In case it wasn’t obvious, I’ll be spoiling the “Yakuza” franchise, so for those who haven’t played them, do that. They’re peak and if you have a Game Pass, most of them are free.
There are very few game franchises that get me consistently hyped for a new entry like the “Yakuza,” also known as “Like a Dragon” franchise, and the newest game “Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii” is no exception and I unsurprisingly had a blast playing it.
However, while playing the game I came to realize something in between beating up the same goon for the 900th time, sinking any pirate ships that dare cross my path and watching Majima sing their heart out in the karaoke mini game, these games have really good examples of positive masculinity.
For those not in the know, “Yakuza,” also known as “Like a Dragon,” is a franchise that started all the way back in 2005. Each game typically follows one Kazuma Kiryu, a legendary yakuza with unparalleled fighting skills and his attempts to unravel a conspiracy in each game that typically ends with him and the main antagonist fighting shirtless on a rooftop in Tokyo.
The games have a tone that varies from deadly serious to Looney Toons, and somehow they always manage to make it work with its charm. And in the dead center of that charm is its characters, more specifically, its main characters.
Let’s start off simple, Kazuma Kiryu, AKA the Dragon Dojima. On the onset seems like the ideal man, strong, confident and has a jawline that could cut diamonds, however when one looks deeper into him you see how he’s more than that.
Yes, Kiryu is all of that and a bag of chips, but he’s also respectful towards women, no matter the profession, is kind and gentle towards children, is open and honest with his emotions, doesn’t mind looking like a complete dork when having fun and is always willing to help others no matter the situation or how uncomfortable it makes him.
Whether it’s helping a girl with her stalkers or dressing up to be a town’s mascot (complete with catchphrases and everything) in order to cheer up the local children. If someone needs help, he’ll help them.
His own backstory has to do with the concept of masculinity. Growing up an orphan, Kiryu greatly looked up to his foster father, Shintaro Kazama. To young Kiryu, Kazama had it all: nice suits, fast cars, the respect of his peers, he could do no wrong. But as he grew older, he came to realize that his foster father was far from perfect, so instead of trying to emulate Kazama, he decided to try to emulate the man he thought Kazama was, opening up his own orphanage and helping his kids get through life the best they can.
Moving on from Kiryu, let’s look at the protagonist of the newest game, the fan favorite, Goro Majima, AKA The Mad Dog of Shimano.
For those who haven’t played the games, Majima is yin to Kiryu’s yang. Where Kiryu is stoic and serious, Majima is boisterous and unpredictable, but not in an aggressive or demeaning way, more of a love-of-life sort of way.
Majima wears a snakeskin jacket, no shirt, leather pants and crocodile skinned steel tipped shoes, why? Because it’s what he likes to wear. He acts effeminate whenever he’s interacting with Kiryu, why? Because it’s how he likes to show affection towards him.
Despite these less traditionally masculine, and in some cases more feminine, qualities, he’s never shown as less of a man. If anything, he uses his less traditional way of acting to his advantage; it’s commented on multiple times that both allies and enemies have a hard time predicting what he’ll do because of the wild antics he gets in.
One day, he’ll disarm a bomb using his instincts and eeny meeny miny moe, the next, he’ll dress up as a woman in order to get a drop on his rival, Kiryu, or as he affectionately calls him, Kiryu-Chan.
Finally, something that the series does that not a lot of other series have the courage to do is let their male leads cry— and not a single manly tear, but bawling one’s eyes out, red cheeks and crying eyes.
There are two great examples in the series, one involves Taiga Saejima and the other, once again, involves Kiryu.
For those not in the know, Saejima is Goro’s oath brother and is probably even more stoic and lacks even less tack than Kiryu. Built like a brick-shit-house, this man throws motorcycles around. In the story of the game, he’s recently escaped from prison on 18 counts of murder from a raman shootout in order to learn the truth of why he was really put into prison.
This all leads up to events in “Yakuza 4” where he’s forced to fight in an underground colosseum match in order to learn some information. After beating his opponent the crowd demands he kill him, one person stating “You already killed 18, didn’t you? What’s one more?”
Sajima yells at them to shut up and breaks down in tears running down his face. He says that none of them knows what it’s like to kill a man. It’s terrifying; every night, he sees them in his dreams, reliving the events, seeing their terrified faces, hearing their bones crack and that he knows he’s scarred their families for life.
The other famous example is at the end of “Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.” In the game Kiryu has faked his death and works with a secretive government organization due to events in a previous installment.
At the end of the game his handler, Hanawa, hands him footage from a secret camera that the organization has set up looking at his fake grave, and some of the children at the orphanage find it. Deducing that the camera probably has something to do with Kiryu, they sit down and begin to talk to it.
They explain that no one at the orphanage really believes he’s dead but trusts he has a good reason for keeping his distance. They go on to explain what they’ve been up to since he’s “died” and that they’re living good lives partially because of the lessons he’s taught them.
While Kiryu watches the recording, he’s bawling his eyes, even has snot coming out his nose.
But it gets sadder. Hanawa then hands him a photo taken of a picture drawn by Kiryu’s four-year-old grandson, Haruto, who also lives at the orphanage. The drawing consists of Kiryu with everyone together.
Kiryu starts crying even more, saying how proud he is of Haruto, how last he saw him he couldn’t even talk, now he can read and write and is drawing pictures like this. He then exclaims that he wishes he could tell his kids how much he misses them and that he thinks he needs them more than they need him.
This is a man who has toppled criminal conspiracies and brought down entire empires, yet here he is, bawling his eyes out over how much he misses his kids. And at no point does the game judge him or paint him as any less of a man for it.
