The game features Takaya Kuroda, known for voicing Kazuma Kiryu, in the role of the Yakuza protagonist, Michi. However, the developers, Kaizen Game Works, emphasized that they never intended to emulate the Yakuza series. Kaizen's director Oli Clarke Smith shared that Kuroda auditioned unexpectedly, and though they welcomed his participation, the team was concerned about potential comparisons to the Yakuza franchise. Art director Rachel Noy expressed worries about accusations of imitation, yet they clarified their admiration for the Yakuza games and related literature.
‘Our game has some similarities [with that series], it's an open world Yakuza crime drama,’ the dev explained, ‘So, we never asked for him because we didn't want to be the guys that are copying [the] Yakuza games, but then he just turned up to audition.’
‘We were quite worried about it, actually,’ Kaizen's art director Rachel Noy recalled, ‘because then we're already thinking people are gonna be saying, 'oh, we're Yakuza rip-offs' and stuff, which - yeah, we love the Yakuza games.’
Kuroda’s agent is very good at finding roles that say 'Yakuza man', he just rocked up. So, we had no idea. We auditioned for a few characters.
‘Kuroda-san has auditioned, I think we should go with him, he has the sexiest voice out of all of them, and we don't want to say no to Kuroda-san.’
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