‘Yakuza’s creator doesn’t want Kiryu to hit a woman

Juggling babies is one thing, but punching a lady crosses the line

Yakuzas creator Toshihiro Nagoshi says he doesn’t want to create a fighting game with protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, because he doesn’t see his character hitting a woman.

In an interview with Red Bull France, Nagoshi said that despite the Yakuza series having a large number of spin-off titles including the zombie-themed Yakuza: Dead Souls and Kazuma Kiryu’s inclusion in many other games such as Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, he doesn’t see a fighting game such as Tekken in Kiryu’s future.

NME has translated his response below:

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“We have received an enormous amount of requests for that (a fighting game featuring Kiryu). Of course, there are exceptions, but fighting games generally have female characters, and personally, I really don’t want to see Kiryu attacking a woman.”

Kazuma Kiryu has starred as the protagonist in seven mainline Yakuza games as well as two remakes and two spin-off titles, where he takes down criminals and thugs across Japan. However, his character plays out as the ex-Mafia boss with a heart of gold, funding an orphanage in many titles, and taking care of his adopted grandson Haruto in his final outing Yakuza 6: The Song of Life.

With Kingdom Hearts Sora recently announced as the final Super Smash Bros Ultimate fighter, the upcoming release of Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl, and the rumoured Warner Bros. fighter in development, there has been a lot of speculation surrounding characters that could potentially come to new fighting games. It seems however that Kiryu will not be one of them, neither will he appear in his own game.

In other news, the Pokémon Go-style mobile app, Pikmin Bloom has now been released in all countries across Europe including the U.K. Players can collect and pluck Pikmin as they walk around their neighbourhoods.

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