Hi everyone!
This is the third (and probably final) post in my series for Beast in the East, coming after The Yakuza 0 "80's Hits! Collection" Soundtrack and A History Documentary for the Yakuza Endurance Run.
Now that Beast in the East is acquainted with most of the key characters in Yakuza 0, here’s my third post of extras for those keeping up with the series. The following were all released as part of Yakuza 0’s original PR campaign. I’ll tell you right now: this wound up being a lot more than what I had planned it to be, so it’s going to be a pretty long post.
First up, a collection of interviews with the voice actors. There’s no official English translation, but you do get to see the faces behind the voices. The topics include opinions on the script and characters as well as personal memories of the late ’80s and a message for fans. There’s also some discussion and footage of the face capture tech used in the game. How long ago was L.A. Noire? Man...
Oh, and you get to see Riki Takeuchi gesture like he’s sponsored by his own body and say the words “face capture” amazingly. Hope you enjoy it.
PART ONE
0:00 黒田崇矢 Takuya Kuroda - Kiryu
3:57 宇垣秀成 Hidenari Ugaki - Majima
7:50 中谷一博 Kazuhiro Nakaya - Nishikiyama
12:50 咲野俊介 Shunsuke Sakuya - Kashiwagi
17:44 沢城みゆき Miyuki Sawashiro - Makoto (credited as “blind working girl”)
Wen Hai Lee was played by Kazunari Tanaka (田中一成). His page at Aoni Production is here. Sadly, he passed away in October 2016 at the age of 49.
PART TWO
0:00 竹内力 Riki Takeuchi - Awano
3:28 鶴見辰吾 Shingo Tsurumi - Sagawa
6:21 中野英雄 Hideo Nakano - Shibusawa
9:50 井浦新 Arata Iura - Tachibana
14:37 小沢仁志 Hitoshi Ozawa - Kuze
Thirty AV actresses appeared in Yakuza 0’s substories. Here are the top ten.
0:00 朝倉ことみ Kotomi Asakura (Club Moon)
2:44 白石茉莉奈 Marina Shiraishi (Real estate - Kiryu’s secretary)
6:44 湊莉久 Riku Minato (Telephone club)
9:15 友田彩也香 Ayaka Tomoda (Telephone club)
12:32 さとう遥希 Haruki Satō (Telephone club)
15:07 初美沙希 Saki Hatsumi (Club Jupiter)
17:30 大槻ひびき Hibiki Ōtsuki (Club Mercury)
20:20 上原亜衣 Ai Uehara (Club Mars)
22:50 紗倉まな Mana Sakura (Club Moon)
25:43 有村千佳 Chika Arimura (Club Venus)
Club Sunshine’s Yuki is played by voice actor Manami Sugihira (杉平真奈美). Her page’s demo reel opens with a variation of Yuki’s answer to “do you have any hobbies?”. I wonder if it was borrowed from Yakuza 0, or if it was original dialogue that won her the part. Whichever came first, she is the most charming stammerer I’ve heard.
...and now I need to change course for a moment.
While proofreading actors’ names for this post, I stumbled upon a small page tucked away on the series website.
The Yakuza tradition of auditioning real-life AV stars and hostesses to appear in the games is well-known, but Sega also holds auditions for male characters. For Yakuza 0, these were for Mr. Shakedown, Mr. Libido (known as Mr. Matchless in the Japanese version), Mr. Moneybags, and hosts that would appear on club advertisements throughout the game. Series creator (and Sega CCO) Toshihiro Nagoshi and chief producer Masayoshi Yokoyama acted as judges.
Yokoyama (left) and Nagoshi
The winners are posted on this page, and their real names are mentioned in the game. In addition to introductions, some were asked to act out certain situations. The following are the audition videos, with a list of where you can see the winners.
MR. SHAKEDOWN
0:55 大江健次 Kenji Ōe - Sōtenbori #2
He is also known as “mckj” and raps freestyle about his bald head for the audition.
3:39 川橋直也 Naoya Kawahashi - Sōtenbori #1
A huge fan of the series, Nagoya lost a lot of weight before the audition, partly because he wanted to be more popular with women. When asked, he admits that he has not found a girlfriend yet.
6:45 江頭宏哉 Hiroya Egashira - Kamurochō #1
He’s a man of few words, and that doesn’t change in his audition. ^_^
8:40 佐藤祐基 Yūki Satō - Kamurochō #2
Now known as Jin Satō, he’s been an actor since 2005 and is best known for his work in the Kamen Rider Kabuto series.
MR. MONEYBAGS
4:26 谷岡幸太郎 Kōtarō Tanioka - Sōtenbori
Among other things, Kōtarō fronts a band called The Sneakers. Their website is here and his Twitter is here.
7:10 福島善成 Yoshinari Fukushima - Kamurochō
Yoshinari is half of the comedy duo Garittochu. His two impressions for the audition: a child getting a vaccination and Saddam Hussein’s statue.
MR. LIBIDO
1:01 ハブ Habu - Sōtenbori, obviously
A comedian now known as Habu Service. He’s asked to show his technique for (I think) keeping a date from taking the last train home in hopes that she spends the night at his place.
9:56 秋本智仁 Tomohito Akimoto - Kamurochō
Half of comedy duo 5GAP. His audition is the same as Habu’s, but his technique isn’t as desperate.
...and here’s their interview video.
Finally, there’s one last thing I wanted to share.
This is the Goro Majima Hannya Bracelet. I love it. It was designed by Naoto Furuya, who makes silver jewelry in his studio Strange Freak Designs. His work has shown up in TV shows such as the Kamen Rider series and on Marilyn Manson’s fingers, and he’s been working on Ryū ga Gotoku-themed jewelry for Sega since 2013.
The latest line is all about Goro Majima. Although it’s billed as a “ladies line”, some of the designs skew more toward unisex. There’s no English page, but Google Translate does a good job, and you can still order from the collection in English using the Shopping Guide. Here are the names along with the model numbers.
Goro Majima Hannya Ring II / SFD-CLB-SG-R-03
Goro Majima Snake Pendant / SFD-CLB-SG-P-03
Goro Majima Hannya Pendant II / SFD-CLB-SG-P-04
Goro Majima Hannya Bracelet / SFD-CLB-SG-B-01
...and that’s that. I don’t think I can continue making posts like this, as I always take too long to put them together and now have a giant non-Yakuza-sized fish to fry in my life. Still, I’m happy that I could post what I did. Many thanks to all of you who wrote kind words about them, and to everyone that read them. Have a good one. ^_^
This is a companion piece to my other thread, “A history documentary for the Yakuza Endurance Run”.
Yakuza features a lot of cross-promotion with many other Japanese companies. As a tie-in for both Yakuza 0 and Yakuza’s tenth anniversary, Sony released a special Walkman with a playlist of theme songs from the series.
There is also a soundtrack of Japanese pop and rock hits from the 80s, along with bonus versions of Kiryu and Majima singing “ANGEL” and “Runner”, respectively. Using the included code, you can unlock the Walkman item in Yakuza 0 which lets you replace the BGM with one of the songs. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like that part made it overseas...so I went looking for some videos. ^^ Here are all the songs included on the soundtrack.
矢沢永吉 (Eikichi Yazawa) / SOMEBODY'S NIGHT (1989)
(Eikichi Yazawa also sang “Loser”, the ending theme of Yakuza 3.)
氷室京介 (Kyosuke Himuro) / ANGEL (1988)
TM NETWORK / GET WILD (1987)
Here's the Dailymotion link in case it doesn't work here...
(“Get Wild” is the end theme to the anime City Hunter and probably TMN’s best-known song. There’s an official video of TMN performing this live several times here. The keyboard player is Tetsuya Komuro, who became Japan’s biggest producer during the 90s and possibly of all time.)
プリンセス プリンセス (Princess Princess) / DIAMONDS (1989)
郷ひろみ / 2億4千万の瞳 -エキゾチック・ジャパン-
(Hiromi Go / 240 Million Eyes - Exotic Japan) (1984)
REBECCA / フレンズ (Friends) (1985)
BARBEE BOYS / 目を閉じておいでよ (Keep Your Eyes Closed!) (1989)
爆風スランプ (BAKUFU-SLUMP) / Runner (1988)
浜田麻里 (Mari Hamada) / Return to Myself (1989)
中村雅俊 / 恋人も濡れる街角
(Masatoshi Nakamura / Lovers and Wet Street Corners) (1983)
P.S. A bonus: while checking my music library, I found a song from 1988 that I hadn’t listened to in a long time - “Dance If You Want It” by Toshinobu Kubota, a pioneer of Japanese Soul.
P.P.S. One last thing - here’s “STAR LIGHT” by Hikaru GENJI. Their big thing was performing on roller skates. Depending on how much time Alex and Dan spend doing non-story things, this may or may not be relevant...I’ll say no more. ^^ Thanks for reading!
(The song starts around 2:30.)
Before anything, thanks @lestephan and @hippie_genocide - glad you like the videos.
I've just played through the first parts of Kiryu and Goro's storylines in Yakuza 0.
I'm glad my prattling on about Japan's history didn't turn out pointless. :) A loan shark provides the kickoff and real estate is a much bigger part of the story than I expected. One substory suggests Majima as the reason for Japan's consumption tax. It's nice to see many classic Yakuza locations given an 80s look, and I've already run into a few surprise appearances while playing the substories.
Smile Burger in Yakuza 0 and 6
This is all just a parking lot in Yakuza 5.
Goro Majima's relatively normal...
...and proud of his bad puns.
Finally, me after discovering the Maharajah Disco.
The main story has been great so far and I think the substories are some of the best in the series. We have to steer Dan and Alex toward "The Show Must Go On", "How To Train Your Dominatrix" and the Maharajah story for starters. Hopefully they'll visit the video parlor at least once to get the appropriately-named trophy. (that's another thing - I thought the Soft On Demand actresses were just in the hostess clubs and videos, but they pop up in various locations, substories and on the phone cards. There's also a guy willing to pay money to look at your phone card album - just like Wesley the Gunsmith in Deadly Premonition!)
I had to get used to the idea of using money to level up, but because of the setting it makes perfect sense - in that time and place, you're nothing without lots of cash. That Yakuza 0 actually compares your fights to material goods is a great touch - one of my fights was worth 50 VCRs. (The fighting's pretty good - I haven't checked the skill tree but I hope they've at least kept the Essence of Smoking.)
Although I love exploring the world anyway, Yakuza 0 almost forces you to do so many different things for cash, and even then it seems like the abilities I get aren't much. This may be intentional - Kiryu and Goro are pretty young, so they're not going to have a whole catalogue of moves. (what Kiryu does with a box of nails is pretty brutal.) I think Yakuza 0 really doesn't want you to just breeze past what it has to offer. Just fighting enemies to level up can get boring in a hurry, and the substories are more rewarding item- and story-wise. On top of that, I'm trying as many ways as I can to make as much money as possible so I can buy weapons to beat up those Mr. Shakedown guys and make even more money. Those guys are horrible by the way.
Anyway, not to drag on any longer but I'm really enjoying Yakuza 0 so far. Hope everyone's enjoying the game and/or looking forward to the Run. :) Thanks again for reading.
(by the way, someone had mentioned cuts in Yakuza 3 - I had read somewhere that the hostess and mahjong parts were removed because Sega thought it was "too Japanese" for overseas gamers.)
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