A lead Yakuza dev has played down Kiryu's comments in a past trailer, and series fans can't handle it.
Last month in June, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio showed off a new scene for the upcoming Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, where protagonists Ichiban and Kiryu exchanged comments about love. Kiryu's comments, though, lead many to believe he'd proposed to a woman before, and that woman could very well be Yakuza Kiwami 2's Kaoru Sayama.
Fans were lead to believe this by Kiryu flippantly remarking "I proposed before," to Ichiban. Since Sayama is pretty much the only serious romance Kiryu has had before in the entire Yakuza series (yes, we're discounting Yumi Sawamura), a lot of people out there were jazzed to think there was more to discover about Kiryu and Sayama's potential romance.
- Years before we learned of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, Majima's voice actor pitched a JRPG about the fan-favorite anti-hero and was told "that's not going to happen"
- Like a Dragon developer says none of us have figured out what its new game Project Century is about because "We didn’t include any information that would enable people to guess"
But that's not how RGG Studio intended the comment to be received at all. "With regards to the answer made by Kiryu and the mentioning of the proposal, it was actually very lighthearted," RGG Studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama explained in a new interview with Gamer Braves.
"There wasn’t much depth to that answer. He just kind of wanted to go with the flow of the conversation and say, 'Hey, you know what, I proposed before' without thinking much into it," Yokoyama continued. "So there won’t be any kind of further talking to the actual proposal in the background of that conversation because it was mainly just out of fun."
It's an absolutely wild comment for Kiryu to pass off as unserious, in all fairness. Yakuza fans are feeling that exact way about Yokoyama's clarification for the scene, and they're taking to Reddit in droves to mourn together.
Comment from r/yakuzagames
"Why are they so fucking afraid of giving Kiryu a normal relationship?" writes one Reddit user who's very displeased at the whole thing. "So that Yakuza players can relate to the main character," responds another commenter, perhaps unreasonably, if we're being honest.
Comment from r/yakuzagames
"I'm hoping this is just prerelease, trying to keep things on the downlow but if it really is just a throw away line... bruh. Come on," writes another Redditor. People sure aren't pleased that Kiryu set them up with a tantalizing line only to pull the rug from under them. Yakuza fans are seriously invested in Kiryu, after all. They've only spent about two decades or so with him.
We'll have more Kiryu to look forward to later this year on November 9, when our hero returns for Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.
