After a hugely successful era as the protagonist of the Yakuza series, Kazuma Kiryu effectively retired after Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Now he’s been replaced by another male protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, and he too is essentially hanging out with more male friends. So, where are the chicks?
In an interview with Automaton, director Ryosuke Horii and lead planner Hirotaka Chiba now say that the Like a Dragon series will continue to be about middle-aged men and their often quite mundane concerns:
“We are middle-aged guys ourselves… so I guess that’s the kind of target audience we’re going for, probably.”
As it turns out, the duo actually see this slightly old-fashioned approach to the series as one of its main selling points. Horii elaborates:
“I think that this is precisely one of Like a Dragon’s selling points. In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, everything starts with three unemployed middle-aged guys being like “Let’s go to Hello Work.” They have a different air about them than a group of young heroes would, complaining about back pain and the like. But this “humanity” you feel from their age is what gives the game originality.”
He concludes by saying that he is grateful that more and more women are discovering the franchise, but wants to keep it as adventures revolving around old men, with jokes about all sorts of ailments:
“We have had a large increase in new fans, including women, which we’re truly happy and grateful for. However, we don’t plan to do anything like deliberately changing conversation topics in order to cater to new fans. That would make us unable to keep talking about things like uric acid levels… (laughs)”
What do you think, is it time to let women take a bigger role in the Like a Dragon series, or is it good as it is?