Teruyuki Kagawa isn’t the first time the Like a Dragon series had criminality connected to its actors, but it’s the first that can’t be forgiven.

[This article contains discussion of sexual harassment, sexual assault, themes of sexual violence and one photograph of assault. Please read at your own discretion.]

On the stage of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s annual summit, studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama prepares to reveal the second release commemorating the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series’ 20th anniversary, following the barely-a-remaster Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut earlier this year. A shot of Kazuma Kiryu standing on the sunlit sands of Okinawa confirms a recent leak: it’s Yakuza Kiwami 3. Recreated scenes from the original PS3 title flash by, remade from the ground up in the high-fidelity Dragon Engine. But wait a second, who the hell is Kiryu talking to in Ryukyu? And for that matter, who was that unrecognisable character at the very start? 

As the first mainline PS3 entry, and having already been updated and ported to current systems via 2020’s Remastered Collection, the answer to “Does Yakuza 3 even need a remake?” leans closer to a no. At some point, there’s only diminishing returns. Like the previous Kiwami remakes, Kiwami 3 offers an increase in visual fidelity, but not necessarily a retainment of the soul of the game it’s claiming to recreate, or all of its content for that matter – remember Shinseicho in Yakuza 2?

The most noticeable changes are in the recasting of three characters: the lovable, tragic Okinawan upstart Rikiya Shimabukuro; the grandfather of the Ryudo, Shigeru Nakahara; and, most pressingly, the sadistic patriarch Goh Hamazaki. Previously played by Tatsuya Fujiwara, Shigeru Izumiya and Joji Takahashi respectively, the recasts follow the studio’s increasing preference for modelling important characters after their celebrity voice actors to have famous faces to show off in box art. While Nakahara’s new actor, Ryo Ishibashi, resembles his original design, and the new model of Rikiya has been rightly criticised for how Show Kasamatsu’s bishounen, pretty boy handsomeness has lost Rikiya’s innocent charm, what’s important with Hamazaki isn’t the model itself, but his actor, Teruyuki Kagawa. To say that Kagawa’s involvement was met with shock and disgust would be an understatement — a very visible portion of the fandom, including well-known content creators such as CyricZ and devilleon7, has stated they’ll be boycotting the game, unifying their posts and videos on the subject under the tag #RemoveKagawa. While there has been no official response, the studio has taken to quietly deleting comments expressing this outrage where it has the jurisdiction to, such as on its live streams.

Let’s just get the important thing out in the open: Kagawa, a famed TV and kabuki actor, has openly admitted to sexually assaulting a staff member of a Ginza hostess club in July 2019. As initially reported by Shukan Shincho in August 2022, Kagawa pulled her hair, groped her breasts, removed her bra and passed it around to other colleagues. Photographs from the incident show him grinning ear to ear throughout the assault, before yelling at the bar’s manager and slipping his hand under the manager’s armpit.  The hostess went on to sue her employer for not being adequately protected, eventually settling the lawsuit with the club itself. It would later be reported by Toyo Keizai that previous, similar behaviour had already resulted in Kagawa being blacklisted from clubs in Minato Ward.

In response to the report, Kagawa’s agency Lotus Roots Inc. released a statement confirming the allegations: “It is true that [Kagawa’s] careless behavior caused displeasure to the woman of concern. He has deeply reflected on what has been pointed out, and is currently humbling himself. He has expressed his feelings of reflection and apology to the woman involved, and has asked her for her understanding and forgiveness. This statement has also been sent out with her consent.” 

Kagawa apologised publicly soon after during his segment on the Tokyo morning broadcast The Time, stating, “I am truly sorry for all the trouble, worry, and distress caused by my personal affairs as reported by the weekly publications. I’ve reflected deeply on my own actions and intend to live moving forwards with a firm sense of self-reflection. Moreover, I intend to continue tackling my work with the same amount of seriousness, professionalism, and sincerity as I have so far. But more than anything else I’ll never forget how grateful I should be for being given another chance.”

Note the stunning lack of apology from Kagawa himself to the hostess, despite the fact that she has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since the incident. It’s all about the damage to his own image through media coverage. While he and Lotus Roots Inc. were evidently looking to be granted forgiveness, to quickly wipe their hands clean of the scandal — which is particularly clear in Kagawa’s notion of his gratitude “for being given another chance” — he did face consequences for his actions. His weekly segment on The Time was quickly removed, alongside his position as the editor-in-chief of the Toyota Times (as was his status as the face of their public relations through commercial appearances, by extension). 

Kagawa would face no criminal charges, but spent three years out of the public eye following these events; his last acting role was 2022’s already-filmed Roppongi Class. These consequences proved to be entirely temporary, however. This year, Kagawa was cast in a lead role in the 2026 film Sai Disaster.

So, back to his casting as Kiwami 3’s Goh Hamazaki. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is no stranger to recasting characters, but this is the first time it has so brazenly and knowingly hired an actual, admitted felon in its series about organised crime. While it goes without saying that a sex pest like Kagawa being hired for any part following his crime is a moral failure, one repeated far too frequently in similar cases across entertainment industries, it’s particularly insulting and disgusting for him to be cast in a series that has historically featured sex pests being (rightly) beat up by its protagonists.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has actually had issues with the potential criminality of cast members before. In March 2019, actor and one half of electronica duo Denki Groove, Pierre Taki, was arrested on suspicion of drug use and soon failed a urine test to confirm the presence of cocaine in his system. Taki was given a suspended sentence of eighteen months and Denki Groove’s contract with Sony Music was terminated. Taki was also replaced as the Japanese voice of Olaf in Frozen and Kingdom Hearts. Unfortunately for the studio,  just four months earlier, Taki had appeared in a starring role in the Japanese release of Judgment as the voice and likeness of major antagonist Kyohei Hamura (yes, the terrifying yakuza captain Hamura shared a voice with that wretched snowman). 

With the international release of Judgment looming in June of that year, the studio scrambled to pull the game from shelves almost immediately, working quickly to remove any trace of Taki. Executive producer Toshihiro Nagoshi commented, “If I’m asked why I voted to pull the game, it had just come out. If this were a game that had been released in the past and time had passed, the way we’d look at it might be different.” 

As soon as April, Sega began releasing promotional material for the re-release featuring an entirely new face for Hamura, who would now be voiced by Yakuza Kiwami 2 alumni Miou Tanaka; this nu-Hamura was the only version of Hamura that the international versions would ever see. In Japan’s case, the game’s patched re-release was half its original price, sweetening the deal. The publisher hoped to recoup losses from the months Judgment was unavailable and make this new release the definitive version, sweeping memories of Taki’s involvement under the rug.

After the recasting, Taki’s career continued, as his failure to commit any repeat drug use saw his suspended sentence pass without issue. This outcome stands in contrast to the fate of another Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio-adjacent actor who faced casting consequences for crimes around cocaine. 

A few years prior, actor and fashion icon Hiroki Narimiya faced allegations of cocaine use purported by the tabloid Friday in December 2016. Supposed photographic evidence of his crime was quickly pointed out to be inaccurate, in that the white powder he was consuming was actually just powdered candy. Narimiya took a drug test which came back negative, and he and his agency, Top Coat., denied the baseless allegations. But the damage had already been done: the scandal led to Narimiya retiring from the entertainment industry due to the stress of clearing his name. He said that “seeing this situation of the wrong information being circulated continuing, I feel as if I will be crushed by my anxiety and desperation. I can’t bear the thought of my privacy being exposed to the public by people’s evil intentions.” 

Alongside a laundry list of starring roles in film and TV dramas, in 2010 Narimiya had been cast as the voice and likeness of one of Yakuza 4’s new protagonists: the corrupt cop with a heart of gold, the black tortoise, the parasite of Kamurocho — Masayoshi Tanimura. Narimiya’s performance was one of the game’s highlights, but with the studio’s development of Yakuza 4 Remastered for modern hardware in 2020 post-retirement, the choice was made to scrub his presence from the game, with Tanimura instead being modeled after and voiced by Toshiki Masuda. Like with Taki, the only version of Yakuza 4 currently on sale has completely removed his original performance. Unlike Taki, however, Narimiya committed no crime.

All of this is to say that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio are evidently very willing to recast characters based on personal scandals, controversies, and crimes surrounding and committed by the actors they hire. Yet unlike Taki’s one-time drug use or the baseless accusations against Narimiya, Kagawa’s admitted sexual assault has had no impact on the studio’s choice to cast him for Yakuza Kiwami 3, despite the studio’s apparent insistence on stringent background checks. In an interview following the remake’s reveal, director Yokoyama commented, “Because of the subject matter, we go through 10 or 20 times more legal and ethical checks than the typical project. We have to be careful about all kinds of things. Things that seem fine to Japanese sensibilities can be completely off-limits in another country.” 

While it’s sadly not new knowledge that drug use is viewed as an incredibly serious and career-ruining crime in Japan while sexual harassment and assault is often played down, it’s horrific to see the studio’s head imply that admitted sexual assault is not considered something to be “careful about.” Sexual harassment and assault is infamously trivialised across the Japanese working world due to patriarchal pressures and victims’ fear of retribution upon reporting it, so perhaps Yokoyama simply considers it “fine to Japanese sensibilities.” It also brings to mind Nagoshi’s comment circa Taki’s recasting in Judgment – part of the studio’s decision making on whether a crime is a disqualifying factor seems to be dependent on if an actor’s crime is contemporary and in the news cycle, or far enough in the past to hope it’s been forgotten entirely.

And what of the very series these actors are being cast and recast for? The Like a Dragon series is built on interrogating masculinity — whether it’s positive masculinity, toxic masculinity, or the deconstruction of both. With its protagonists written as powerful symbols of positive masculinity — Kiryu’s warm heart contrasts his cold exterior, and Kasuga has an impenetrable trust in his friends and posesses an endless capacity for forgiveness — it’s a no brainer that misogyny, and by extension sexual violence against women, should be a no-go. Antagonists frequently harass or assault women to demonstrate their depravity, which is telling in a series where their affinity for senseless murder is often breezed past unless they kill a named, major character. 

One of the first character-defining moments for Shun Akiyama in Yakuza 4 is beating up a low-level yakuza for trying to force himself onto a club’s hostess who is physically trying to push him off her before Akiyama shows up. Lost Judgment’s plot revolves around police officer Akihiro Ehara’s court appearance over charges of groping a woman on a train. Yakuza: Like a Dragon sees party member Saeko Mukoda groped while posing as a hostess, with a triad grunt’s attempt to lick her armpit highlighted in her disgust. 

In Yakuza 0 alone, there are three separate instances of sexual harassment. Goro Majima is introduced by tricking a customer groping his staff at the Cabaret Grand into paying the check of every guest that night, alongside humiliating the man in a ‘fight.’ Goro makes a show out of putting him in his place and is awarded with the raucous applause of the entire cabaret. Later, Homare Nishitani gropes a Grand hostess’ chest and forces her hand onto his crotch, while Hiroki Awano forces a woman to dance with him at gunpoint and shoots her soon after just to intimidate Kiryu. When fighting Nishitani and Awano, your drive to leave them bloody and bruised is led by the haunting memory of their disgusting acts.  

Kiryu’s last fight against Majima in Yakuza is preceded by the Mad Dog harassing a woman at knifepoint – something it’s hard to imagine the Majima from Yakuza 0 doing. The inciting incident for the entire series in the opening of Yakuza is Nishikiyama shooting his family patriarch to protect the woman he loves from being assaulted, a murder that is framed as absolutely justified. Kiryu even takes the fall for his brother in a doubly moral act. 

It is worth noting, however, that the victims themselves are rarely, if ever, given the dignity and agency to process or discuss their trauma. Their assault is a motivator for the protagonist first and a traumatic event for them second. As journalist Hiero de Lima notes in their excellent essay on misogyny and rape in the series, “In a landscape populated by gray and grey moralities, the easiest way to communicate that a given character is a #000000 brand of evil is by having them beat on the weak.” de Lima specifically references Aoko Matsuda’s essay The Woman Dies, and it’s far from an empty literary callback — there are indeed scarce examples of female characters in the series who don’t exist solely to support the arc of a male character, good or ill, in life, in assault, or in death. 

A huge amount of optional substories also involve a protagonist helping victims of sex crimes by finding and taking down their assailants. In Like a Dragon, sex criminals are beaten up, arrested and even occasionally murdered for their crimes. It’s a shame Hamazaki is never directly fought in Yakuza 3, since Kiryu would beat Kagawa into the ground without a second thought  – but we can’t have that catharsis. All we have is the abhorrent reality of a sex criminal having his crimes ignored to be cast in a series that so unquestionably despises his kind.

There is one last example of sexual assault in the series to note — in Yakuza 3 itself, no less. In one of the series’ most sickening moments, depraved yakuza captain Tsuyoshi Kanda is introduced just offscreen, in a room behind his family office. The player’s first impression of him is the sound of a woman’s screaming paired with his own animalistic grunting and the rough slams of a bedframe hitting a wall with such force to dislodge a framed calligraphy on the visible wall. It’s not hard to figure that, considering Kanda’s position in the family and his degrading treatment of his own men, this woman is being sexually assaulted. Kanda’s subordinates joke about his ‘preferences’, wondering how he “handles porkers like that”. It’s difficult to watch, but it serves its purpose in making the player despise Kanda and his men – they’re pure evil, so it’s all the sweeter when main villain Yoshitaka Mine flattens Kanda out and beheads him later in the story.

Director Yokoyama, however, seems to find the scene quite funny. In that recent interview, his conversation partner — Kanda’s returning voice actor, Hiroyuki Miyasako — calls the scene “unbelievable.” Yokoyama disagrees, joking that it was “a massage scene. That’s Kanda’s unusual hobby of giving massages. Don’t get it wrong!” Despite there being no humour in the original scene, no winking at the audience that sexual assault is funny, actually, Yokoyama himself finds it appropriate to make light of it. Screenshots released of the remake confirm the scene’s reappearance, seemingly unchanged. In fact, with Kiwami 3’s addition of the minigame ‘Kanda Damage Control,’ which sees Mine burdened with cleaning up the reputation of his disgraceful kyodai, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio seems to intend to twist Kanda into a goofy character for us to laugh at, not a disgusting villain you can’t wait for Kiryu to beat to a pulp.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s complete refusal to acknowledge Teruyuki Kagawa’s sexual assault before or after his hiring mirrors its contemporary view of Kanda’s own: a  shocking moment for audiences to grimace at and quickly move on from, except perhaps to make repulsive jokes about years later. Boycotting Yakuza Kiwami 3 for as long as Kagawa remains involved is a non-choice. It’s almost a surprise he was cast as Hamazaki, not Kanda — he’d practically be method acting.