moophinz

[moophinz]

I think two of the main reasons why I can’t get behind most love interests given to a major rival character are:

1) The rival is way too obsessed with the protagonist to make it believable they’d have any chance with a significant other, or, hell, making it believable they’d even like anyone in that type of way. Whether the feelings for the protagonist or taken romantically or not by fans, those are still some extremely strong emotions that often lead the rival to insane lengths. I really can’t bring myself to imagine that this character could spend every other waking minute consumed with anger or what-have-you over the protagonist, and somehow, still have time on the side to pursue romance even if they don’t do it in typical/normal means. I would assume that unless the partner is also obsessed with the protagonist or very gullible, they’d have a huge problem with the rival flagging them down all the time.

2) The rival struggles to even admit to simple friendships and usually forms more complicated ones. Denial is usually at the start. So it’s difficult in a lot of cases to have them involved in a romance in a way that feels believable to me. It feels more like they should grapple with such emotions. Of course, though, this is for the rival characters who are really repressed or very emotionally unavailable.

[moophinz]

[moophinz]

@farnese0 @kenzan-brainrot-mp4 Another thing from the west here

So about last Valentines Day…

[moophinz]

Hello! The twist ending of PYIH kind of shocked me. 'Twas really foolish of me for thinking that for the entirety of Kiryu's saga, Majima has just that twisted obsession with Kiryu, being a "Mad Dog" and all. I came across your PYIH analysis the other day and it really brought home what they were conveying with the ending.

I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the premise of PYIH. Is the sole purpose of Majima's "filming/documentary(?)" is to rehearse telling it to Kiryu? Because if it had been, that would be even crazier.

Oh, and at this point, is it even reasonable right now to interpret their relationship as platonic or brotherly? What do you think?

YEAHHHHH imo I think yakuza kenzan yakuza 3 (rooftop scene) is where we first truly starting seeing a glimpse of a deeper dynamic between Majima and Kiryu that goes beyond the "weird twisted obsession" reading, and we see more examples of it later as the series goes on (gestures at yakuza 5 and IW) but moments like those were decently subtle/blink-and-you'll-miss-it (not to mention they lessen in frequency also probably in part to Majima's lessening screentime throughout the series), but pyih's ending really goes out of its way to ensure that you actually Know how deep and genuine Majima's feelings are, which I am both extremely appreciative of and Kinda Crazy about

I think the whole documentary thing is interesting. Given the fact that they went out of their way to get the equipment/crew/etc. for the "film version", I would say that the Majima's retelling of his story at the studio and at Kiryu's bedside serve different purposes, and that him telling the story on set was not specifically for Kiryu (what Majima plans to do with the "film version" I'm not completely sure, but I guess for now we can assume it's just a project Majima wanted to do while getting Majima Construction back off the ground?) I'd say the premise of pyih is both to retell Majima's story as he presents it to the "general audience" And Kiryu, hence why the game starts with one and ends with the other. It's the same story to everyone, for the mostpart, and the main difference between the two 'versions' is How he presents it (to the cameras/the players/main audience he puts on the fuckass pirate costume and the theatrics, to Kiryu he tells it to him straight, without the extra show stuff for the cameras. We can Assume the story he tells to each audience is practically identical, considering that the cutscene of him telling it to us in the beginning of the game and him telling it to KIryu at the end of the game use identical lines (cough cough in the Japanese audio), but his tone of voice between the two are notably very different)

Uhhhh shoot I don't know if any of that made sense 💀 Point is I think Majima telling the story of pyih is, in fact, meant for Everyone, it's just that Kiryu gets a sort of special, more authentically told version of it if you will (After all, Majima could've just shown Kiryu the film when it was finally done, but instead he went out of his way to tell it to him personally)

As for the question of "is kazumaji canon now", WOO boy. First of all I actually lowkey want to thank you for asking that question, I've been wanting to post about it for a while now but kept putting it off lol. I mulled over this exact question quite a bit during the week-or-so long time period that I was writing most of my analysis after finishing the game, and, despite the fact that I myself am very vocal about liking kazumaji in a romantic scenario/context, I would not personally call it canon, and I say it is still absolutely reasonable to interpret them as platonic.

While many of the aspects we see in their relationship (especially on Majima's end) such as obsession, devotion, etc. etc. are often associated with romantic interest (Especially in fandom spaces), I don't think they have to be considered specifically romantic. People who have read through my posts may remember a while back that I did an analysis of The Sun at 36.5 wondering if the song was written with the intent to represent Majima's feelings towards Kiryu (for the record this was incorrect and the meaning behind it goes past the scope of the game) and I was going pretty insane about it lol. That's because, had the song been written with that in mind, it would've meant with almost 100% certainly that they would be, in fact, canon, and that would've been Insane. However, this is not the case, and other than that theory I had there's nothing else in the games that would specifically state that either one has Explicitly Romantic feelings towards the other. Do they have a very deep and complex relationship, the likes of which they don't share with many other characters? Definitely. Is it explicitly romantic? I wouldn't say so

The main example I would like to bring up to argue against it would be minedai (*cough* my second favorite yakuza ship I fucking Love Mine Yoshitaka so much he's one of my favorites). I'll link this amazing post with all the examples but essentially, while minedai and kazumaji share many of the same themes in their relationship/dynamic (again, obsession, devotion, you get the drill (can you tell Majima and Mine are two of my favorite characters yet LOL)) the main difference between them is that, with minedai, it is basically outright said Multiple Times in Multiple Sources outside of even Yakuza 3 itself that Mine loved Daigo, with words used Specifically to convey strong romantic connotations, a choice rgg went out of their way to make every single time they wrote about them together. Kazumaji, on the other hand, does not use these kinds of words to describe each other, whether it be in words coming from Kiryu and Majima themselves, or official relationship charts, descriptions, etc.

Can feelings including romance be heavily implied without needing to be explicitly stated? Absolutely, but with the way rgg tends to Very Obviously and Explicitly state when characters Are romantically interested in each other, and also simply because there is still (imo) plenty of room to read kazumaji as Not romantic, I wouldn't say it's canon. And for the record, I wanna reiterate that this is coming from someone who is personally very enthusiastic about kazumaji as a ship, so I'm trying to be purely objective here, and that is my verdict (Also this is just a random aside, but I really don't agree with the people who are (unironically) labelling Kiryu and Majima's relationship as "queerbaiting". but that's a whole other discussion entirely)

Thank you for shooting an ask !!

[moophinz]

On the topic of RGG’s target audience being male and how often this group can skew towards bigotry in gaming circles, RGG Studio did once share a pretty blatant Kazumaji art piece in a livestream of theirs. I would need to find it again, but I think this was two years ago or something. They’ve shared fan content for a while now. This one, however, was a shock as they do decide what to share themselves. The women on camera were all giggling about it and saying something about a fujoshi iirc. On Twitter where they shared it, I saw quite a few angry comments and quote tweets (Japanese and other languages) mixed with people who fully supported it. The artist was even receiving some hate for this as if she was the one who made the studio share it against their will.

And on other queer characters, Mine is still alive according to Yokoyama himself. Through a tweet he made in 2013 and some recent stream clips as well. Yokoyama talked about potentially bringing him back one day. He stressed about doing it “the right way,” too. I’m not sure if they’d bring up his feelings for Daigo again, but they were also pretty direct about it in RGGO stories so it doesn’t feel unlikely at all. I sometimes wonder what the franchise would be like if they could be unabashedly direct and clear with these types of characters without their audience saying something. Or a lot of things. If RGG would want to do that anyway.

Hello! The twist ending of PYIH kind of shocked me. 'Twas really foolish of me for thinking that for the entirety of Kiryu's saga, Majima has just that twisted obsession with Kiryu, being a "Mad Dog" and all. I came across your PYIH analysis the other day and it really brought home what they were conveying with the ending.

I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the premise of PYIH. Is the sole purpose of Majima's "filming/documentary(?)" is to rehearse telling it to Kiryu? Because if it had been, that would be even crazier.

Oh, and at this point, is it even reasonable right now to interpret their relationship as platonic or brotherly? What do you think?

YEAHHHHH imo I think yakuza kenzan yakuza 3 (rooftop scene) is where we first truly starting seeing a glimpse of a deeper dynamic between Majima and Kiryu that goes beyond the "weird twisted obsession" reading, and we see more examples of it later as the series goes on (gestures at yakuza 5 and IW) but moments like those were decently subtle/blink-and-you'll-miss-it (not to mention they lessen in frequency also probably in part to Majima's lessening screentime throughout the series), but pyih's ending really goes out of its way to ensure that you actually Know how deep and genuine Majima's feelings are, which I am both extremely appreciative of and Kinda Crazy about

I think the whole documentary thing is interesting. Given the fact that they went out of their way to get the equipment/crew/etc. for the "film version", I would say that the Majima's retelling of his story at the studio and at Kiryu's bedside serve different purposes, and that him telling the story on set was not specifically for Kiryu (what Majima plans to do with the "film version" I'm not completely sure, but I guess for now we can assume it's just a project Majima wanted to do while getting Majima Construction back off the ground?) I'd say the premise of pyih is both to retell Majima's story as he presents it to the "general audience" And Kiryu, hence why the game starts with one and ends with the other. It's the same story to everyone, for the mostpart, and the main difference between the two 'versions' is How he presents it (to the cameras/the players/main audience he puts on the fuckass pirate costume and the theatrics, to Kiryu he tells it to him straight, without the extra show stuff for the cameras. We can Assume the story he tells to each audience is practically identical, considering that the cutscene of him telling it to us in the beginning of the game and him telling it to KIryu at the end of the game use identical lines (cough cough in the Japanese audio), but his tone of voice between the two are notably very different)

Uhhhh shoot I don't know if any of that made sense 💀 Point is I think Majima telling the story of pyih is, in fact, meant for Everyone, it's just that Kiryu gets a sort of special, more authentically told version of it if you will (After all, Majima could've just shown Kiryu the film when it was finally done, but instead he went out of his way to tell it to him personally)

As for the question of "is kazumaji canon now", WOO boy. First of all I actually lowkey want to thank you for asking that question, I've been wanting to post about it for a while now but kept putting it off lol. I mulled over this exact question quite a bit during the week-or-so long time period that I was writing most of my analysis after finishing the game, and, despite the fact that I myself am very vocal about liking kazumaji in a romantic scenario/context, I would not personally call it canon, and I say it is still absolutely reasonable to interpret them as platonic.

While many of the aspects we see in their relationship (especially on Majima's end) such as obsession, devotion, etc. etc. are often associated with romantic interest (Especially in fandom spaces), I don't think they have to be considered specifically romantic. People who have read through my posts may remember a while back that I did an analysis of The Sun at 36.5 wondering if the song was written with the intent to represent Majima's feelings towards Kiryu (for the record this was incorrect and the meaning behind it goes past the scope of the game) and I was going pretty insane about it lol. That's because, had the song been written with that in mind, it would've meant with almost 100% certainly that they would be, in fact, canon, and that would've been Insane. However, this is not the case, and other than that theory I had there's nothing else in the games that would specifically state that either one has Explicitly Romantic feelings towards the other. Do they have a very deep and complex relationship, the likes of which they don't share with many other characters? Definitely. Is it explicitly romantic? I wouldn't say so

The main example I would like to bring up to argue against it would be minedai (*cough* my second favorite yakuza ship I fucking Love Mine Yoshitaka so much he's one of my favorites). I'll link this amazing post with all the examples but essentially, while minedai and kazumaji share many of the same themes in their relationship/dynamic (again, obsession, devotion, you get the drill (can you tell Majima and Mine are two of my favorite characters yet LOL)) the main difference between them is that, with minedai, it is basically outright said Multiple Times in Multiple Sources outside of even Yakuza 3 itself that Mine loved Daigo, with words used Specifically to convey strong romantic connotations, a choice rgg went out of their way to make every single time they wrote about them together. Kazumaji, on the other hand, does not use these kinds of words to describe each other, whether it be in words coming from Kiryu and Majima themselves, or official relationship charts, descriptions, etc.

Can feelings including romance be heavily implied without needing to be explicitly stated? Absolutely, but with the way rgg tends to Very Obviously and Explicitly state when characters Are romantically interested in each other, and also simply because there is still (imo) plenty of room to read kazumaji as Not romantic, I wouldn't say it's canon. And for the record, I wanna reiterate that this is coming from someone who is personally very enthusiastic about kazumaji as a ship, so I'm trying to be purely objective here, and that is my verdict (Also this is just a random aside, but I really don't agree with the people who are (unironically) labelling Kiryu and Majima's relationship as "queerbaiting". but that's a whole other discussion entirely)

Thank you for shooting an ask !!

[moophinz]

Kazumaji is basically just gay and angsty SonAmy when you really think about it.

[moophinz]

There’s also a NPC somewhere in Kamurocho who says he goes to the porn video place because he still lives with his mom (thanks for that information, dude). And that there’s someone who goes in there watching martial arts stuff before expressing exasperation about being into that. For the secret weapons substory, you could give the wrong answer which is a DVD name related to martial arts to the worker. He too is surprised that someone could be into that.

I'm sorry...WHAT ? 💀

[moophinz]

Finally finished the pirate game in full. Here are my thoughts on it:

[moophinz]

At the end of Pirates in Hawaii, Saejima lays it all out on the line about Majima’s true intentions for going to Hawaii and reveals he even finds his antics entertaining. Daigo got a good laugh out of Majima trying to cure Kiryu’s cancer with something out of a fairytale, too.

In Gaiden, there’s a moment where Saejima makes an amused sound at the ever dramatic duo after Majima begs Kiryu to stay. Hell, he even looks at the two softly for a good while. Shit. Even Tsuruno and Daigo seem to be grinning about that display 💀 I used to think I was focusing on nothing, but after the new game I firmly believe this was definitely hinting something.

[moophinz]

I’m tired of this planet

[moophinz]

The newest trailer vindicates me sooo bad, it's exactly what I wanted from the beginning of pirate yakuza

A Majima who doesn't remember anything. But his body and hands remember the violence, remembers the Mad Dog. How natural the fighting and bloodshed are. And it scares him. He sees the blood on his hands and he shakes. He knows the person he used to be is not a good person. Hell, he might've been the scum of the earth. He doesn't want to confront his past or attempt to decipher who he used to be. Hence the resistance to his old connections. The enthusiasm to embrace the pirate persona. His focus on the present in protecting Noah and showing him the world.

Wanting to do something right for once, because he isn't sure he has ever done anything right in his life before.

[moophinz]

This is extremely important

[moophinz]

If you wear these at the same time you become biblically accurate Goro Majima

[moophinz]

Somehow, this is running on my laptop. Always believe in yourself, kids.

[moophinz]

Forever thinking about how I made magical girl outfits for every protagonist (Yusei not pictured) and then went nowhere with them

[moophinz]

Happy Birthday to Ichiban and this picture of Nakaya in the bathroom

[moophinz]

These two talk about forming a kyodaiship like it’s marriage

“We don’t need some old ritual. What we have is real no matter what”

“Can we pretty please do the thing that will make us official?”

“Only when you’re ready”

I hate dramatic queer people