[STEAM] 'We Tried to Think of Someone Who Makes You Go, 'This Guy's a Creep'': Yakuza/Like a Dragon Director Addresses Controversial Casting

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The director of Yakuza 3 Kiwami + Dark Ties has broken his silence on Ryo Ga Gotoku Studio's controversial hiring of Teruyuki Kagawa to play Goh Hamazaki, saying they needed someone who would make audiences think, "This guy's a creep."

This comes from an interview with Horii conducted by Japanese outlet

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, and independently translated by IGN. In the interview, Horii is asked directly about the decision to recast certain characters in Kiwami from their original Japanese actors. His general response as to why he recast both Hamazaki and Rikiya Shimabukuro is that while it would "certainly be safer not to recast them and avoid online criticism," the studio "felt there was no use being afraid."

Horii goes on to say that they based their decision on who they most wanted to see perform. When asked directly about Kagawa playing Hamazaki, this is what Horii had to say:

Hamazaki is a sleazy, persistent, and militant yakuza, right? Since he isn't an explosive character like Kanda, when we tried to think of someone who makes you go, "This guy's a creep," naturally it was Kagawa – that was the main factor. Kagawa's acting is fun to watch. Even when he's chopping a pig's feet off with a chef's knife, it has a slimy feel. That feeling permeates his performance, so it brings a freshness to the scene and made it feel really fun. Kagawa's casting as Hamazaki has been met with anger from Yakuza fans due to the actor having been

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of

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, with one woman coming forward with what seems to be photographic evidence of the incident. In 2022, Kagawa

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for one of the incidents, but another of his accusers has

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.

Following the announcement of Kagawa's casting, Yakuza fans

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, getting #REMOVEKAGAWA trending on multiple networks and creating a

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petition that at the time of this writing has nearly 10,000 signatures. Fans have

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of suppressing the #REMOVEKAGAWA hashtag and deleting comments referencing the issue on its official

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page. And a number of them have pointed out that ***** has recast actors for offenses in the past - Pierre Taki was recast in Judgment back in 2019 after he was

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.

Up to this point, neither RGG Studio nor ***** has offered official comment on Kagawa's casting, nor the accusations - Horii's answer is the first statement that's been offered on the subject. However, ***** did

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after the wave of criticism, which introduced the Japanese voice cast and opened on a longer clip of Hamazaki. IGN reached out to ***** for additional comment ahead of this story, but did not hear back in time for publication.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].

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