Yakuza Papers: observations on video games and film

 [October, 2023] 1) can’t count the refrences to the Yakuza games. Like there is now a genre of movies-that-are-sort-of-like-Ryu-ga-Gataku games. But "Bad City" stars the-guy-who-was-Kuze, yeah, we’re doing Yakuza things. 1a: is Kuze my absolute favorite character in the Yakuza games? (not counting Takeshi Kitano-- he’s clearly his own thing) He’s fuckn up there. Pocket Circuit Fighter, and Goro are the other ones who spring to mind...Etrsuko the Obatarian, weapon master w the hat, a handful of Omi guys like Nishtani and Watase.....fuckn Shineda….but he’s also his own thing, in his way.  2) They set up a situation where a two cops shooting a single unarmed ‘civilian’ seems like a damn reasonable thing to do. Interesting to happen in Japanese movie. In a culture essentially w out guns, you do a scene w an explicit justification for cops shooting an unarmed man. Like, you WANT BADLY for the cops shoot the unarmed man. Seems more like a thing you might see in an American mov...

Just goddamit this is NOT ROCKET SCINCE. Every fucking idiot should know this. But apparently not. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em: I: The earliest Western drama, going back to the Ancient Greeks, was defined by a binary between Tragedy and Comedy. But even by Shakespeare, who did write tragedy and comedy, you can see people growing skeptical of the distinction. He has pathos in the comedies, and people in the tragedies tell jokes. From what we understand of Shakespeare, the pressure to create works with more elements was  economic  and not  artistic : the guy’s who owned the Globe wanted to be able to sell seats to people who were worried that Hamlet would be too much of a ‘downer’ AND people who thought that the frivolity of Twelfth Night was beneath them. Serious Western drama persisted, was less concerned with a distinction between tragedy and comedy, and has not really had an effect on culture since maybe the mid nineteenth century. Obviously, people kept on writing plays, ...

 So, I’d been putting off the “Kasuga meets a White American Japan Nerd” substory for reasons that are gonna get more obvious. Bonus humiliation: I was going through the dialog so quickly I didn’t see if they mentioned anyone alongside Kurosawa, and that matters. If the American asshat shouts out Fukasaku it might break my heart a little. Anyway, the thing was cringy, I avoided completing it, then I hit a kinda ‘face your fears day’ and finished it. It was about what the American Japan Nerd has coming, but also RGG and the world can GET FUCKED. Just goddam everyone needs to work harder. During a rain storm, Kasuga is asked to choose between an umbrella and a stupid samurai hat-- I nailed it by choosing the hat. Problem: when you imagine a Japan Nerd are you thinking about a guy who is gonna check shit against his copy of Haga-fucking-kura? I got receipts, BITCH: There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quic...

 I keep getting Elvis songs stuck in my head and it is very hard to figure out how much of this is an intended part of the “Infinite Wealth” experience. I also keep being impressed with how much I end up liking Elvis, when I play the song that each chapter is named after. I feel like I am more aware of Elvis than a lot of people playing “Infinite Wealth” mostly because I imagine that 1) I am on the older end of the RGG fanbase and 2) I have a kind of half-assed knowledge/interest in the history of American music, particularly as related to race-relations, which is probably not true of everyone playing this game. A lot of people, including Japanese players, probably know MORE about it than I do, but I would guess that I am at least in the top half when it comes to knowledge/awareness of the history of rock n’ roll among RGG gamers. That’s just a guess. I wonder how many human beings have 1) played “Infinite Wealth” and 2) saw the King perform live? Around a hundred? That was my firs...