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"Let me tell you this in your final moments. The one who killed those eighteen men all the way back in 1985... Well, it was me."
I'm going back to the Like a Dragon series for this next candidate.
What's the work?[]
Yakuza 4 is a 2009 video game that, as the title suggests, is the fourth installment in the Like a Dragon (formerly Yakuza in the west) series. This game stands out from its predecessors as it is the first in the series to have multiple playable protagonists. In addition to Kazuma Kiryu, the main protagonist from the previous games who is a legendary former yakuza known as the Dragon of Dojima, you also play as Shun Akiyama, an affable loan shark who runs Sky Finance, Taiga Saejima, a yakuza known for (supposedly) slaying 18 men who is also the sworn brother of the Mad Dog of Shimano himself Goro Majima, and Masayoshi Tanimura, a shady policeman that resides in Little Asia, a ghetto area of Kamurocho. The story revolves around these four men uncovering a decade-spanning conspiracy that involves the police, as well as the yakuza.
Who is the character, and what have they done?[]
Isao Katsuragi is the slimy, ambitious captain of a yakuza organization known as the Ueno Seiwa Clan that served as a rival to the Tojo Clan. 25 years prior to the game, Katsuragi colluded with his oath brother Junji Sugiuchi, another Ueno Seiwa man who joined the police force, as well as Kazuo Shibata, a member of the Tojo Clan, to plan a massacre on the Ueno Seiwa in order to climb up the ranks. This hit was carried out by Taiga Saejima of the Tojo Clan's Sasai Family, and was planned to be joined by his sworn brother Majima, but Majima was forcefully taken out of commission by Shibata who had his men torture Majima, leading him to have his left eye removed. Saejima, now alone, shot eighteen men who were inside of a ramen restaurant. However unbeknownst to Saejima at the time, as part of Katsuragi's plans, the guns he used actually contained bullets made out of rubber, which merely wounded the men he shot instead of outright killing them. This then allowed Katsuragi to actually shoot the 18 men dead, after which Sugiuchi entered the restaurant and helped cover Katsuragi's tracks by shooting him in the shoulder.
When Sugiuchi files a report on the massacre, the Deputy Commissioner of the Police, Seishiro Munakata, realises that the whole hit was a set up by Katsuragi due to some flaws in the report, and so he uses this to blackmail Sugiuchi into letting him get into contact with Katsuragi so he can use him for his plans.
After this, wanting to get rid of any people who knows the truth about the hit, he would meet Yasuko Saejima, the sister of Taiga, and used her goal of wanting to meet with her brother after he was arrested for the murders of the Ueno Seiwa to manipulate her into murdering those who are aware of the truth, saying he has a way to prove that Taiga is innocent and that the only way he would help her is if she gives him 100 million yen or agrees to murder, causing her to choose the latter as the former was too much money for her, which leads to her killing several people including Hiroshi Kanemura, the patriach of Kanemura Enterprises which is a subsidiary of Kazuo Shibata's Shibata Family, alongside other Shibata Family members.
Katsuragi has Masaru Ihara, who has been promoted to lieutenant of the Ueno Seiwa, cause a ruckus at a hostess club and then has Hiroaki Arai of the Tojo Clan murder him, all of which was to make a deal with the Tojo Clan's chairman Daigo Dojima so he can gain ownership of Kamurocho Hills, a building built by Majima's Family, which he deems as a worthy compensation for Ihara's death.
When Yasuko realises she is nothing more than a pawn for Katsuragi, she gets in contact with loan shark Shun Akiyama and eventually receives 100 million yen from him so she could pay the amount Katsuragi asked of her. But she gets kidnapped by the Shibata Family, where she is taken to Shibata and Arai. After Shibata tries to force himself on her, Arai kills him and says he no longer serves a purpose for him and Katsuragi's plans. Then policeman Masayoshi Tanimura arrives and saves Yasuko from the situaution, which Arai escapes from.
Taanimura takes Yasuko back to Homeland, a Chinese restaurant where he resides, and he decides to get into contact with Katsuragi, as he wants to know more about the Ueno Seiwa hit which his adoptive father, a detective working for the police, was involved in the case of before he was killed. He uses the fact that he knows where Yasuko is and that he has the money that she needed to convince Katsuragi to meet. Katsuragi confirms that he had been conspiring with Shibata to set up the hit, that he had Yasuko murder Shibata's men to clear his tracks, and that the police had covered up the hit and that Tanimura's adopted dad was killed because he found out the truth. When asked by Tanimura, Katsuragi admits that he was the one that truly murdered those eighteen men all those years ago, though he keeps quiet on who killed his adopted father. Katsuragi then reveals he has ordered his men to kill the owner of Homeland, Zhao and his daughter Mei Hua, before leaving. (We eventually learn that Sugiuchi is the one that killed Tanimura's adoptive father, after he tells the truth to him about he had been working in secret with Katsuragi and Munakata to cover up the Ueno Seiwa hit.)
Later on in the game, it is revealed Katsuragi has been working with Takeshi Kido, a member of Kanemura Enterprise, specifically to steal 100 billion yen from a vault in Sky Finance. He then orders an attack on Purgatory, a pleasure district underneath Kamurocho, and captures Saejima, to whom he reveals that it was him behind the Ueno Seiwa hit, and says to him that he still needs him and his sister for his plans which will end up with Munakata no longer being useful to him. Eventually, he is able to kidnap Yasuko as well.
In order to get both Taiga and Yasuko Saejima back, Kiryu uses a file that he received from Goh Hamazaki during his and Taiga's escape from prison, which contains details about said prison which was actually illegally funded by Munakata and his various conspirators, and that Kiryu knows Katsuragi wants to get his hands on, to bargain with Katsuragi, where he would trade the file to him in exchange for setting Taiga and Yasuko free and reclaiming the money Kido stole from Sky Finance. Katsuragi agrees, but on the condition that they meet on the top of Kamurocho Hills and Kiryu fights his way through the entirety of the Ueno Seiwa, hoping that Kiryu would be beaten up and too tired of fighting by that time he reaches the top to be able to kill him. Kiryu manages to defeat all of the Ueno Seiwa men and reaches the top of Kamurocho Hills, where Katsuragi and Kido are waiting. After Kiryu hands Kido the file, to which Kido hands him Yasuko, Kido pulls out his gun and shoots Katsuragi and reveals he is actually on Arai's side, who is also up there, and so he hands the file to him. Yasuko goes to untie Taiga, who then checks Katsuragi, revealing he is wearing a bullet-proof jacket, leading Katsuragi to mock him about the Ueno Seiwa hit. Saejima attempts to kill Katsuragi, but ultimately doesn't go through with it, saying that a scum like him isn't even worth getting rid of, and so he leaves him there to rot. Katsuragi responds by shooting Saejima in the arm and then trying to shoot him again, which Yasuko shields. She then gets revenge on Katsuragi for using her like a pawn by being the one to kill him, despite Katsuragi's cowardly attempts to stop her, before she succumbs to her bullet wound.
Any possible redeeming qualities?[]
Zilch. He's nothing more than an overly ambitious, overly smug motherfucker who shares no care for anyone but himself as he manipulates multiple characters to get his own way.
Heinous standards?[]
I've said it before and I will say it again. The Yakuza/Like a Dragon standards are decently high. From just the already Pure Evil villains alone, we have Sohei Dojima, a crime boss that has ordered a massacre that resulted in double-digits and was known for being a serial rapist, Ryo Takashima, who assisted Yukio Terada in planting several bombs around Kamurocho to destroy the Tojo Clan and manipulated the Tojo, the Omi Alliance and the Jingweon Mafia all so he can rule over the yakuza world, Kei Ibuchi, who tried to start a full-scale gang war between the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance that would envelop the Kanto and Kansai regions of Japan, and Bryce Fairchild, a vile, power-hungry man who used Palekana as a cult to brainwash various people, including children, into becoming fanatic sleeper agents willing to murder. And as for other villains, Yakuza 4 alone gives us Seishiro Munakata, the man responsible for the decade-spanning conspiracy that links back to the first game thanks to the involvement of Kyohei Jingu, said conspiracy including funding an illegal prison where various yakuza are horrifically beaten to the point of many dying by one of the guards, and counting other games, we have Yukio Terada, as I mentioned before who had the Jingweon Mafia place bombs around Kamurocho and baited Ryuji Goda into declaring a large-scale gang war between the Tojo and the Omi to suit his plans, and Futoshi Shimano, who sadistically participated in the massacre Dojima set up and tortured one of his own men for a whole year, oh, and Tsuneo Iwami and Katsumi Sugai, both of whom set fire to a district in Kamurocho and tried to kill a baby. And if we're counting the Judgment duology, a spin-off that is set in the same world, we have the two PEs I proposed from the first game, Mitsuru Kuroiwa, a sadistic assassin who kidnapped various yakuza members to support horrific human experiments on, and Kaoru Ichinose, the man that called for Kuroiwa to be involved in the conspiracy for his own gain, and also Yoji Shono, the one commencing said horrific experiments in the first place. And in the sequel Lost Judgment's DLC The Kaito Files, we have another PE, Kyoya Sadamoto, who killed many people, including his wife's family.
So yeah, as I have laid out, the heinous standards are fairly hefty. So how does Katsuragi stand out? Well to start off, Katsuragi is merely the captain of a yakuza organization that is said to be not as big as the Tojo Clan, so he has a lot less resources than some of the villains here who are the leaders or high-ranking members of much bigger criminal organizations. Then, he has the eighteen men he slaughtered as part of the Ueno Seiwa, which is fairly high for the series, made even worse in that it's men from the same crime family as him, and which he frames Saejima for, indirectly making him responsible for Saejima going to Okinawa Penitentiary No. 2, the terrifying illegal prison set up by Munakata. Then he has the manipulating of Yasuko, a desperate woman, into committing mass murder of the Shibata Family just to cover his tracks. Add in that in addition to a decently high kill count he would amass, this also has personal cruelty to our heroes, specifically Saejima as he has guilt for the men he believed to have killed, I think he just manages to barely scrape by in being heinous enough.
Verdict?[]
Not exactly the easiest candidate from this series, but I'll leave it to you to decide.