Yakuza 0—and perhaps Yakuza as a whole—is the closest a gaming has come to emulating the style and spirit of professional wrestling entertainment. Examine the premise; men are always angry at each other and the promotion plot demands they find new and inventive ways to settle their escalating differences with sanctioned combat. Yakuza 0 is professional wrestling.
In the world of professional wrestling, minor skirmishes fueled by anger and discontent are interminable. Other than a brief terminus in a Pay-Per-View event, heels and faces are always side-stepping a clean resolution in favor of drawing out a more dramatic plot. The show must go on or it and everyone involved will be out of a job. The same could be said for Yakuza 0 and its revolving door of dissatisfied Tojo Clan members. These men thrive on conflict and find no satisfaction in the mundanity of a casual lifestyle.
For example, Daisaku Kuze, Hiroki Awano, and other members of the Tojo Clan have plenty of opportunities to destroy Yakuza 0’s protagonist/face Kazuma Kiryu, but they leave him alive in favor of creating higher stakes down the road. Rather than execute a finishing blow, villains expound on their deeper knowledge of the bigger picture and essentially cut a live promo. Every action taken is in service to delivering a dreadfully serious payoff hours later. In ramping up the stakes to (and sometimes well past!) the breaking point, Yakuza 0 walks in step with professional wrestling.
In both professional wrestling and Yakuza 0, there are seemingly too many factions to keep track of and too many allegiances to piece together. No one can be sure of what exactly is going on at any given time, creating a virtuous opportunity for either heel turns or the dreaded “permanent” exile/retirement match. Every fight lays it all on the line…until it’s over and it immediately sets up another one next week. This process could be the result of labyrinthine plot negations or subterfuge improvised by rogue characters, and you will never know the difference. In assembly and execution, the two are nearly identical.
In Yakuza 0, the only way for the vicious nature of Goro Majima and Kazuma Kiryu’s combat actions to make sense is to assume each fight is an improvised dance by performed skilled entertainers. Majima expresses reluctance to commit his first murder, but one of his heat actions is to snap the neck of a human being and watch the body go limp as drool spills out of their mouth. Majima does this hundreds of times over the course of Yakuza 0. It’s there, but surely it isn’t real
On the other hand, contradictory violence could be instrumental in building a character. How can Majima express remorse over the loss of human life if he’s constantly taking it away? This mental conflict and constant denial drive his insanity and birth his “Mad Dog” persona. A character, independent (and in spite) of reality, is born.
Likewise, Kiryu repeatedly punches skulls into brick walls and incapacitates people before throwing them in a river, but he still upholds an unassailable a sense of morality. This allows him to create his persona, “The Dragon of Dojima.” Both Kiryu and Majima’s paths are similar to the evolution of a professional wrestler’s character. It’s a process of refinement created on paper and executed in the ring. The relationship is symbiotic and, as far as the audience is concerned, indistinguishable from destiny.
There’s also the matter of putting on a show, which is a cute way of saying professional wrestling is performance and not a contest. It’s “fake,” in as far as the violence angle is usually a loose projection. In Yakuza 0, the beatings Majima and Kiryu suffer and their instant-healing abilities demonstrate a knowing nod of pulled punches. Certain villains will also no-sell Majima’s hysterical skill with a bat or Kiryu’s penchant for hitting them in the face with an entire motorcycle. Like professional wrestling, none of this can be real and Yakuza 0 delivers the very best in operatic theater.
Yakuza 0 is also keen let its audience know when a serious match is about to take place. Instead of a ring-encompassing cage lowering from the ceiling, a character will grab his left shoulder and remove his coat and shirt in one fantastic and dramatic action. This reveals his the irezumi on his back, and by extension this art defines their very nature; Kiryu has the outlines of a dragon, whereas Majima boasts a yellow-eyed demon. It’s like Superman stripping off his shirt and tie to reveal his cape and flying uniform. When it’s time to signal a dangerous and important resolution of conflict, Yakuza 0 is professional wrestling.
The realest professional wrestling can be, ironically, is when it chooses to break kayfabe. Acknowledging that this is all an act can be damaging to young minds, but is paradoxically interesting when you view the sport as an adult. Kiryu and Majima, similarly, seem to forget their plot obligations when they’re out on the streets. Despite the deathly serious matter of the empty lot and his own safety, Kiryu still has time to receive VHS pornography from a ghost and race slot cars with children. Majima, ignoring the blind woman he was supposed to kill only to lock in a tool shed, helps a living statue not urinate in public. This gives our heroes chances to be citizens of the world, much like all of the time John Cena has taken to visit sick kids in the hospital.
Best of all, these characters and actions can exist independent of their decade long history. To enjoy professional wrestling today you don’t have to know how, twenty years ago, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash fooled the world with the secret identity of The Third Man. It helps, sure, but it has nothing to do with Roman Reigns’ current inability to cultivate respect. This is true for Yakuza 0 as well—you don’t need to know Kiryu will one moonlight as a cab driver and somehow kill every principle cast member—and it doesn’t hurt that the game is also prequel to everything in the mainline series. This functionally negates a pre-existing investment in its future, allowing the characters to act and grow independent of their future conflicts. Cameos exist in Yakuza 0’s many substories, but the disposable cast and their immediate accessories are (mostly) new.
If you’re still not sold, please consider the following: [minor end-game setting spoiler] Yakuza 0 ends with two characters dueling shirtless, essentially locked in a ring, and (after getting thrown off of a roof) both are armed with folding chairs in place of actual weapons. The development team is doing this on purpose, they know, and Yakuza 0 is a comfortable homage to the virtues of professional wrestling. Kamurocho and Sotenbori are the ring, and the back alleys and off-site narrative deposit banks are Yakuza 0’s backstage. This is all planned in spite of its apparent spontaneity. Yakuza 0 is professional wrestling.
