#if you'd like to check it out. it was the entry for loyalty so it's a bit sad too

[coffeegeck]

The Glory of Yakuza 0's Tsukasa Sagawa

WARNING! Spoilers for Yakuza 0 (and potentially some of Majima's story in general) ahead.

I've played Yakuza 0 three times now, each time getting pretty close to the sweet, sweet 100% completion point — I say close to, because I:

• Cannot beat Jo and So Amon

• Refuse to finish the Teltel Dating and Cabaret Training

• Refuse to finish every gambling achievement (seriously, I do NOT know how to play Shoji.)

But, despite the excellent gameplay and graphics, of which is some of, if not the BEST in the whole franchise thus far, there's one thing that endlessly sticks out to me.

The story.

The story of two ex-yakuza paving their own paths in life, never meeting yet influencing each other's journeys as their end goal is—

. . . the seizure of a small, insignificant plot of land in the middle of the Kamuro-cho Shopping District, titled 'The Empty Lot'. Many would think that such a small piece of land would mean barely anything to anyone, especially the prestigious yakuza of the Tojo Clan, and yet you'd be wrong.

It's extremely difficult to find an entry into Kamuro-cho's business areas, and with the Empty Lot being practically the only free plot of land available, even the various scum and yakuza that litter 1980's Japan are gunning for this tiny piece of empty land.

Cue Chapter 3, where players finally see this prequel's (and the franchise's first chronological) debut of the Not-yet-Mad Dog of Shimano, the Lord of the Night, the punished one-eye wonder:

Goro Majima.

Prior to Yakuza 0, Majima and his sworn brother, Saejima, planned to eliminate a member of a rival group, the Ueno Seiwa, with some advice given to them by "friends" in their family. However, it turns out that the whole thing was a sting, and Saejima unknowingly marches into the lion's den, earning his nickname "18-Count Saejima" before he's arrested and sent to Death Row.

As for Majima, before he can even rush downtown to his kyoudai's side, he's restrained and tortured for disobeying orders to NOT try to help Saejima. During this time, a tanto blade is taken to his eye and Majima gains a reason to wear an eyepatch. Owch.

He's sentenced to a year in the worst place any Tojo Clan yakuza can imagine: The Hole. A dark, isolated chamber in which the victim is forced to be tortured and survives solely on scraps of food. Majima's patriarch, Futoshi Shimano, even comes in every now and again to belittle his poor lost pup of a scorned yakuza.

Though, even after surviving a whole year in The Hole, Majima's punishment is not up yet. He's been exiled from the Shimano Family, and is desperate to return (because loyalty is everything to Majima). Furthermore, he's under city-arrest, unable to leave the city of Sotenbori, Osaka. To rejoin the yakuza, his goal is to accrue ¥100,000,000. How?

Well, thanks to the topic of today's post, Shimano's sworn brother, Tsukasa Sagawa, offers Majima a chance: The Cabaret Grand, the single largest cabaret in all of Sotenbori, Osaka, once a dump that Majima takes the opportunity to turn into a national monument to the debaucherous nights of Japan.

Throughout Majima's endeavours to regain his spot in the Shimano Family, Sagawa watches over the 'Lord of the Night' and keeps him in check like a cruel manager over their anxious employee, ensuring that the one-eyed wonder never strays too far from his job.

Hell, Sagawa even hires homeless civilians to stalk and leer over Majima's dismally quiet home whenever he's not working, juuust in case.

Though, eventually, as most players of Yakuza 0 know, Sagawa informs the bird we know as Majima that, to escape his gilded cage of Sotenbori, he must commit murder. It's a twist that even Majima is stunned by, and one that Sagawa seems nonchalant about.

Sagawa's smugness throughout all of Yakuza 0 is something to behold; from his first appearance in the guise of a cabaret patron at the Grand to when he's suffocating Majima in a dingy bathroom on the side of a random street, the developers made us KNOW that he was an asshole and was going to be the grinning thorn in Majima's side.

Constantly does the player find themselves bewildered by how calm and collected, how smug and confident Sagawa seems at all times, and yet there are points in which we as the player see this façade slip.

Eventually, at Wen Hai Lee's death, of which was orchestrated by Sagawa via car ignition bomb, the way he talks to Majima is... still, smug. The line "You are just the worst, buddy..." that oozes from Sagawa's mouth as he's about to pull the damn trigger onto Majima's dome is said with a soft, yet seemingly reluctant smile.

Sagawa, deep down, knows that Majima is doing the right thing by protecting Makoto Makimura, who he then learns is nought more than an innocent blind girl. And, even then, what can he do but obey orders?

Though Sagawa and Shimano are oath-brothers, Shimano clearly wears the pants in this fraternal friendship, as Sagawa clearly harbours disgust and reluctance to the big bald bastard. In a way, Sagawa is in a similar seat to Majima; under strict orders from a higher-up, and forced to do their dirty work to uphold a bargain. Of course, Sagawa's gilded cage is much larger, and he's got a hell of a lot more control, but he's still caged nonetheless.

I always saw Sagawa as a rat. Not a traitor kind of rat, but... a rat. He's a bottom-feeder, he's cunning, and despite the fact that he orchestrates plans, he isn't afraid to go out into the field and get his hands dirty. It makes him stand out from the other general commanding goons we see in Yakuza; he's not just some old guy in a suit, he's got some good titles under his belt.

The story about Sagawa's pet bird, Mametaro, is a sick tale, and yet it's a cute (but bloody) homage to how Majima's tale evolves:

Sagawa, in his younger years, found a sickly sparrow he named Mametaro, and took home to nurture. Now, Sagawa's parents were very adamant that the only pet in the house could be their cat, because they deemed Sagawa unworthy of caring for a pet. Sagawa cared for Mametaro regardless, nursing the bird back to health. But, when his parents found out, they fed Mametaro to the cat, right in front of Sagawa's poor eyes. In revenge, Sagawa kills his parents' cat...

... much like how Majima finds the blind, traumatized Makoto and tries to hide her from the Tojo, but in the end, Makoto is found out and her life is put in danger. To save her, Majima throws away his old lifestyle and, as Nishitani says, forges his own path to save Makoto, attacking his "cat" that is the yakuza.

Of course, the stories are different, but Sagawa is a bank of humanity; he cared for Mametaro, he cared for Majima, and, although it's against his job, he cared for Makoto.

It's even Sagawa that gives Majima his nickname of the "Mad Dog of Shimano", stating that the ex-yakuza (who, at this point, has thrown away almost all of his morality and doesn't give a shit) has "the eye of a mad dog!". It's shocking that this guy is the one that lights the spark for Majima's moniker.

Hell, by the end of the game, when Majima returns to Shimano, he finds Sagawa outside the baldy's meeting room, eyes teared up as he puffs away at a cigarette; in the meeting, Shimano's having a chat with the head of the prestigious Omi Alliance. Majima tells him about the Empty Lot, and Sagawa knows one thing:

Shimano is going to do something that will get someone killed. Hell, he even says to Majima that the two had a "wild ride", like a guy who sees doom approaching. Sure, Majima has a gun too, and Sagawa probably thinks that he's gonna off his oath-brother, but...

To everybody's shock (hell, even me, when I saw this scene for the first time), Shimano offs the Omi Alliance head. This, as Sagawa knows, spells nothing but bad news, and we find out later that it does — guess those tears weren't a crocodile's.

By the end, of which there's a small timeskip, Majima admits that Sagawa has, indeed, brought him on a wild ride, and this is also the first time we see Majima fully clothed as the Mad Dog of Shimano, even having sliced off his sick ponytail, poor thing.

Sagawa knows that the Omi Alliance are coming to take what's owed, but does he trouble Majima with that?

No. No, he lets the now-Shimano Family Captain go, watching Majima walk away with a smile, to let the hounds loose so he can be crazier than everybody else.

A shame that Majima never gets to see Sagawa again.

Hell, even as a gun is pointed to his face and death is imminent, Sagawa is still able to stand proud and stare down the barrel, uttering one last poetic, sarcastic quip before his unfortunate demise. It was undeserved: Sagawa dies for something that Shimano caused, the trope of oath-brothers paying for each other's crimes proving to be a staple throughout the Yakuza series.

So, this begs the question: is Sagawa the misunderstood legend of Goro Majima's story, or just a cornered rat that was, as I said, a thorn in Majima's side?

Personally, the former. Sagawa was selfless, and never let people down. He followed orders, caused chaos in the name of progress, and in the end, reconciled before his death.

As for your thoughts? Hey, I'll let you decide what you think.