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Daisuke Sato (Producer of the series Yakuza ) and Takaya Kuroda (interpreter of Kazuma Kiryu ) were the guests of Japan Expo 2018. We had the chance to interview them, and ask them about their vision of the series. You can listen to the full interview below and his transcript
NB: Throughout the interview I called Mr. Kuroda by his first name. I must excuse myself, I was upset by his big voice!
Sega-Mag: Hello! Is this your first time in France, your first meeting with French fans of Yakuza?
Daisuke Sato: Yes, it's the very first time!
The success of the Yakuza series has arrived quite late, since it really started 1 year ago with Yakuza 0. How do you explain this late success in the West?
D.Sato: I think that can be explained in many ways. First, the game Yakuza 0 itself: I think it's the one we did the best, we really managed to condense a lot of things with a lot of quality on this game, and also the returns players were excellent, and the reviews were very good. This is a first explanation.
The second explanation is also related to a structural change between Sega and Atlus which took place a little later. Indeed, until the release of Yakuza 5, the Yakuza games did not come out right away, in any case the gap between the Japanese exit and the Western exits was relatively high, which did not really allow to install the franchise with a lot of energy and touch as many people as you would like. Until in fact, from about Yakuza 5, there was a structural change as SEGA moved closer to Atlus and so they benefited from Atlus's communication strength, in all the case of Atlus teams that were quite good at really reaching more fans in the West.
So they did a very good job on the Yakuza series, which helped develop the aura of the games at the same time and so people are finally starting to get interested in the West.
Yakuza 0 is my favorite episode personally: I find that the balance in the Yakuza in general, and especially in Zero, between the seriousness, the drama in the main quest, and the somewhat quirky side quests is really successful, we get to be moved one side and at the same time to laugh a lot with each other. For a long time the dialogues of the main quest were the only ones to be doubled and I wanted to know if you read the dialogues of the side quests, if you played the game and if you would have liked to double more dialogues a little idiots, a little bit [TakawaKuroda:YesIpersonallywantallthescenestobedoubledeventhescenesoftheside-questsandit'struethatit'ssomethingthat'sbeendonegraduallybecausethatitisfromYakuza6thattheentiretyofthetextsweredoubled[Ils se parlent en se posant la question sur les Kiwami, ils ont un doute ^^]. Until now, most of the time, there were a few sentences that were doubled and the rest remained in text form, and we had to take the problem head-to-head and decide to double everything.
And you have never been a little embarrbaded by certain dialogues, because when I think of Yakuza Zero, for example the dominatrix or Mister Libido, sometimes it's a little daring … Did not you say sometimes in Yakuza 6, "Oh, that's a little bit …"?
T. Kuroda: Whatever scene is played, let's say I'm really careful to stay in Kazuma Kiryu's mind and not get out of the character. Even in scenes a little daring like the ones we could evoke, I make sure they do not leave his character, and for example that he is a little embarrbaded and he does not go at the end of delirium. But anyway, Kiryu remains a man, he can also find himself in this kind of situation, it's just that I'm going to make sure that he stays himself in these scenes.
By example, in the scenes of the hostess bars, in the same way Kiryu does not consider himself a seductive man, he is always withdrawn he is always a little shy, he does not dare too much and even when he tries to flirt it's important to transcribe the fact that he's not so sure about it.
On this subject in an interview, Masayoshi Yokoyama said that, in his opinion, Kiryu was still virgin , what do you think about it?
(laughs) Mr. Sato cuts the translator's sentence and says "virgin" before the word is spoken.
D. Sato: Only he knows the answer (laughs)
T. Kuroda: I asked myself the question by interpreting it in some pbadages (laughter).
It's hard to say to the extent that he remains a fictional character, but for example, in Yakuza 2 he has a kind of approach with Sayama the policewoman, but that said the game shows nothing concrete between them two, so we can badume that something is happening … But actually in the mind I think Sayama is gone and that in fact nothing has happened, so good, maybe we can consider that Kiryu is still virgin!
Ok but in this case what does he do to the hotel with hostesses? How do they care?
(Laughter)
D. Sato: What kind of things can they do, it's a mystery … maybe he's just a mbadage and he's going home afterwards.
T. Kuroda: Or on the contrary he discusses with them to listen to their problems!
He is a real gentleman then!
(Laughter)
I wanted to know if the interpretation of Mr. Kuroda had influenced the writing of the character of Kiryu, who still evolved a lot during the series?
(Intense reflection) → T.Kuroda: Hum, concerning my interpretation?
D. Sato: Not particularly. The character of Kiryu was already defined in a fairly specific frame from the beginning of the series and when we chose Mr. Kuroda to do the dubbing, we already had a very precise idea of what we needed and it really stick to the image we had of the character. Now that it influences the scripts, it's not really something that happens.
During the production of the series, which has spread over three generations of machines , there are elements that you wanted at one time to integrate an episode and that had to be postponed in a following episode for technical reasons, blow or delay?
D. Sato: Yes, of course, it's something that happens regularly, firstly because we're always limited by the time of development and necessarily there are always things we wanted to integrate and we did not could not do it and so we had to postpone them on the next episode. The degree of importance varies depending on the episodes, but for example during the transition from the PS3 to the PS4 we finally managed to integrate the fact that there are more loads and everything is done almost in real time , and that's something we wanted for a long time and that became possible only from the PS4.
What were your inspirations at the cinema, or actors, to define the characters of Yakuza, intrigues and your interpretation of Kiryu?
D. Sato: The genesis of the Yakuza series has necessarily been inspired by many things that revolve around the world of Yakuza. I do not write the script myself – it's mainly Yokoyama and Nagoshi who are in charge of the scripts – but on the other hand I think that there is a strong image which certainly inspired them a lot and which inspires us too, these are the movies with Ken Takakura, which represents a bit of a masculine ideal, at least in the eyes of Japanese men. He is someone who retransmits what a man should be. It is a strong image that played a lot in the creation of the series.
Exactly what is interesting in Yakuza is that Kiryu finally changes very little and remains faithful to its values - moreover it is a Yakuza who does very little Yakuza stuff, we do not really know how he makes a living (laughter of guests) – but in a changing world. Even within his clan values are lost. He has a slightly reactive and at the same time extremely open-minded side. Is it somewhere a vision of Japan that you want to transcribe in the games, the fact that the world moves and not necessarily in the right direction and that it takes men, real, to preserve these values?
D. Sato: There is not necessarily a desire to convey a particular message, at least through the actions and the personality of Kazuma Kiryu who evolves in this universe. On the other hand, we still believe that the players who face various events in their life can be inspired by the behavior of Kazuma Kiryu to become better people … why not. If at least it can bring them something positive then we will have somewhere to bring something more to people.
Except for the fight ..?
M. Sato (he smiles): Of course we do not necessarily resolve the fight, but say that what is important … Obviously in real life it's hard to be as strong as Kiryu: it's someone who face the events with a certain composure and with a certain distance that many do not have in the real world, and somewhere also, through the video game, it is also a medium that allows to project itself in someone who is not yet, and give some room for personal improvement.
One last question: could Mr. Kuroda say as nasty as possible "J 'adore the strawberry ice cream'?
Well, there you have to listen to appreciate, the pbadage is at 23min15!
For the first he says it's the "calm" version.
Mr Kuroda ends up saying at the very end "it was the unlikely reply".
Thank you very much and have a nice stay in France!
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