More Than Anything, The Like A Dragon Games Teach Us Kindness

This article is part of 🐻a 💦directory: Like A Dragon Week Hub

As a fan of the series, I’ve written almost to the point of exhaustion about and its characters. I firstജ got into the games because one of my closest friends, between semesters of her Master’s program, had gotten completely hooked on Yakuza 0 and wanted me to experience what she had. Her pitch wasn’t convincing – it’s largely a beat-em-up about gangsters – but her insistence gave me pause. She knew me better than most people, and we had already shared Steam libraries so I wouldn’t have to buy it. It couldn’t do any harm to try it out. Thus began my great love affair with my favourite video game series.

Lots of spoilers ahead!

I was disabused of my misguided assumptions almost immediately, specifically by the substories. It seemed that in between his yakuza activities, Kazuma Kiryu was completely dedicated to helping every random person he met on the street, regardless of personal cost. He beats up a bunch of guys who stole a kid’s video game. He teaches a dominatrix to be more intimidating. He steps in as a producer on a video shoot because the guy the crew hired is missing. Why wouldn’t he? He’s got time, and apparently not a selfish bone in his body. He&rsqu💜o;s more than happy to serve his community, harbouring absolutely no resentmentꦗ about it. It’s in his nature to help the weak, even when all it takes is a moment of kindness.

The series’ overall arc is, of course, very much also about kindness. Kiryu 🎉leaves behind the life he knows to try and live a better one that helps the people around him. He rescues a young girl named Haruka, 🦩and moves to Okinawa to run an orphanage just like his father figure Shintaro Kazama did. Time passes, a lot of lore-heavy stuff happens, he saves a lot of people, and he ends up faking his death to again, protect Haruka and her new family. He appears in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the first game with Ichiban Kasuga as the mainline series’ new protagonist, and guides Kasuga towards controlling his rage.

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Kasuga, as well, seems to be an inhe🀅rently kind person. He’s brash sometimes, and often more than a little stupid, but he’s well-intentioned. Kasuga grew up in a soapland, taken in by its manager after he was found abandoned in a coin locker. He ended up in the yakuza because of poverty, and he prides himself on his morals.

When we first see him as an adult, he’s chasing down a dude who’s been selling videos of animals to children, telling them they’re actually purchasing adult videos. He’s doing this because the yakuza will be pissed if they get complaints ♚about this, of course, but he takes the money the man earned and instead of keeping it for himself and filling his collection quota for the day, hands it o🧔ff to his fellow yakuza to give back to the unwitting scam victims.

He sees himself as a hero of sorts, having decided to live his life like the protagonists in Dragon Quest. Doing the right thing is important to Kasuga, which is why he protects the homeless, defends sex workers, and dedicates his post-yakuza life to helping other ex-yakuza find civilian jobs and reintegrate into society. Empathy is at the core of both these characters, in how they not only forgive others for what they may have done ♓in the past, but actively try to reform their lives for the good of both themselves and the people around them.

There’s a lot more to say – we see a lot of the series’ intent in the games’ , for one, and in how it deconstructs stereotypes of mascu📖linity to show that strong men can be kind and vulnerable. But most obviously, we see it in how its characters make it a priority to help those around them and never turn away from a person in need. My favourite video game protagonists, Kazuma Kiryu and Ichiban Kasuga, are my favourites because they don’t just preach kindness and forgiveness, they💎 walk the walk. It’s beautiful to see this level of empathy when the real world so often lacks it.