Kiryu, Masculinity in the Yakuza & Passing
I think RGG Studio created an interesting unintentional narrative some players will experience, with the creation of the Boutique allowing us to change Kiryu's outfit in LAD Gaiden and Kiwami 3.
Specifically, both games give the player the option to put Kiryu in such things as: a full face of makeup complete with winged eyeliner and lipstick, painted acrylic nails, earrings, and tighter, more provocative clothing. Which, when all used together present an image of a decided effeminate and queer Kiryu, but not a caricaturised one. A real and grounded one.
(Yakuza Kiwami 3, Like A Dragon Gaiden)
Both of these instances stand out as interesting moments for Kiryu to explore himself and widen his self expression beyond his usual strict, standard, masculine styling.
(Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Yakuza Kiwami 2 as examples, but he wears this on and off from 1989 to 2016, and then again in 2023)
It's worth noting that his usual attire, his 'uniform' as it were, is something he only maintains when he's actively working with the Tojo Clan and embroiled in yakuza politics. Whether he's actually in the clan or not, it becomes his signal and armour and in a way a visual presentation of the role he slips into. The 'legendary Dragon of Dojima' rather than Kazuma, the man.
And interestingly he does shed it sometimes, but the difference in Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 6 is that he is still actively in Tokyo and/or actively pulled back into Tojo nonsense.
(Yakuza 0, Yakuza 6)
I particularly like 6's visual language here. He's dressing down the usual suit, shrugging off the jacket and relaxing somewhat. But he's still in the suit, signalling that he's aware that, whether he wants to be or not, he's involved in Tojo/underworld business. (0's is notable in that his attempt to distance himself from the clan & yakuza in general is textual. He and Nishiki outright discuss it. But like the fact that the suit he picked still makes him look like a gangster, Kiryu is aware he's still a part of that world and just playing at being legit/civilian for the time being.)
But what's different about K3 and Gaiden? Or more specifically 2008 and 2019?
Well in both cases he is well and truly out. He's washed his hands of the Tojo Clan and it's problems. In 2007 he left Tokyo and moved to Okinawa to run an orphanage, as real civilian this time. Swearing off yakuza drama. He's both physically far away from Tokyo and metaphorically distant, he's uninvolved in their problems. Which means he's not under the scrutiny of everyone in the criminal underworld, and not needing to live up to their expectations of strength and ideal masculinity. (The yakuza are a masculine culture and enforce it in it's members to a toxic degree. But it's even worse for Kiryu. He's a living legend. Known throughout Japan and beyond for his unbreakable strength and resolve. The image of the Dragon of Dojima is something he has to live up to, when the eyes of the underworld are on him.)
In Okinawa he's rejected all ties to that life and everything it represents. He's effectively retired the Dragon of Dojima. So.....
So to give the player, in the game set during this time, the option to help him explore a new and less rigid sense of style is a great little visual cue for this change. (I also like the simplicity of original Yakuza 3's Hawai'ian shirt, beige pants, ect look. That communicated more or less the same thing, but without player input.) But where it gets interesting is allowing us to put makeup on him. And dangly earrings. And nail polish. That all adds a dimension the developers perhaps didn't consider.
That now Kiryu is finally willing to explore these things for himself and see if he likes them, possibly?
Because who is around to judge him for it? No one. The kids he's raising won't. Haruka won't. None of his short list of remaining friends in Tokyo (Date, Majima, the Stardust boys) are here to see it. To think of him as less for it. Only new friends, who if they meet him like this, have no reason to look down on him for it.
So for the first time ever he allows what might be a truer version of himself show....
It's also interesting that the game takes the time to show us him returning to the rigid uniform when the plot comes calling and he has to return to Tokyo to clean up another Tojo Clan mess. Away goes the freer, new, experimental style. The safe, expected image is back.
The plot continues on from there and such and so forth. There's not a lot more to say about Yakuza Kiwami 3. Well, what about Like A Dragon Gaiden?
Gaiden is very interesting to me because it's set in the period of Kiryu's life where he's a ghost. He's faked his death and everyone who cares about him believes he's dead. He's working with a spy agency and doing their dirty/off the books work.
Physically, again, he's away from Tokyo (and it's placement as the central point of criminal/yakuza power and influence in the country). And positioning wise, he's dead. He can't get any freer of his chain title as a legend than that.
There's also a 'nothing to lose' aspect of his motivation here. He's angry and depressed and lonely (though not to the extreme of Yakuza 5). If he fucks around and finds out well... to a degree it doesn't matter.
He's introduced to the Boutique/customisation of his very bog-standard non-descript spy attire. (You could write a whole post about the meaning behind what the Daidoji wear and how they wear it, but all that matters here is that it's still a code of masculine conduct and conformity. But one where Kiryu stands to lose way less socially by breaking out of it. What are they gonna do? Kill a dead man?)
And I think he can excuse to himself that dressing very, very differently to how the Dragon of Dojima does helps his disguise, since he's trying to stay incognito and not have his deception discovered.
He has nothing to lose and no one to impress and is supposed to not even be himself.... and what does he do?
Well if the player so chooses, he immediately picks the the clothing with the most connotations.
And not even just that, the way he holds himself changes. He fights with a different, less aggressive style. And he stands differently.
He by all appearances.... leans into it.
So what happens when the plot finally reaches it's crescendo and he's forced to face the remnants of the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance/what functionally represents the yakuza as a whole at this point in time?
We see him change. Not back into the grey suit, because he's maintaining a very thin veneer of being dead still, but back into the Daidoji's conforming, bland masculine standard. And he doesn't look comfortable or happy about it. He looks... stiff.
It serves as the same kind of return to form as him donning the grey suit in 3 (or 4 or 6...). Gone is the small bubble of time where he's been free to just do whatever. He's quite literally faced with the remaining ranking members of the Tojo Clan (and narratively, the remains of the yakuza as a whole) and forced back into the box....
I don't have some great point to make from all this. I'm aware that this narrative can only be built if you choose to dress Kiryu up as gay as possible the way I did. But I think what's worth something here is that I was given the freedom to do that. The makeup, the clothes, the nail polish and earrings... they were in the game(s). The game(s) didn't play them for a joke or scoff at the idea that Kiryu could wear them. In fact in Gaiden he has a whole little 'huh this is different, but I guess I like it' moment!
"It does feel nice."
And it was intended by the developers that I would have my own uniquely crafted experience of the game, in part, because of the outfits I chose to put him in. Intended reading or no, they opened the way for this narrative to flourish. And it was the experience I had.
I just think it's really interesting! Unintentional (queer)coding or readings coming out of new mechanics and the like is one of those things that are wonderful about video games as a medium of storytelling I think. You'd never get this in a book or show.
Also I like interrogating potential queer readings or coding for Kiryu because I do think it's a legitimate reading of his storyline in Yakuza 5. But I've always kind of scratched my head about that because why write him in a way where the audience can* quite honestly come away with the idea that he's a deeply closeted gay man, but only once?
*It is only one reading. I don't think it's outright text.
Anyways basically....
All screenshots in this post were my own. Thank you for reading ^_^
