So Some New Gameplay Came Out For Like A Dragon 8, And In The Gameplay It Showed Judgement Being A Playable

So some new gameplay came out for Like a Dragon 8, and in the gameplay it showed Judgement being a playable song for the first time since Yakuza 0, with Ichiban singing it along with Kiryu. This got me thinking a lot, so I want to share my thoughts.

So Kiryu hasn’t sung this song since like what, the 80’s? That’s a long damn time, especially considering Judgement is his canonical favorite song. So why hasn’t he sang it in so long? Well, ignoring gameplay reasons obviously, an answer could be that he always sung that song with Nishiki by his side, and thus it felt wrong and empty to sing it without him.

Well, that was, until he met Ichi.

It’s a well known fact that Ichiban’s japanese voice actor is actually also Nishiki’s voice actor, a sorta passing the torch kinda thing. Something I believe (and is kinda implied ingame) is that Ichiban reminds Kiryu of his younger self, while also reminding him of Nishiki, in a way. Just something about Kiryu seeing Ichi as the future of the yakuza (as said in the trailer) is so heartwarming to me.

But what does this have to do with Judgement? Well, the fact that Kiryu hadn’t sung this song in nearly 40 years, but then decided to do a duet alongside Ichi is just kinda heartwrenching in a way. I have a headcanon that Ichi saw the song on the list of karaoke songs, and asked Kiryu if he heard of it, in which Kiryu had a sort of flashback. It’s like he remembered Nishiki asking the exact same thing all those years ago, and something Ichi reminding him of it made him wanna sing it again with him.

Something I also find just absolutely heartbreaking is that with the recent reveal of Kiryu having cancer, it’s very possible that this could be his very last game The ONLY other time you could sing Judgement was in Kiryu’s canonical very first game, all the way back in the 80’s with Yakuza 0. The fact that Kiryu’s journey is starting and possibly ending with his favorite song makes me feel a lot of things.