assorted yakuza thoughts

[lihim]

thinking about how kuze is absolutely the perfect character foil for kiryu. when their fights stopped being about the yakuza business and started being about upholding one man’s pride.. that’s when i started to REALLY appreciate kuze’s character despite the fact that you have to fight him not once, not twice, but five times throughout the game. in fact i think it WAS because of those five fights that i came to appreciate what he meant to kiryu.

out of curiosity i searched the meaning of his yakuza back tattoo and this is what the wiki said:

“Kuze's tattoo depicts Enma, the judge and ruler of Hell on his back, while the guardians of Hell Gozu (Ox-Head) and Mezu (Horse-Face) adorn his left and right upper arms respectively. This may reference how Kuze keeps fighting and judging Kiryu, and also how Kuze is the only obstacle in Kiryu's path that keeps him in the hell of the Yakuza.”

interesting! might be one of my favorite back tattoo symbolically (though of course nothing will beat nishiki and his koi.)

lastly i want to talk about this scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0rQLIpi2ck

sagawa and majima mesh well together and after having spent the entire game feeling ambiguous-to-negative about sagawa, this final scene just ties everything up perfectly.. for the entire game sagawa was basically majima’s imprisoner, forcing him to run a cabaret club and keeping him trapped in sotenbori. not to mention the brief torture scene. but.. idk! i can’t explain. despite all that their relationship is so.. layered and complex. for sagawa treating majima like that really was just his 9-5 so in the end it’s still like.. no hard feelings i suppose? i still don’t know how i feel exactly about sagawa but in retrospect i feel bad over his death. him referring to majima as “tiger” and “majima-chan” was, for once, not derogatory and something actually affectionate. which really got me so bad. i wish i could explain better but alas my brain is leaking out of my ear.