The Worth of a ¥400 Gyudon

Nothing exemplifies the heart of Like a Dragon like witnessing Ichiban Kasuga eating a beef bowl.

The series encompasses many themes. Unyielding justice and courage in the face of unjust systems. The importance of family, both biological and found. Finding the line at which selflessness crosses over into self-destruction. But the core of these stories is more subtle: it’s about finding the joy and willingness to provide a closer lens on the smallest things, even when the societal cards are stacked against you.

Long before the Dragon Quest hallucinations and battles between light and darkness begin, an innocuous scene in Yakuza: Like a Dragon serves as the primordial showcase of this theme. In it, you see Ichiban Kasuga enjoying his literal last supper before spending 18 years in prison, which consists of a humble Akaushimaru beef bowl (well, five of them to be precise). As symbols of low-income indulgencies go, a cheap gyudon is a reliable one.

Serving as a vertebrae in the backbone of real-life Tokyo’s lunchtimes alongside train station bentos and konbini cup noodles, there’s little surprise that Kasuga would opt for it – although, at a price of just ¥400, a shot of the few coins left in his hand imply that he could afford little more. A rarely mentioned yet key element of Kasuga’s past is that, even as a yakuza member, he refused to take money unjustly from those less fortunate, precisely because he knows exactly what it’s like to be in that position; while being a good man makes him a terrible member of an organised crime group, his life so far has ensured he appreciates that cheap is a different qualifier to poor.

There’s a certain schadenfreude found in the fact that right after spending his last few yen on one of the cheapest meals he could buy, Kasuga optimistically opens up a pack of cigarettes for one last smoke, only to find it completely empty. Kasuga himself even finds humour in this, cracking a sarcastic smirk and accepting that he’s simply too broke. When stuck in the vicious cycle of being working class forever due to societal barriers beyond your individual efforts, it’s commonly advised to simply “grin and bear it,” and Kasuga will always grin — it’s kind of his whole thing. Even so early in his first game, this scene is a microcosm of the character: finding joy in an unlikely place, even with hell behind and ahead of him.

It’s notable that Yakuza: Like a Dragon is one of the few entries in the series in which the cities’ beef bowl restaurants are not licensed out to real-life chains Matsuya or Yoshinoya. While product placement is no stranger to the series, from Asahi to Don Quijote, it’s fortunate that our introduction to Kasuga sees him in the fictional Akaushimaru chain. Had licenses been paid for, the powerful emotionality of this scene would have been tainted to become a faux-heartfelt product placement. By maintaining Akaushimaru’s fictionality, Kasuga’s last supper remains a symbol of the working class not for real-life Tokyo, but the blue collar community of Kamurochō.