Last night, we yet got a look astatine the adjacent mainline crippled successful the Yakuza series, Like a Dragon 8, and the announcement trailer instantly had folks online racing to assemble memes poking amusive astatine the youthful caller hairdo of the series’ longtime, stalwart protagonist, Kiryu Kazuma. Although it’s bully to cognize that the grandpa-kuza is successful a caller Yakuza game, I couldn’t assistance but inquire retired loud: Kiryu, baby, wherefore are you inactive here? Haven’t we already said our goodbyes?

During the Yakuza studio’s RGG Summit 2022, Sega announced 3 brand-spanking-new Yakuza games: Like a Dragon 8; Like a Dragon: Ishin, a humanities samurai spin-off of the bid acceptable successful a fictionalized mentation of Kyoto successful the 1860s; and Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, which volition picture the events successful Kiryu’s beingness betwixt Yakuza 6: The Song of Life and Like a Dragon 8. Although we already knew that LaD8 crippled was coming, the announcement trailer confirmed that the crippled would person dual protagonists successful Ichiban Kasuga and Kiryu.

Having dual, oregon adjacent respective playable protagonists isn’t caller to the Yakuza series. Yakuza 0, Yakuza 4, and Yakuza 5 all person you playing from the position of characters not named Kiryu. While I’m excited to spot Kiryu’s moveset reimagined successful Like a Dragon’s Dragon Quest-like turn-based combat, narratively, Kiryu’s instrumentality ignores the aggregate communicative send-offs he’s already received passim the bid and highlights however dog-shit Yakuza 6, a crippled advertised arsenic his last adventure, was.

Before I get into spoilers, this needs to get aired out: Kiryu’s hairsbreadth successful Like a Dragon 8 is bad. His barber fto each of Japan down giving a 51-year-old antheral frosty-gray hair. Aside from sporting his champion Vergil from Devil May Cry cosplay, I presume there’s a precise casual reply to wherefore he’s sporting this new, mid-life situation look. You see, successful Yakuza 6, Kiryu fights this dude named Joon-gi Han, a Korean dude sporting a akin hairstyle to the 1 that Kiryu is rocking successful Yakuza 8’s announcement trailer. Joon-gi Han, it turns out, is an individuality that’s been passed down to radical passim the series, and Kiryu rocking the hairsbreadth successful Like a Dragon 8 could mean that he’s present taken connected the moniker for himself. Let’s hope, however, that he’s conscionable taking manner inspiration from him, possibly to disguise himself portion doing immoderate undercover enactment astatine Stardust, Kamuroucho’s big club. Seeing arsenic however Kiryu is friends with the guys who tally the cabaret, it wouldn’t beryllium retired of the question for him, a antheral notorious for unspeakable disguises, to deliberation this incognito look is fooling anyone.

Now, onto wherefore it’s a spot frustrating to spot Like a Dragon’s leader Ichiban having to stock the spotlight with Kiryu successful his adjacent adventure.

Throughout the mainline Yakuza series, Kiryu has received 3 send-offs. In Yakuza 5’s last scene, Kiryu is lying bloody successful the streets successful the arms of his adopted daughter, Haruka, aft a hard-fought battle. The camera past pans up from his limp assemblage and greets you with a azygous word, “Fin.” If you were a subordinate successful the westbound successful 2012, that ending fundamentally work similar developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s mode of saying, “Yeah, Kiryu mightiness beryllium dead. Rip bozo.”

But it turned retired that Kiryu’s imaginable decease was a fakeout. Dude’s arsenic durable arsenic a Nokia phone, and 2016’s Yakuza 6: The Song of Life saw his glorious return. However, the crippled was advertised arsenic Kiryu’s past adventure, his existent send-off. Sadly, that past adventure’s ending was immoderate bullshit.

Read More: The End Of Yakuza 6 Is Some Bullshit

The culmination of Yakuza 6’s communicative sees Kiryu wantonness Haruka and her “still got that caller babe smell” infant, Haruto. In Kiryu’s heavy skull, helium justified his leaving arsenic a mode to support his household of orphans from being hounded arsenic a effect of his transgression antics. Seeing Kiryu wantonness those helium loved aft I’d spent 60 hours warring to reconstruct the household he’d made for himself felt wholly antithetical to his resoluteness to beryllium with them astatine each costs, a defining diagnostic of his passim the series. Needless to say, Yakuza 6’s ending not lone marred the acquisition of playing his would-be “final adventure” but besides made his characterization up to that constituent consciousness criminally mismanaged.

But no 1 is ever truly gone, and 2021’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon saw Kiryu’s expansive instrumentality to the bid arsenic a super-strong broadside quality that assists protag Ichiban Kasuga toward the extremity of the game. In a section virtually called Passing the Torch, Kiryu, y’know, passes the torch to Ichiban astatine the extremity of their macho-shirtless fight. The combat serves 2 purposes, allowing Ichiban to stroke disconnected immoderate steam earlier doing thing reckless and symbolizing Kiryu giving the JRPG-loving leader his stamp of support arsenic the series’ caller protagonist. I conjecture that was a fucking lie.

For me, Kiryu returning arsenic a dual protag successful Yakuza 8 puts a batch of unit connected Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name to efficaciously locomotion backmost Yakuza 6’s half-baked ending and creaseless implicit wherefore the adjacent 3 Yakuza games are going to marque the bid “Oops! All Kiryu” for the adjacent mates of years. Hopefully, Kiryu’s beingness doesn’t effect successful our cognition of Ichiban suffering from the Worf Effect going forward.