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Aug. 12th, 2017 12:57 pmPLAYER
Name: Sirea
Age: 27
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
zombifiers
Current Characters: N/A
CHARACTER
Name: Kazuma Kiryu (and yes that's western style; first name/last name)
Journal:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
countersway
Canon: Yakuza
Canon Point: After being released from prison in Yakuza 1
Age: 37
Appearance: He looks like such a doucher in this game. I hate his fuckin hair, man. But his face just kind of permanently looks like that; you'll be hard-pressed to find a shot where he's not making that expression. Also, in case it doesn't translate in that pic, it should be noted that he's a huge dude, especially in Japan. Kiryu's like 6'1 and built like a brick shithouse, even if he keeps it hidden under his suit. It also might be worthwhile to look at him from the back.
Background
Click around the wiki to the individual games of Yakuza 0 and 1. Just trust me on this. You don't want to see what the Yakuza wikia looks like.
Personality:
So. Yakuza's a weird series. It's a serious crime drama at its core, yet it's surrounded by the most colorful cast in some of the most ridiculous situations you'll find in video games. The best way to think of Kiryu is probably as the only straightman in the tragic comedy that is his life. The second best way to think of Kiryu is as the artistic expression of of idealized Japanese masculinity. He doesn't actually even have a face model that his character is based on; he's a fantasy that was dreamed up to be the "perfect" honorable criminal, both in appearance and personality/temperament.
That in mind, let's get into the nuts and bolts of it. On the one hand, Kiryu is a hardened yakuza with a strong work ethic who was just one solid nod of approval away from starting his own family before his whole life kind of went sideways. The game never goes into details about the extent of his criminal activity, because the point of the story is to sympathize with him rather than just write him off as a scumbag organized crime lord, but it's pretty safe to assume that he's gotten his hands dirty with all of the horrible shit that yakuza are known for (blackmail, extortion, assault, murder, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, etc). There's no way that he would be in a position to become a family patriarch if he hadn't put the work in. On the other hand, he's a huge goober who loves kids, has an enormous soft spot for animals that leads him to adopting a chicken and making it a store manager in one of his businesses in Yakuza 0, and who is way too invested in hobbies like slot car racing for a grown-ass man of his age.
He's also extremely sexually progressive in his ideology, and the series is never shy about letting us know. Kiryu is put into a lot of situations in these games that are explicitly sexual in nature, and he never judges or gets uncomfortable with what's happening around him, even if it's not really his thing. He explicitly does not kinkshame. He's comfortable going into drag bars and even recommends one to an acquaintance who was looking to broaden his horizons. He never slut shames. There are several times over the course of the series where people assume that Kiryu is gay, and he's never offended (or even really pushes back on it all that hard, if at all, because who cares honestly). And yet this is all coupled with a really oldschool, classical sense of chivalry. Kiryu absolutely cannot stand violence against women; he'll step in if he sees some shit going down, and he adamantly refuses to raise a hand to a woman himself. He's careful about respecting people's boundaries, likely because he has a lot of intense control issues of his own that do translate over to his romantic/sexual pursuits, and he never hits on women without bright flashing neon signs from her telling him it's okay (and sometimes not even then).
Still with me? Good. Like I said, Yakuza's a weird series. Let's go deeper.
Kiryu lives at odds with himself. It's said in Yakuza 0 that "a yakuza who cannot pull the trigger is no yakuza," and yet Kiryu has a reputation for being merciful; he stays his hand more often than not. He joined the family for all of the wrong reasons at the young age of 17, and he's so acutely aware of how stupid of a decision it was that he has a crisis of self in Yakuza 0. He was just a lonely orphan kid who wanted a life of glitz and glamour and respect, but all of the two-timing and backstabbing and blood and betrayal that comes part and parcel with that high-rolling lifestyle never really fit him right. It eats at his conscience and his honest nature at times, and he has the thought on more than one occasion that he just can't hack it as a yakuza. But he also has his pride, and that coupled with the enormous sense of responsibility that he feels towards literally everyone and everything in his life leads him to swallowing his doubts and hesitations so that he can become the respected crime lord that he is at the start of Yakuza 1.
That detail alone is one that really can't be understated. The one thing that really defines Kiryu is just how damn responsible he feels all the time. Everything that goes wrong in his immediate sphere becomes his personal problem to deal with, and he tries to involve as few people as humanly possible in order to mitigate the amount of collateral damage done to others over things that he feels are his burdens to bear. This is a persistent problem throughout the series, and Kiryu very frequently has to be reminded that he has friends who love him and that it's okay to ask for help. For as stern and serious as he seems on the surface, the fact of the matter is that Kiryu is intensely impulsive and emotionally driven. He misses the forest for the trees a lot, often putting aside what's practical in favor of what he feels is best to do in a situation.
Really, his biggest problem is that he genuinely, honestly, and truly cares about people; it's where his reputation for mercy comes from in the first place. At his core, he's dependable and loyal to a fault, which is a dangerous trait to carry in the yakuza world. It leads him to getting screwed over and having his heart broken on more than one occasion, but he's also stubborn, hard-headed, and tenacious enough to turn things back around in his favor (usually). He has this kind of magnetic charisma about him that turns enemies into friends on the regular, but he's hardly immune to betrayals and backstabs. While he tries not to take it personally -- because, for most of these guys, it's just good business -- it does sting at him. When people die under his watch, it eats at him. He's cried over the bodies of the fallen, and he's never felt shame in doing so.
He just has this protective streak a mile wide and ten miles long, and he has this really bad habit of and tendency towards cutting off pieces of himself in order to keep the people he loves safe. That's ultimately how he ends up in prison just before his canon point. Kiryu does ten years for a murder he didn't commit and wasn't even present during. Why? Because Nishiki is his sworn brother, and Kiryu just loves him so damn much. I mean, Nishiki's sister was sick and about to undergo surgery; she needed her big brother there. What was Kiryu supposed to do in that situation... right? He couldn't just let Nishiki go to jail. This is also the same mindset he has with regards to why he sticks with the yakuza even though it's not a great fit for him morally; he's his father's responsibility, since Kazama was the one who stuck his neck out for him and brought him into the fold in the first place. Kiryu just can't let people down. It's not in his nature.
What's really crazy about all of this is the fact that he's the best at what he does as a yakuza, and to a certain extent, he kind of knows it. Both on the streets in day-to-day street fights and collections jobs, and also in the room where it happens, wheeling and dealing and politicking, there's no one who gets the job done better than Kiryu. And to some degree, he does take pride in what he does. He's big on decorum, doing his job well, and getting it done right. He also has a huge boner for fighting, and he's more than happy to throw punches when shit gets real. It's just the dirtier, darker parts of it that he takes issue with. He takes no joy in killing, so he tries to do it as infrequently as possible -- but, on the same token, he feels no remorse when it does come to that, because he only ever goes there as a last resort. The flipside of that is, precisely because he puts human life at such a high value, it really gets under his skin when people fall under the impression that he won't kill -- possibly because it minimizes the losses caused by all of the blood on his hands.
At the end of the day, though, he is yakuza through and through. It's a part of him that he hates, but it is a part of him. And in a lot of cases, he simply doesn't know any other way of life, so he's also loath to be without those instincts. It must be exhausting simply for him to just be, some days.
Abilities:
Kiryu has no supernatural powers. Technically. I mean, I personally would consider getting shot three times and then going through a final battle gauntlet and a boss fight to be supernatural, but whatever.
But seriously. Kiryu's a man forged of fire and steel -- a master of hand-to-hand combat and the use of improvised weapons. His stamina is unparalleled; he can take hit after hit after hit after hit and barely even flinch. He knows how to fire a gun, but he doesn't own one himself, and it's certainly not his first choice to use in any situation.
Also, canonically, he can sing. He can dance. He can cook. He's a courteous driver. He probably cuddles after sex.
Items:
+ Half-empty pack of cigarettes
+ Nishiki's lighter
+ That's it.
He just got out of prison. He doesn't have much.
Samples:
1. threesome thread for funsies holla
2. [Action sample. I just took the slime prompt off of the test drive meme. Hope that's aight.]
[The slimes have become a real nuisance lately. While Kiryu isn't typically the guy to tire of pounding things to a pulp, his brain feels exhausted trying to figure out where the hell they're all coming from and how two more appear for every one he destroys. The worst part is when they decide to show up in the middle of pleasant conversation, like right now, as if only to remind him that the place he's in and the people he's with aren't exactly normal. A slime catches his attention out of the corner of his eye, and he turns to look at it.]
More of these things...?
[Whatever thought he had in his head with whatever conversation he was having suddenly vanishes. He turns away from the person he's with and cracks his knuckles.]
No. Nevermind.
I'll take care of this first.
Name: Sirea
Age: 27
Contact:
Current Characters: N/A
CHARACTER
Name: Kazuma Kiryu (and yes that's western style; first name/last name)
Journal:
counterswayCanon: Yakuza
Canon Point: After being released from prison in Yakuza 1
Age: 37
Appearance: He looks like such a doucher in this game. I hate his fuckin hair, man. But his face just kind of permanently looks like that; you'll be hard-pressed to find a shot where he's not making that expression. Also, in case it doesn't translate in that pic, it should be noted that he's a huge dude, especially in Japan. Kiryu's like 6'1 and built like a brick shithouse, even if he keeps it hidden under his suit. It also might be worthwhile to look at him from the back.
Background
Click around the wiki to the individual games of Yakuza 0 and 1. Just trust me on this. You don't want to see what the Yakuza wikia looks like.
Personality:
So. Yakuza's a weird series. It's a serious crime drama at its core, yet it's surrounded by the most colorful cast in some of the most ridiculous situations you'll find in video games. The best way to think of Kiryu is probably as the only straightman in the tragic comedy that is his life. The second best way to think of Kiryu is as the artistic expression of of idealized Japanese masculinity. He doesn't actually even have a face model that his character is based on; he's a fantasy that was dreamed up to be the "perfect" honorable criminal, both in appearance and personality/temperament.
That in mind, let's get into the nuts and bolts of it. On the one hand, Kiryu is a hardened yakuza with a strong work ethic who was just one solid nod of approval away from starting his own family before his whole life kind of went sideways. The game never goes into details about the extent of his criminal activity, because the point of the story is to sympathize with him rather than just write him off as a scumbag organized crime lord, but it's pretty safe to assume that he's gotten his hands dirty with all of the horrible shit that yakuza are known for (blackmail, extortion, assault, murder, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, etc). There's no way that he would be in a position to become a family patriarch if he hadn't put the work in. On the other hand, he's a huge goober who loves kids, has an enormous soft spot for animals that leads him to adopting a chicken and making it a store manager in one of his businesses in Yakuza 0, and who is way too invested in hobbies like slot car racing for a grown-ass man of his age.
He's also extremely sexually progressive in his ideology, and the series is never shy about letting us know. Kiryu is put into a lot of situations in these games that are explicitly sexual in nature, and he never judges or gets uncomfortable with what's happening around him, even if it's not really his thing. He explicitly does not kinkshame. He's comfortable going into drag bars and even recommends one to an acquaintance who was looking to broaden his horizons. He never slut shames. There are several times over the course of the series where people assume that Kiryu is gay, and he's never offended (or even really pushes back on it all that hard, if at all, because who cares honestly). And yet this is all coupled with a really oldschool, classical sense of chivalry. Kiryu absolutely cannot stand violence against women; he'll step in if he sees some shit going down, and he adamantly refuses to raise a hand to a woman himself. He's careful about respecting people's boundaries, likely because he has a lot of intense control issues of his own that do translate over to his romantic/sexual pursuits, and he never hits on women without bright flashing neon signs from her telling him it's okay (and sometimes not even then).
Still with me? Good. Like I said, Yakuza's a weird series. Let's go deeper.
Kiryu lives at odds with himself. It's said in Yakuza 0 that "a yakuza who cannot pull the trigger is no yakuza," and yet Kiryu has a reputation for being merciful; he stays his hand more often than not. He joined the family for all of the wrong reasons at the young age of 17, and he's so acutely aware of how stupid of a decision it was that he has a crisis of self in Yakuza 0. He was just a lonely orphan kid who wanted a life of glitz and glamour and respect, but all of the two-timing and backstabbing and blood and betrayal that comes part and parcel with that high-rolling lifestyle never really fit him right. It eats at his conscience and his honest nature at times, and he has the thought on more than one occasion that he just can't hack it as a yakuza. But he also has his pride, and that coupled with the enormous sense of responsibility that he feels towards literally everyone and everything in his life leads him to swallowing his doubts and hesitations so that he can become the respected crime lord that he is at the start of Yakuza 1.
That detail alone is one that really can't be understated. The one thing that really defines Kiryu is just how damn responsible he feels all the time. Everything that goes wrong in his immediate sphere becomes his personal problem to deal with, and he tries to involve as few people as humanly possible in order to mitigate the amount of collateral damage done to others over things that he feels are his burdens to bear. This is a persistent problem throughout the series, and Kiryu very frequently has to be reminded that he has friends who love him and that it's okay to ask for help. For as stern and serious as he seems on the surface, the fact of the matter is that Kiryu is intensely impulsive and emotionally driven. He misses the forest for the trees a lot, often putting aside what's practical in favor of what he feels is best to do in a situation.
Really, his biggest problem is that he genuinely, honestly, and truly cares about people; it's where his reputation for mercy comes from in the first place. At his core, he's dependable and loyal to a fault, which is a dangerous trait to carry in the yakuza world. It leads him to getting screwed over and having his heart broken on more than one occasion, but he's also stubborn, hard-headed, and tenacious enough to turn things back around in his favor (usually). He has this kind of magnetic charisma about him that turns enemies into friends on the regular, but he's hardly immune to betrayals and backstabs. While he tries not to take it personally -- because, for most of these guys, it's just good business -- it does sting at him. When people die under his watch, it eats at him. He's cried over the bodies of the fallen, and he's never felt shame in doing so.
He just has this protective streak a mile wide and ten miles long, and he has this really bad habit of and tendency towards cutting off pieces of himself in order to keep the people he loves safe. That's ultimately how he ends up in prison just before his canon point. Kiryu does ten years for a murder he didn't commit and wasn't even present during. Why? Because Nishiki is his sworn brother, and Kiryu just loves him so damn much. I mean, Nishiki's sister was sick and about to undergo surgery; she needed her big brother there. What was Kiryu supposed to do in that situation... right? He couldn't just let Nishiki go to jail. This is also the same mindset he has with regards to why he sticks with the yakuza even though it's not a great fit for him morally; he's his father's responsibility, since Kazama was the one who stuck his neck out for him and brought him into the fold in the first place. Kiryu just can't let people down. It's not in his nature.
What's really crazy about all of this is the fact that he's the best at what he does as a yakuza, and to a certain extent, he kind of knows it. Both on the streets in day-to-day street fights and collections jobs, and also in the room where it happens, wheeling and dealing and politicking, there's no one who gets the job done better than Kiryu. And to some degree, he does take pride in what he does. He's big on decorum, doing his job well, and getting it done right. He also has a huge boner for fighting, and he's more than happy to throw punches when shit gets real. It's just the dirtier, darker parts of it that he takes issue with. He takes no joy in killing, so he tries to do it as infrequently as possible -- but, on the same token, he feels no remorse when it does come to that, because he only ever goes there as a last resort. The flipside of that is, precisely because he puts human life at such a high value, it really gets under his skin when people fall under the impression that he won't kill -- possibly because it minimizes the losses caused by all of the blood on his hands.
At the end of the day, though, he is yakuza through and through. It's a part of him that he hates, but it is a part of him. And in a lot of cases, he simply doesn't know any other way of life, so he's also loath to be without those instincts. It must be exhausting simply for him to just be, some days.
Abilities:
Kiryu has no supernatural powers. Technically. I mean, I personally would consider getting shot three times and then going through a final battle gauntlet and a boss fight to be supernatural, but whatever.
But seriously. Kiryu's a man forged of fire and steel -- a master of hand-to-hand combat and the use of improvised weapons. His stamina is unparalleled; he can take hit after hit after hit after hit and barely even flinch. He knows how to fire a gun, but he doesn't own one himself, and it's certainly not his first choice to use in any situation.
Also, canonically, he can sing. He can dance. He can cook. He's a courteous driver. He probably cuddles after sex.
Items:
+ Half-empty pack of cigarettes
+ Nishiki's lighter
+ That's it.
He just got out of prison. He doesn't have much.
Samples:
1. threesome thread for funsies holla
2. [Action sample. I just took the slime prompt off of the test drive meme. Hope that's aight.]
[The slimes have become a real nuisance lately. While Kiryu isn't typically the guy to tire of pounding things to a pulp, his brain feels exhausted trying to figure out where the hell they're all coming from and how two more appear for every one he destroys. The worst part is when they decide to show up in the middle of pleasant conversation, like right now, as if only to remind him that the place he's in and the people he's with aren't exactly normal. A slime catches his attention out of the corner of his eye, and he turns to look at it.]
More of these things...?
[Whatever thought he had in his head with whatever conversation he was having suddenly vanishes. He turns away from the person he's with and cracks his knuckles.]
No. Nevermind.
I'll take care of this first.
