User:Eithersummer/sandbox/infinitewealthshort
Setting and characters
[edit]Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth takes place in 2023, and follows former Tojo Clan yakuza members Ichiban Kasuga (Kazuhiro Nakaya/Kaiji Tang) and Kazuma Kiryu (Takaya Kuroda/Yong Yea) as they embark on a new adventure in Isezaki Ijincho, Yokohama and Honolulu, Hawaii. Following a tip from a former ally, Kasuga travels to Honolulu in search of his biological mother, Akane Kishida (Yoshiko Sakakibara/Patti Yasutake), who he thought had died many years ago. Meanwhile, Kiryu, long presumed dead, is also present in Honolulu in search of Akane on orders from the Daidoji, a Japanese parliamentary faction that believes her retrieval will aid their party's return to power. The two team up to find and protect Akane from various local criminal organizations, while Kiryu wrestles against cancer.
Kasuga's companions from Yakuza: Like a Dragon make a return, including formerly homeless ex-nurse Yu Nanba (Ken Yasuda/Greg Chun), former detective Koichi Adachi (Akio Otsuka/Andrew Morgado), cabaret club owner Saeko Mukoda, retired gangster-turned-chef Tianyou Zhao (Nobuhiko Okamoto/Robbie Daymond), and Korean crime syndicate lieutenant Joongi Han (Yuichi Nakamura/Keong Sim). New companions include Seonhee (Hana Takeda/Fiona Rene), a prominent Yokohama crime figure and Joongi's boss, Eric Tomizawa (Satoru Iguchi/Matthew Yang King), a Hawaiian taxi driver working for Honolulu's yakuza, and Chitose Fujinomiya (Anju Inami/Suzie Yeung), an exchange student and heiress to an ultra-wealthy family.
Several characters make a return from previous games, including Jo Sawashiro (Shinichi Tsutsumi/Ian Anthony Dale), a former yakuza captain and one of Kasuga's adversaries, and recurring characters Goro Majima (Hidenari Ugaki/Matthew Mercer), Taiga Saejima (Rikiya Koyama/Ron Yuan), and Daigo Dojima (Satoshi Tokushige/Tim Friedlander). Kasuga's biological father, Masumi Arakawa (Kiichi Nakai/Johnny Yong Bosch), and adoptive brother Masato Arakawa (Kohsuke Toriumi/Will Yun Lee), appear in flashbacks.
Plot
[edit]Four years after Japan's two most powerful yakuza syndicates, the Tojo Clan and Omi Alliance, dissolved, Ichiban Kasuga is employed by Hello Work, helping to find jobs for ex-yakuza. After he is falsely accused of using his position to build a criminal network by Hisoka Tatara, a popular VTuber, Kasuga is fired and several of his companions also lose their jobs, prompting them to regroup as a party. A month later, they find that the Seiryu Clan has been recruiting ex-yakuza en masse. Infiltrating the clan's headquarters, they meet their acting chairman, Masataka Ebina, who tells them that he has been employing the ex-yakuza for a legitimate waste disposal business and that he is organizing an attempt to dissolve the remaining yakuza groups in Japan. Jo Sawashiro, who has become one of Ebina's lieutenants after being released from prison, informs Kasuga that his biological mother, Akane Kishida, is alive and living in Honolulu, Hawaii, and asks Kasuga to find and meet her.
In Hawaii, Kasuga befriends Eiji Mitamura, a wheelchair-bound engineer, and has a run-in with taxi driver Eric Tomizawa, who attempts to rob Kasuga. Kasuga finds Akane's house with Eiji's help, but she is not home. He instead meets her maid, Chitose Fujinomiya, who drugs him and steals all of his belongings, including his clothing and passport, before dumping him on the beach. After evading the police, Kasuga is reunited with Kazuma Kiryu, who is looking for Akane on behalf of the Daidoji. Returning to Akane's house, they are ambushed by a local yakuza group led by Yutaka Yamai, who is also looking for Akane. Kasuga notices Tomizawa among the assailants and persuades him to defect to his party. The party learns that Chitose has sold Kasuga's passport in exchange for refuge from her wealthy but overbearing family within District Five, home of the brutal Barracudas gang. Kiryu reveals that he has contracted cancer from a nuclear waste accident in 2020 and that he has only six months left to live. Although Kasuga and Tomizawa insist that he seek treatment, Kiryu refuses, having tired of life as a Daidoji agent. The party infiltrates District Five and locates Chitose, who joins them to find safety from the Barracudas.
The party, aided by information from Chitose, learns that Akane managed an orphanage for Palekana, a local religious organization headed by the enigmatic Sage Bryce Fairchild, and that she is being hunted by nearly all of Hawaii's underworld. The party learns from the leader of the Ganzhe, a Chinese organization, that Bryce has been controlling all of Hawaii's organized crime from the shadows, save Yamai's upstart syndicate, utilizing his vast criminal empire to track down Akane and a girl traveling with her, Lani. Kiryu is captured by Yamai as the party escapes the Ganzhe. Two of Kasuga's friends, Koichi Adachi and Yu Nanba, travel to Hawaii to aid the party in their rescue of Kiryu, and raid Yamai's headquarters. After learning about Bryce's motivations from the party, Yamai calls off the search for Akane and hands over Kiryu. Kiryu returns to Japan to aid his medical recovery, along with Adachi and Nanba.
In Japan, Kiryu is joined by Kasuga's love interest, Saeko Mukoda, and underworld figure Seonhee, and learns that Ebina's waste management business is expanding to Hawaii via a deal with Bryce; Japan and several other countries will send nuclear waste to a disposal facility on Nele Island, a sacred and private island owned by Palekana, with Ebina providing ex-yakuza as employees to transport and handle the waste. Tatara reveals that Kiryu is alive; Ebina and Sawashiro in an interview with her claim that Kiryu seeks to resurrect the Tojo Clan. Kiryu's party, which now includes another friend of Kasuga's, Tianyou Zhou, holds a secret meeting with Sawashiro, who admits that Ebina's plans to dissolve the yakuza are a ruse to an unknown end, and that Ebina has been using Kasuga to lure out Akane for Bryce. Sawashiro, planning to genuinely dissolve the yakuza behind Ebina's back, asks Kiryu to find former yakuza legends Daigo Dojima, Taiga Saejima, and Goro Majima and seek their aid. Kiryu is initially unable to persuade the three, but learns that Ebina is an illegitimate son of Masumi Arawaka and therefore Kasuga's half-brother. Tatara publicizes the meeting and dupes Kiryu into further exposing himself to the public, forcing the party to go into hiding among Yokohama's homeless.
In Hawaii, Kasuga's party finds Akana and Lani on an offshore yacht and brings them to a Daidoji safehouse. Akane reveals that Lani is the legitimate heir to Palekana's leadership, and that Bryce murdered the prior Sage to usurp the title. At the safehouse, Chitose reveals that Eiji is a spy for the Seiryu Clan and that he has been faking his disability using lidocaine. The Barracudas raid the safehouse, wounding Akane and capturing Lani. Chitose confesses that she is Tatara, having been blackmailed by Eiji to spread disinformation about ex-yakuza. After an initial failed attempt to rescue Lani, Eiji flees Hawaii while Kasuga and the party forgive Chitose.
Kasuga's party successfully retrieves Lani from the Barracudas and brings her and Akane to Japan with Yamai's aid. With both groups in Yokohama, Ebina reveals to them that he has Sawashiro hostage in Kamurocho's Millennium Tower. Kasuga's group returns to Hawaii to confront Bryce, while Kiryu's party is tasked with rescuing Sawashiro. Kasuga's party travels to Nele Island, finding that the disposal facility is merely a cave filled with waste barrels. After defeating Bryce, Chitose as Tatara exposes the island's shoddy disposal program, reveals her true identity, and admits to having spread false rumors about ex-yakuza. At the Millenium Tower, Kiryu and his group, joined by Dojima, Saejima, and Majima, confront Ebina, who reveals that his true plan behind the Nele Island deal was to send as many yakuza and ex-yakuza as possible to work on the island as a form of torture, seeking vengeance against the yakuza for Arakawa's abandonment of him and his mother. After defeating Ebina, Kiryu implores him to give the yakuza a chance to atone, then falls unconscious. Kasuga tracks down Eiji, injured and hiding in Kamurocho, and convinces him to turn himself in to the police.
A month later, Kiryu is shown to have survived and accepted medical treatment for his cancer, doing so under his own name.