Difference between revisions of "Yakuzaverse"

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(Other notable characters in the Yakuzaverse "canon")
(Substories)
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{{stub}}
 
 
 
== Weasel's Yakuzaverse Cast==
 
== Weasel's Yakuzaverse Cast==
=== Antonia "Ruby" Tadashii neé Travaglia ===
+
=== Antonia "Ruby" Fujiyama neé Travaglia ===
 
* ''See [[Ruby Travaglia]] for Ruby in her original 1980s incarnation.''
 
* ''See [[Ruby Travaglia]] for Ruby in her original 1980s incarnation.''
 
[[File:Ruby.png|200px|x200px|right|link=File:Ruby.png|thumb|A stylized Ruby, very much tired of your shit.]]
 
[[File:Ruby.png|200px|x200px|right|link=File:Ruby.png|thumb|A stylized Ruby, very much tired of your shit.]]
Ruby originally studied law in college, but chose to pursue a career in journalism instead, which eventually landed her a job as an "influencer" at the newly-internationalized MacSiv social media company. Her travels as a MacSiv reviewer eventually brought her to Osaka, Japan, where she caught up with Hiroya, the transfer student she'd met in college and had very nearly fallen in love with. Upon rekindling the relationship, they became inseparable, and eventually married so Ruby could stay in Japan. While she figures out quickly that Hiroya is stuck working for some bad people, she manages to keep this a secret from him while figuring out ways to keep him safe behind the scenes. In the meantime, amid writing columns for MacSiv, Ruby also spends her time investigating issues for the United States Embassy office in Japan, and helping American expatriates get their footing.
+
Ruby originally studied law in college, but chose to pursue a career in journalism instead, which eventually landed her a job as an "influencer" at the newly-internationalized MacSiv social media company. Her travels as a MacSiv reviewer eventually brought her to Osaka, Japan, where she caught up with Yasuyo, the transfer student she'd met in college and had very nearly fallen in love with. Upon rekindling the relationship, they became inseparable, and eventually married so Ruby could stay in Japan. While she figures out quickly that Yasuyo is stuck working for some bad people, she manages to keep this a secret from him while figuring out ways to keep him safe behind the scenes. In the meantime, amid writing columns for MacSiv, Ruby also spends her time investigating issues for the United States Embassy office in Japan, and helping American expatriates get their footing.
  
 
Ruby most resembles actress Sarah Rafferty.
 
Ruby most resembles actress Sarah Rafferty.
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* [[Eriko]], a chatty hostess who mainly befriended Ruby for the sake of novelty ("I'm friends with a real American!"), but she has a nose for good gossip.
 
* [[Eriko]], a chatty hostess who mainly befriended Ruby for the sake of novelty ("I'm friends with a real American!"), but she has a nose for good gossip.
 
* [[Joe Wada]], an employee of the United States Embassy branch in Osaka, who personally handled Ruby's visa to Japan. He remains in touch with her and gives information about expatriates in need of help.
 
* [[Joe Wada]], an employee of the United States Embassy branch in Osaka, who personally handled Ruby's visa to Japan. He remains in touch with her and gives information about expatriates in need of help.
* [[Chef Liu]], a former restaurant chef in Kamurocho's Little Asia before it went up in flames. He ran to Osaka to start his business over from scratch, and has since been struggling, but Ruby and Hiroya are frequent customers of his. He speaks English better than he speaks Japanese.
+
* [[Chef Liu]], a former restaurant chef in Kamurocho's Little Asia before it went up in flames. He ran to Osaka to start his business over from scratch, and has since been struggling, but Ruby and Yasuyo are frequent customers of his. He speaks English better than he speaks Japanese.
* [[6-kun]] (Rokkun) - a mysterious info broker who contacts Ruby with quaint, outdated methods like dead-drops and pay phones. Ruby sometimes consults him for information, but is often roped into doing favors for him.
+
* [[Rokkun]] (六くん) - a mysterious info broker who contacts Ruby with quaint, outdated methods like dead-drops and pay phones. Ruby sometimes consults him for information, but is often roped into doing favors for him.
 +
* [[Shinobu Hashimoto]]
  
=== Hiroya Tadashii ===
+
=== Yasuyo Fujiyama ===
[[File:Hiroya.png|200px|x200px|right|link=File:Hiroya.png|thumb|Hiroya, managing to keep it together against all odds.]]
+
[[File:Hiroya.png|200px|x200px|right|link=File:Yasuyo.png|thumb|Yasuyo, managing to keep it together against all odds.]]
Hiroya Tadashii is the kind of man who doesn't initially look very tough. He has that "main character" look to him, but he's not the main character of an organized crime drama. He looks like he's the hot-blooded hero of a costumed superhero show, but his personality is mild like an office drone. His black hair goes a little ways down his neck, meeting his collar but not going much further. He shampoos it regularly but doesn't condition it, so it kinda comes out a bit bushy and soft, and doesn't quite comb right. He prefers khaki slacks, but wears them with a blue-and-green baseball jacket for a varsity team that I'm not sure has existed for a while. If you ran into him in the street, you wouldn't think he was anything but a regular joe. And that's where most thugs would be wrong.
+
Yasuyo Fujiyama is the kind of man who doesn't initially look very tough. He has that "main character" look to him, but he's not the main character of an organized crime drama. He looks like he's the hot-blooded hero of a costumed superhero show, but his personality is mild like an office drone. His black hair goes a little ways down his neck, meeting his collar but not going much further. He shampoos it regularly but doesn't condition it, so it kinda comes out a bit bushy and soft, and doesn't quite comb right. He prefers khaki slacks, but wears them with a blue-and-green baseball jacket for a varsity team that I'm not sure has existed for a while. If you ran into him in the street, you wouldn't think he was anything but a regular joe. And that's where most thugs would be wrong.
  
Hiroya resembles actor Shu Watanabe.
+
Yasuyo resembles actor Shu Watanabe.
 +
 
 +
==== Fujiyama's Name ====
 +
His name comes from 不二山 (from "fuji" meaning negative/bad/clumsy, "yama" meaning mountain) 柔代 (Yasuyo - tender/weakness/gentleness/softness, substitute/change/convert/replace/era/charge/rate/fee). The illustrative intent of this is that he is a timid man who is about to be faced with a mountain of problems.
  
 
=== The Hasegawa Family ===
 
=== The Hasegawa Family ===
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The Patriarch of the Hasegawa Family is Ryuhei Hasegawa, a man who is getting up in years. Hasegawa has been running his family since the early 1980s, and was largely spared the chaos of the Go-Ryu uprising in 2006 due to their lack of manpower. Through clever manipulation of assets, Hasegawa was able to retain the majority of his profits from the bubble economy era well into the 90s, though that ultimately didn't amount to a lot. Hasegawa owns the land deed to a small club in Shofukucho South, called Iriomote, after the mountain cats that lived near his home town. He is the opposite of the usual ruthless yakuza patriarch; his years of experience have done nothing to offset his kind demeanor.
 
The Patriarch of the Hasegawa Family is Ryuhei Hasegawa, a man who is getting up in years. Hasegawa has been running his family since the early 1980s, and was largely spared the chaos of the Go-Ryu uprising in 2006 due to their lack of manpower. Through clever manipulation of assets, Hasegawa was able to retain the majority of his profits from the bubble economy era well into the 90s, though that ultimately didn't amount to a lot. Hasegawa owns the land deed to a small club in Shofukucho South, called Iriomote, after the mountain cats that lived near his home town. He is the opposite of the usual ruthless yakuza patriarch; his years of experience have done nothing to offset his kind demeanor.
  
He doesn't really trust any of the lieutenants, but wants reasonable cause to axe them from the roster. He expels Hiroya to test his resolve. In the end, he dissolves the whole Hasegawa Family, willing Iriomote to Hiroya and Ruby to run as they see fit, and gives them a clean break from the Omi Alliance.
+
He doesn't really trust any of the lieutenants, but wants reasonable cause to axe them from the roster. He expels Yasuyo to test his resolve. In the end, he dissolves the whole Hasegawa Family, willing Iriomote to Yasuyo and Ruby to run as they see fit, and gives them a clean break from the Omi Alliance.
  
 
He is often found wearing a turtleneck sweater with a blue vest over it, with slacks that match the vest.
 
He is often found wearing a turtleneck sweater with a blue vest over it, with slacks that match the vest.
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==== Keiji Yoshida ====
 
==== Keiji Yoshida ====
 
Yoshida, meanwhile, is the man in charge of managing the Iriomote, which doubles as the Hasegawa Family Office beyond its VIP area. Yoshida's daughter, Annie, works at Iriomote as a hostess. He WOULD hit a woman. Several of them. Even his daughter. ESPECIALLY his daughter. His personal "enforcer" is a man known only as "Gou," who handles dirty work with more subtlety than his boss.
 
Yoshida, meanwhile, is the man in charge of managing the Iriomote, which doubles as the Hasegawa Family Office beyond its VIP area. Yoshida's daughter, Annie, works at Iriomote as a hostess. He WOULD hit a woman. Several of them. Even his daughter. ESPECIALLY his daughter. His personal "enforcer" is a man known only as "Gou," who handles dirty work with more subtlety than his boss.
* Annie Yoshida - a hostess for Iriomote and the only daughter of Hasegawa lieutenant Keiji Yoshida. She is a contact of Hiroya's, and serves as his ear to the ground, of sorts.
+
* Annie Yoshida - a hostess for Iriomote and the only daughter of Hasegawa lieutenant Keiji Yoshida. She is a contact of Yasuyo's, and serves as his ear to the ground, of sorts.
  
 
==== Gou ====
 
==== Gou ====
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* When Ruby gets in a fight with a "family man" outside a business that she's reviewing, an anonymous user on MacSiv gets a picture of the fight and claims to have seen a Revelation. This further increases the target on Ruby, but gives her some notoriety around town as a force to be reckoned with.
 
* When Ruby gets in a fight with a "family man" outside a business that she's reviewing, an anonymous user on MacSiv gets a picture of the fight and claims to have seen a Revelation. This further increases the target on Ruby, but gives her some notoriety around town as a force to be reckoned with.
 
* Ruby's notoriety around town becomes half an exploration thing, and half a protection thing: just being somewhere drives up business, but also drives up the risk of attack. Ruby's task becomes not just reviewing every spot in town, but participating in a sort of "conquest" game where she convinces shop owners to be less afraid of the gaijin.
 
* Ruby's notoriety around town becomes half an exploration thing, and half a protection thing: just being somewhere drives up business, but also drives up the risk of attack. Ruby's task becomes not just reviewing every spot in town, but participating in a sort of "conquest" game where she convinces shop owners to be less afraid of the gaijin.
* At the same time, Ruby must figure out who keeps taking photos of her fighting - especially since they're part of the reason she's so popular around town. (spoiler: it's Hiroya.)
+
* At the same time, Ruby must figure out who keeps taking photos of her fighting - especially since they're part of the reason she's so popular around town. (spoiler: it's Yasuyo.)
  
 
== Substories ==
 
== Substories ==
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*[[Yakuzaverse/The Path of the Dragon]]
 
*[[Yakuzaverse/The Path of the Dragon]]
 
*[[Yakuzaverse/Who's The Boss?]]
 
*[[Yakuzaverse/Who's The Boss?]]
 
+
*[[Yakuzaverse/The Perfect... Part 1]]
 
===Other Substories===
 
===Other Substories===
 
* Ruby must help bridge the gap between one guy's broken English and another guy's broken Japanese.
 
* Ruby must help bridge the gap between one guy's broken English and another guy's broken Japanese.

Revision as of 14:56, 10 March 2021

Weasel's Yakuzaverse Cast

Antonia "Ruby" Fujiyama neé Travaglia

A stylized Ruby, very much tired of your shit.

Ruby originally studied law in college, but chose to pursue a career in journalism instead, which eventually landed her a job as an "influencer" at the newly-internationalized MacSiv social media company. Her travels as a MacSiv reviewer eventually brought her to Osaka, Japan, where she caught up with Yasuyo, the transfer student she'd met in college and had very nearly fallen in love with. Upon rekindling the relationship, they became inseparable, and eventually married so Ruby could stay in Japan. While she figures out quickly that Yasuyo is stuck working for some bad people, she manages to keep this a secret from him while figuring out ways to keep him safe behind the scenes. In the meantime, amid writing columns for MacSiv, Ruby also spends her time investigating issues for the United States Embassy office in Japan, and helping American expatriates get their footing.

Ruby most resembles actress Sarah Rafferty.

Subcharacters for Ruby's story

  • Eriko, a chatty hostess who mainly befriended Ruby for the sake of novelty ("I'm friends with a real American!"), but she has a nose for good gossip.
  • Joe Wada, an employee of the United States Embassy branch in Osaka, who personally handled Ruby's visa to Japan. He remains in touch with her and gives information about expatriates in need of help.
  • Chef Liu, a former restaurant chef in Kamurocho's Little Asia before it went up in flames. He ran to Osaka to start his business over from scratch, and has since been struggling, but Ruby and Yasuyo are frequent customers of his. He speaks English better than he speaks Japanese.
  • Rokkun (六くん) - a mysterious info broker who contacts Ruby with quaint, outdated methods like dead-drops and pay phones. Ruby sometimes consults him for information, but is often roped into doing favors for him.
  • Shinobu Hashimoto

Yasuyo Fujiyama

Yasuyo, managing to keep it together against all odds.

Yasuyo Fujiyama is the kind of man who doesn't initially look very tough. He has that "main character" look to him, but he's not the main character of an organized crime drama. He looks like he's the hot-blooded hero of a costumed superhero show, but his personality is mild like an office drone. His black hair goes a little ways down his neck, meeting his collar but not going much further. He shampoos it regularly but doesn't condition it, so it kinda comes out a bit bushy and soft, and doesn't quite comb right. He prefers khaki slacks, but wears them with a blue-and-green baseball jacket for a varsity team that I'm not sure has existed for a while. If you ran into him in the street, you wouldn't think he was anything but a regular joe. And that's where most thugs would be wrong.

Yasuyo resembles actor Shu Watanabe.

Fujiyama's Name

His name comes from 不二山 (from "fuji" meaning negative/bad/clumsy, "yama" meaning mountain) 柔代 (Yasuyo - tender/weakness/gentleness/softness, substitute/change/convert/replace/era/charge/rate/fee). The illustrative intent of this is that he is a timid man who is about to be faced with a mountain of problems.

The Hasegawa Family

The Hasegawa Family is a small-ish family, near the bottom rung of the Omi Alliance pecking order. While they essentially function as their own Clan, they're not large enough to be considered more than a branch family of the Omi, and as such, many of their officers serve multiple roles.

Ryuhei Hasegawa

Patriarch Hasegawa, who is not nearly as scary as he might look.

The Patriarch of the Hasegawa Family is Ryuhei Hasegawa, a man who is getting up in years. Hasegawa has been running his family since the early 1980s, and was largely spared the chaos of the Go-Ryu uprising in 2006 due to their lack of manpower. Through clever manipulation of assets, Hasegawa was able to retain the majority of his profits from the bubble economy era well into the 90s, though that ultimately didn't amount to a lot. Hasegawa owns the land deed to a small club in Shofukucho South, called Iriomote, after the mountain cats that lived near his home town. He is the opposite of the usual ruthless yakuza patriarch; his years of experience have done nothing to offset his kind demeanor.

He doesn't really trust any of the lieutenants, but wants reasonable cause to axe them from the roster. He expels Yasuyo to test his resolve. In the end, he dissolves the whole Hasegawa Family, willing Iriomote to Yasuyo and Ruby to run as they see fit, and gives them a clean break from the Omi Alliance.

He is often found wearing a turtleneck sweater with a blue vest over it, with slacks that match the vest.

Yukino Wakai

Hasegawa's Lieutenant Advisor is Yukino Wakai, a smarter, younger man in his early 30s, easily mistaken for a salaryman due to his "timid" dress style. This relative invisibility allows him to blend in to crowds and "infiltrate" businesses run by rival families, nearly always coming back with some piece of vital intelligence. It is primarily due to Wakai's information that the Hasegawa Family has stayed afloat and independent beneath the Omi banner. He's there to personally see everything Ruby encounters, because he is a Stealth Master. He's informing both Hasegawa and Osaka Division Four about everything.

Wakai tends to dress like an ordinary salaryman; basic grey suit, black necktie, white shirt, plain hairdo. Because of his need to blend in, he does not have a tattoo.

Wakai resembles actor Byron Mann.

Dan Kobe

Hasegawa's Captain is Dan Kobe, a man with a mind for shrewd business. Kobe's "day job" is as a tax specialist - his intimate knowledge of Japan's taxation laws since the infamous "Lost Decade" have helped the Hasegawa Family's operations remain profitable.

Toshi Sakamoto

A lieutenant of the Hasegawa Family. Sakamoto is the non-confrontational one, always looking for ways to make things happen without unnecessary fighting. He is a quiet manipulator behind the scenes; while on paper he is the sworn brother of Yoshida, he takes control of Yoshida's personal enforcer by giving him orders in Yoshida's name.

Going along with his kindly face, Sakamoto dresses comfortably. Even during meetings at HQ, he is generally seen wearing sweatpants (especially flannels), belly warmers, long-sleeved T-shirts, and during colder months, topping it off with a bathrobe. Those who encounter him on the street think he's just a bit silly.

Samano Kasugano

Kasugano, somewhere in between upselling and threatening.

Loud and proud, always wanting to further the Family's agenda by any means necessary. He doesn't give a shit if Ruby knows the family secrets, because "who's gonna believe a gaijin bitch?" Kasugano's front is his used car business, which rumors seem to indicate hires undocumented immigrants for cheap labor and uses their cars as mules for smuggling. Osaka Police Division 4 have had eyes on him for a while, but have not managed to dig up anything of worth.

In formal occasions, he's the only Hasegawa lieutenant that wears suits, specifically of the double-breasted variety, and the necktie is where all the focus goes - his tie is like lava out of a volcano. As a strange contrast to this, Kasugano's tattoo resembles The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Most of the time, though, he prefers his skin-tight black shirts with short sleeves, the better to showcase his highly visible strength.

Kasugano has the voice of Katsuyuki Konishi in the style of Maxima from King of Fighters.

Keiji Yoshida

Yoshida, meanwhile, is the man in charge of managing the Iriomote, which doubles as the Hasegawa Family Office beyond its VIP area. Yoshida's daughter, Annie, works at Iriomote as a hostess. He WOULD hit a woman. Several of them. Even his daughter. ESPECIALLY his daughter. His personal "enforcer" is a man known only as "Gou," who handles dirty work with more subtlety than his boss.

  • Annie Yoshida - a hostess for Iriomote and the only daughter of Hasegawa lieutenant Keiji Yoshida. She is a contact of Yasuyo's, and serves as his ear to the ground, of sorts.

Gou

Says little. Kills lots. Stabbed the Cabaret Killer under the Bishamon Bridge. Acted under Sakamoto's orders, thinking Yoshida issued them.

Weasel's character in Draayder's Yakuza RPG (RgGPG)

Minato Ikeda

A rising member of the Tojo Clan's Takagi Family, Ikeda is in charge of Acquisitions for Boss Takagi. He has an "in" with Tokyo's prison system, enabling him closer access to inmates than normal visitation would allow. He tends to negotiate deals to spring high profile prisoners for the Tojo Clan, but is known to slip additional people out along with them, using means that the guards either don't know about, or turn the other way from.

When fighting, Ikeda prefers rush-down tactics and shoulder tackles, an approach he learned from watching one of his former patriarchs.

Other notable characters in the Yakuzaverse "canon"

(disclaimer: these descriptions are overly simple since I want to avoid speaking for their respective authors. I'll find some way to mention them in my own canon - they're not major characters to Ruby's story, but that doesn't mean they don't exist to her. -ww)

Draayder's characters

  • Akanishi - of the Majima Family. Formerly under Shimano, got absorbed into Majima's ranks after Shimano's extremely timely death. Flamboyant and unapologetically horny.
  • Kanemoto - of the Saejima Family. Sworn brother to Akanishi, often serving as a foil.

SikeTreeker's characters

  • Suenaga - By day he's the masked visual-kei rock star, NAGA, but by night he's a patsy to the Omi Alliance, working off an unspecified debt of favor.

Locations

Iriomote

An all-sexes host club tucked away in the back corner of Shofukucho, Iriomote is not large or glamorous, but it does stand out for being the only host club in Sotenbori to serve both male and female clients, with constantly rotating casts of hosts and hostesses alike, and a policy not to refuse service regardless of who is asking for whom. Business, while not booming, has been steady enough to serve as a regular income for the Family.

About MacSiv

MacSiv is a unique platform for you (and everyone!) to share your Revelations with the world. All you need is a camera (or supported device) and some words, and the Perfect Shot could be from you!

About the Perfect Shot

Our dedicated team of influencers picks a handful of MacSiv posts every day to declare the Perfect Shot. Many factors go into our choice, so keep posting, and we're sure to notice!

About MacSiv Abroad

"Abroad" is our new, experimental page, where MacSiv's worldwide team of influencers write guides on surviving in their countries. Many influencers may have come from one place, but live in another, granting a unique POV that may be of use to MacSiv's audience of travelers, expatriates, or people who just want to read about the world. We hope you enjoy your time Abroad!

Bits of Story

Ruby's Main Sidestory: "The Perfect...?"

  • Ruby's main job is producing content for MacSiv as a reviewer. Her reviews drive up business with foreigners, but reduce their profitability with the local diehards that sometimes don't want to eat and drink around foreigners.
  • This drives up yakuza interest in Ruby, as the old guard want their business to be "gaijin-free", while savvier families that follow the money see a potential profit in catering to tourists and expatriates.
  • When Ruby gets in a fight with a "family man" outside a business that she's reviewing, an anonymous user on MacSiv gets a picture of the fight and claims to have seen a Revelation. This further increases the target on Ruby, but gives her some notoriety around town as a force to be reckoned with.
  • Ruby's notoriety around town becomes half an exploration thing, and half a protection thing: just being somewhere drives up business, but also drives up the risk of attack. Ruby's task becomes not just reviewing every spot in town, but participating in a sort of "conquest" game where she convinces shop owners to be less afraid of the gaijin.
  • At the same time, Ruby must figure out who keeps taking photos of her fighting - especially since they're part of the reason she's so popular around town. (spoiler: it's Yasuyo.)

Substories

Other Substories

  • Ruby must help bridge the gap between one guy's broken English and another guy's broken Japanese.
  • The obligatory fetch quest chain: Ruby finds the aftermath of a street fight, where the defeated man is apologizing by handing over a pair of pliers. The other guy is pissed off, and decides to lash out. Upon being defeated, he hands the pliers over as well.
    • The pliers go to a plumber who needs to get something out of a drain. He hands over a can of resin.
    • A gunpla-maker elsewhere in town needs the resin to finish a build, and he hands over a Cutie Girl figure that he had more than one of.
    • The Cutie Girl goes to a fat, plaid-wearing guy who pays rather handsomely for it.