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The second part of the prologue video for Shin Ryu ga Gotoku. Let’s push on with Ichiban’s story and see what happened after Arakawa took him under his wing …

(Catch up on Part 1)

The first oyaji

Arakawa led Ichiban out of the yakuza office. Ichiban followed Arakawa, completely baffled by what had just happened.

Arakawa was roughly bandaging his injured finger with a handkerchief. Ichiban wanted to say something to him, but he couldn’t find the words. Then Arakawa abruptly stopped, and spoke to Ichiban.

“Fuck’s sake … where are you from, kid?”

“Uh, well, that’s …”

“Ah, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t go fighting any more yakuza. You’ll only get yourself in trouble.”

“Yeah, but … uh …”

“You’ll only make your mum and dad cry! Don’t you get that, shithead!!!”

With those harsh words, Arakawa turned to leave.

“W-wait a minute!!”

“What?”

“Uh … I …”

“Spit it out!”

“Th-thank you for help …”

Arakawa’s fists flew, interrupting the words of gratitude. Ichiban flew through the air, then found himself flat on his back, his head spinning.

“I don’t need your thanks. I didn’t give up my finger for your sake …”

Arakawa laughed in Ichiban’s astonished face. Then he began to speak more gently.

“Yakuza, you know, do business by face and reputation … So here’s the most important thing. If I’d ended up lowering my head in that place to get you back, what would have happened? The Arakawa Gumi reputation would have been brought down too.”

“ … ”

“If yakuza even once show weakness, it’s all over. In that situation, there was nothing else I could have done.”

As Arakawa turned to leave, Ichiban asked one more question. 

“But even so, you don’t know me, you could have just left me there … why …”

“Well … I guess I just wanted to look cool in front of a kid who’d noticed me.”

Arakawa smiled gently and walked away. As he watched him go, Ichiban made a decision. “I’m going to follow this person for the rest of my life” … he said. So the next day, and every day after that, Ichiban stood in front of the Arakawa Gumi office. In the rain, in the  blistering sun.

“You’re not going to be a fucking yakuza. Go home!”

Arakawa said that every time they met. It took 100 days before he agreed to do the sake drinking ritual to bring him into the gang …

On the last day of the 20th century

December 31, 2000. Kamurocho was jammed with people.

In complete contrast to the tumult outside, the Arakawa Gumi office was dead silent. Only the patriarch Arakawa and Ichiban were in the room. In that heavy atmosphere, Arakawa spoke.

“ … The wakagashira can’t be taken in for this now.”

Some days before, the Arakawa Gumi wakagashira had murdered someone. Inconveniently, the person he’d killed was a junior member in the same Tojo Kai lineage. What’s more, he was from a gang which was connected to a sworn brother of Arakawa’s. A quarrel between kyoudai in the same organisation … it was clear the only way for Arakawa Gumi to take responsibility was to break up the gang.

“Won’t you perform this service for me … please. Ichiban …”

Arakawa was asking Ichiban to leave the yakuza, become a civilian and take the blame for the crime. Because if someone unconnected to the gang did the murder, the gang could escape the pain of being broken up.

Ichiban understood that too. So, as tears pooled in his eyes, Ichiban answered.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for so long. The day when I could repay the favour you did me, Oyassan.”

“Ichiban …”

“Ten or twenty years in prison … Thank you for letting me do this for you!”

The next day, January 1 2001, after noon. Ichiban, instead of celebrating his birthday, surrendered to the police. It was a momentous day, the end of the 20th century and the start of a new era.

Lost home

Then, 2018. Ichiban, having served a long sentence of more than 17 years, finally stepped back out into the world. He’d anticipated a grand reception from the gang, but when he stepped through the prison gate, not one single person was there to meet him. But Ichiban paid it no mind, his heart singing as he headed for Kamurocho.

With a million emotions in his heart, Ichiban returned to his home town, Kamurocho. But it was a completely different town from what he’d been expecting.

Thanks to the authorities, Tojo Kai was no more, and in its place the ones in control of the city were “Omi Rengo” yakuza … He remembered the scenery, he remembered the shops and the inhabitants of the city. But the reality he saw, this stale atmosphere with no energy, it was completely different from his memory.

This isn’t my home any more. 

As Ichiban stood there in despair, a detective he didn’t know approached him.

“You’re Kasuga Ichiban, right? … I want you to do me a favour.”

“Piss off … I’m no use to a detective …”

“Aren’t you wondering who did this to the city?”

Ichiban remained silent. But he reacted to the detective’s next, unbelievable words. 

“It was your oyaji. The Arakawa Gumi patriarch, Arakawa Masumi. He’s the one responsible for Kamurocho being torn apart.”

And with the shock of that fact, the man called Kasuga Ichiban began to hear the call of destiny …

What destiny was entrusted to this slum child who’d never achieved a single thing in his life? To be a man who, out of despair, found the determination to challenge life’s final battle.

Rise … Then change the future.

At last, a new volume of the Ryu ga Gotoku series begins!