Although Yakuza and Like a Dragon games don’t typically tread into explicit content, it seems like the franchise’s depictions of the Japanese criminal underworld put it under a significant amount of scrutiny, despite the goofiness that always accompanies its dark and violent themes. Like a Dragon series executive producer and RGG Studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama recently commented on the topic in a talk with voice actor Hiroyuki Miyasako.
Miyasako will be reprising his role as Yakuza 3’s irredeemable villain Tsuyoshi Kanda in the upcoming Yakuza Kiwami 3. During his talk with Yokoyama, he reminisced about his character’s infamous introduction scene in the original game, calling it an “unbelievable *bleep* scene.” Yokoyama laughs but immediately corrects him, saying, “No, no, that was a massage scene. That’s Kanda’s unusual hobby of giving massages. Don’t get it wrong!” In Yakuza 3, Kanda is described as having a “fixation for giving women rough massages,” but as many details in the game point to, this is a euphemism for something a lot darker.
Yokoyama confirms as much, calling the massage thing “a flimsy explanation I came up with.” He then continues to explain that Like a Dragon faces some of the strictest ethical restrictions out there. “Because of the subject matter, we go through 10 or 20 times more legal and ethical checks than the typical project. We have to be careful about all kinds of things.”
Additionally, with the franchise going global, the scrutiny isn’t just at home, but international. “Things that seem fine to Japanese sensibilities can be completely off-limits in another country, even if it’s just one word in the script or a specific street sign that resembles something taboo. We have to clear all of that before we can release globally.”
The issue is directly related to sales as well. In Japan, Like a Dragon titles are generally produced with the CERO D rating in mind (ages 17 and up), but if a title were to be bumped up to CERO Z (ages 18 and up) by Japan’s rating body, retailers wouldn’t be able to display it the same way they do other games. “It would be sectioned off the same way pornographic magazines do,” Yokoyama explains. And since each of the countries in which Like a Dragon titles are sold have their own rating systems, Yokoyama admits to having a difficult time preparing titles for global release. Since Yakuza is known and appreciated as an adult drama with dark themes, it seems like striking the right balance is quite precarious.
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