: it’s ugly to have a man sitting behind a girl on a scooter

I LOVE DAIGO TOO

“stop invalidating male friendship by calling them gay” how about writers stop treating women as the Main Man’s two dimensional prop with tits while giving the relationship between him & his male best friend the emotional intimacy and development that should have been reserved for his actual romantic partner

obsessed with that particular brand of saekazumaji where saejima is initially like “this is my husband majima and that’s his boyfriend kiryu.” like, saejima and kiryu aren’t romantically involved at first, even though they respect each other deeply and enjoy each other’s company, but dating majima – much like weathering a disaster with a stranger – speedruns intimacy like nothing else, and within a couple weeks, kiryu and saejima have bonded hardcore over all of the absurd bullshit that majima puts them through on the daily and they’re going on weird old man dates with each other where they communicate entirely through grunts for hours on end and watch, like, made-for-tv documentaries about ancient japanese woodworking together on majima’s ¥350,000 leopard-print couch. and then they go to bed early, if they haven’t already fallen asleep on the couch. and majima is thrilled at first that his two hunks are getting along so handsomely but then they start to unionize against him whenever his batshit antics are too obnoxious to handle and majima is powerless to stop them. like he’ll start acting up at 6 AM on a weekend and kiryu will stand up all casual-like and say “okay, nii-san, have fun with that. saejima and i are going to the sporting goods store. we’ll be home later” and majima is like “fuck! i fuckin’ hate the sporting goods store! you two assholes spend an hour contemplatin’ camping thermoses and the asshole staff don’t even let me climb the rock wall!” and saejima is like “you can stay home if you’d like, kyodai, no one said you have to come” and majima is just like 😨😡😰🥺 and if he STILL doesn’t settle down after that, saejima says “this is my husband kiryu and that’s his boyfriend majima” like he’s been demoted