Finished Yakuza 0's main story. New hyperfixaiton unlocked

Date: July 20th 2025

Spoiler warning.

When it comes to media, I usually get into it thanks to the memes and the music, and end up staying for the content.
Why I got into Devil May Cry? Because of the memes and DMC5 character themes, which ultimately led to me playing almost all of the games and becoming a fan of the franchise.
I also played Metal Gear Rising because of the memes and soundtrack, and stayed for the same reason, the game was very wacky and fun.
I even started watching Invincible recently because I kept seeing memes about it.

Why am I saying this? Because Yakuza is also a case of this situation.

I've had eyes on the game since 2021 (thanks to "baka mitai" becoming a meme), but because I had a potato computer with an Athlon CPU and 512 MB GPU. I obviously couldn't play any of the games and I was lazy to watch the walkthroughs, so I forgot about it for a bit. That is until a couple years later later I got a new GPU and tried pirating Yakuza 0 (casually confessing to piracy lmao), the game still wouldn't open. So close yet so far. 
I saw my friend play Yakuza for the first time and I mentioned how jealous I was that he got to play it. Months later, after he got into the series and completed most of the games, he decided to gift me Yakuza 0 so I could get to experience it too. Maybe the problem was the fact that I pirated the game, and the licensed version worked? Nope, it still crashed when I started a new game. So I had to wait for a new computer.
Thankfully it didn't take me too long, I got my upgrade last Christmas, and I was so excited to try out the games I wasn't able to play. But ironically enough, I've put the game that I actually wanted to try out all the way until I got on my summer break in July. Friends kept pestering me to actually play the game, and so I did. And dude I wish I had tried it sooner. I actually pulled an all-nighter to finish the story.

I loved it, it was surely an experience, at first I was so confused with the story, but the more I played, the more sense it began to make, I was like "okay, so the man is Makoto? wait, his name is Wei Hai Lee? and the girl is Makoto? so the bat tattoo person sold her? wait, Tachibana has one? could he be the one? wait, it's Oda?! WAIT, TACHIBANA IS HER BROTHER?!-". I won't deny that I teared up several times during some Makoto segments, and obviously when Tachibana died (I almost cried lol). I didn't think that Yakuza would have such an emotional story behind all the memes, dumb side stories and hot men. I was rooting for Makoto for the entire game because she's the best girl, and I'm happy to see that at the end of the game she not only regained her vision, but Majima also fixed the clock that she talked about when they were in the warehouse. I also really liked the dynamic between Kiryu and Nishiki, but I can't be happy about it for long because I know that something will happen in Kiwami, I just don't know what... yet.
Also also, when Kiryu and Majima finally met and he said the funny "Yo, KIRYU-CHAAANNN!!" I started grinning like an idiot.

I'm definitely playing Kiwami after this... but for now, substory time. Because again, there's so much to do and I want to explore the things I missed. I'm still grateful for the friend who gifted me the game.