jdkhasd thank you so much for the ask!!!! (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤ put under a read more for people who don’t care! but also because i wrote a lot!!
First impression: I watched a playthrough of yakuza 4 on youtube (twobestfriends) and i honestly didn’t think much of him when seeing him first? I thought he was ok? like “oh i guess that was the character from the games before” but that’s kinda it? i probably felt like that because the game kind of is more about everyone else than kiryu tbh.
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Impression now: After playing all localized yakuza games, i can safely say that I love kiryu and that he’s my favorite yakuza character. You see him go through some real terrible things but despite that, he always stays helpful and kind. He’ll do EVERYTHING for the people he loves but is a lot of times too selfless and seems to think he isn’t worth much? which is really terrible and not true? He is sometimes a bit stupid but means well… I love that he actually loves children and see him playing with them is absolutely precious. Kiryu is an absolute terrible criminal but a saint otherwise, god bless him. Big muscles but also big heart.
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Favorite moment: this is actually hard because there’s like lots of scenes I really like (from the main story but also substories). Picking a favorite scene is incredibly hard tho, so I’ll tell you a recent one that I really liked which was a moment in yakuza 6 (spoilers??) where he meets up with the kids of the orphanage and they all run up to him and cry… and kiryu almost starts crying too ( you can hear his voice cracking and he is all teary-eyed). I love that scene soooooooooooooo much.
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Idea for a story: AU where Kiryu is happy with his children and the Tojo Clan/Daigo doesn’t fuck up for once and leaves him the hell alone and he can be finally happy. (maybe also he gets a cute wife idk)
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Unpopular opinion: I-I don’t think I have one?? not really Kiryu related but I thought the ending of yakuza 2 was stupid lol? i also love yakuza 3 an awful lot (the mainstory was ok but i loved the rest) and okinawa is one of my favorite locations of the whole series. Taking care of the orphanage was a lot of fun and I love all the kids and loved teaching that dumb dog new tricks.
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Favorite relationship: I love Kiryu’s and Haruka’s father/daughter relationship so much. He would do anything for her (and so would I) and the more yakuza games you play, the more you realize how similar both of them are. People are so surprised how Haruka can still be so kind and nice after all that happened to her but how could she not be? She was raised by Kiryu.
Special mentions also goes to Kiryu’s and Majima’s relationship because I’ll never get tired of kicking Majima’s ass, they are good rival friends. Another one I really like is his relationship with Nishiki and even though it took a turn for the worse in kiwami, their sibling like relationship before that was really sweet. ALSO i wish they wouldn’t have written Kaoru out of the story because she was cool and her and Kiryu were really cute together? wtf Nagoshi
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Favorite headcanon: Kiryu is not too good with technology which might now be even a headcanon tbh. Like he can use a smartphone but did you see him typing on a keyboard??? you can see it in yakuza 6 and it’s really hilarious. Also I’ll never forget how there was that one substory in yakuza 5 where you had to fix a broken computer or something and one option was just to smash it, so yeah. Old man and computers don’t mix.