Hitoshi Ozawa, the voice actor and face mannequin for Yakuza 0 antagonist Daisaku Kuze, created a sequence of let’s play movies final 12 months the place he began tackling the sport that bears his likeness. Now, due to Yakuza fan channel Dragon Enterprise, a few of these movies have been translated to English for our enjoyment.
There’s so much to suggest in Yakuza 0, the breakout PC entry in Sega’s long-running sequence of crime melodramas, however I am a very big fan of its three essential villains. Ozawa, alongside fellow actors Hideao Nakano and Riki Takeuchi, provided voice and likeness to the three ruthless Yakuza lieutenants that face off in opposition to protagonist Kiryu in 1988. There’s not so much on the market that beats the full-send efficiency of those salty, craggy-faced character actors, and it is particularly a hoot once they tear off their shirts for a boss battle and are insanely ripped.
Ozawa’s Kuze particularly is an actual winner: a washed up, impotently wrathful former boxer who hounds Kiryu all through the sport throughout a number of boss fights, slowly rising from a loathsome villain right into a weirdly noble, tragic determine. He is additionally simply bought an absolute banger of a boss theme.
The actual essential occasion within the Dragon Enterprise movies is seeing Ozawa sq. off with himself. He begins the video the place he takes on Kuze by declaring, “Kuze, I’ll take off your finger,” and I gotta say, he makes good on the promise. So far as “individuals who do not normally play video games enjoying video games on digital camera as a bit” goes (see additionally: Conan O’Brien’s Clueless Gamer), Hitoshi Ozawa kinda kicks ass at Yakuza 0.
He is on the sport’s straightforward mode, however nonetheless—it isn’t that a lot simpler than regular, and I keep in mind getting my tooth kicked in by Kuze, continually chugging therapeutic power drinks simply to outlive his knockdown combos. Highlights of the battle embody Ozawa musing concerning the warmth motion glow coming off the characters maybe being cartoon stink traces, and in addition him accusing Kiryu of “dishonest” by bringing a baseball bat to the battle (then persevering with to make use of the bat anyway).
You’ll be able to try Dragon Enterprise’s channel for extra fan-translated Yakuza-related movies, however I am nonetheless simply in awe of Ozawa’s private YouTube channel. A personality actor with a particular face who makes you go “Hey, it is that man! Hell yeah!” everytime you see him is without doubt one of the leisure business’s biggest treasures, and to have a full YouTube channel devoted to considered one of them? Now that is a deal with. I am imagining a brand new, lovely world of Eric Bogosian restaurant critiques and Paul Walter Hauser life-style vids. We will make this world a actuality.