History Characters / LikeADragonAkiraNishikiyama

CharacterSpecificPages: [[Characters/LikeADragonKazumaKiryu Kazuma Kiryu]] | [[Characters/LikeADragonGoroMajima Goro Majima]] | '''Akira Nishikiyama''' | [[Characters/LikeADragonIchibanKasuga Ichiban Kasuga]]\\

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Applies to [[AssholeVictim every person he personally kills]] to varying extents:
** Murders Sohei Dojima for [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil attempting to rape his friend Yumi.]] His [[HateSink cruelty]] in the prequel ''0'' makes it ever more cathartic
** Lashes out and murders [[spoiler:his subordinate Matsushige who's established himself as a greedy, disrespectful HateSink.]]
** Angrily murders [[spoiler:two of his unnamed subordinates for [[WouldHitAGirl torturing and killing who they believe to be Mizuki Sawamura]] even though she's a complete civilian and [[YouHaveFailedMe he never ordered them to kill her.]]]]
** Murders [[spoiler:Kyohei Jingu for mortally wounding Yumi and to save Kiryu's life as well. Also Jingu's a complete HateSink who tries to have his ex-wife and own child murdered for the sake of protecting his political career.]]
** While he doesn't personally kill him, [[spoiler: in ''Online'', he has the doctor who tricked him into thinking he could save his dying sister's life sold to the black market [[OrganTheft to be killed and harvested for organs.]]]]

** PayEvilUntoEvil [[spoiler:Despite taking place after his FaceHeelTurn in ''Online'', it's not hard to sympathize with hunting down the doctor, who lied to him and took advantage of him for money simply to pay off his own massive gambling debts, ignoring his pleas to save his dying sister. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Besides, he's still debt-ridden, gambling scum]] when Nishiki finds him, gambling heavily at an illegal casino and racking up massive debt with the Triads running it.]]

%%* SwornBrothers: With Kiryu. The two grew up and became yakuza together. Unfortuantely this takes a turn for the worse with Nishiki's StartOfDarkness.

* ForgottenFallenFriend: Averted. As late as ''Yakuza 6'', 11 years after Nishiki's death, Kiryu can still sing "Tonight -restart from this night-" for karaoke with the cinematic having him reminisce about his friendship with Nishiki via images of their time together in ''0'' during the late 80's. He also fondly reminiscences about him in some cabaret club conversations in the same game as well as various other nods throughout the series, proving that no matter how much time passes, Kiryu will always remember Nishiki as a close and dearly missed friend despite all that he had done.

* BigBadFriend: Kiryu and Nishiki swore up as official [[BloodBrothers Oath Brothers]] and have a strong history of being each other's closest friend since they grew up in the same orphanage. However, Nishikiyama's become desperately power-hungry in the 10 years since they've last talked and Kiryu's refusal to assist him in his selfish plans pushes Nishiki to consider him an enemy for the rest of the game. It doesn't help that Nishiki's grown very resentful and envious of Kiryu which further drives his ambition in becoming the Patriarch of the Tojo Clan just to validate himself.

* BloodBrothers: With Kiryu. The two grew up and became yakuza together. Unfortuantely this takes a turn for the worse with Nishiki's StartOfDarkness.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: He's introduced in ''0'' walking up to Kiryu after the latter has finished beating up some goons in an alley. The two exchange some [[VitriolicBestBuds vitriolic]] banter before walking and talking about how yakuza should present themselves with a good image, hinting at his ambitions to climb the ranks, all before the two grab some food and drinks [[BloodBrothers to just hang out for the evening together]].

* SadBattleMusic: "For Who's Sake" begins the ongoing trend of the Yakuza series having a slower, somber battle theme for fighting some form of TragicVillain, with an emphasis on a recurring melancholy acoustic guitar riff that's present in nearly every remix of the song except for the more cheerful and heroic "For Buddy" fittingly enough. It really emphasizes the tragedy of former BloodBrothers to the end having to brutally fight it out to resolve their conflict once and for all, especially in ''Kiwami'' which is especially dramatic to reflect how much more we know of what a better person Nishiki used to be years earlier in ''0'' and the harsh experiences in the new ''Kiwami'' flashbacks that shaped him into the ruthless criminal kingpin he is today.

* WouldHitAGirl: In one of the new scenes in ''Kiwami'', Reina freaks out after either hearing about Yumi being almost raped by Dojima or Yumi escaping the hospital and calls him out for failing to protect her, and thinking she considers him useless, he strikes her down with a slap. For an additional gut-punch, his slap was so powerful that it ended up bruising her face.

* AintTooProudToBeg: With no way to pay for his sister's life-saving surgery, he relucatantly kneels in front of Matsushige to help secure the money, no matter ''how'' they get it.

* BadBoss: He has no problems executing his own goons, though unlike Shimano he usually has a reason behind it.

* BigBad: Portrayed as such in the first game, [[spoiler:although the honor later goes to Jingu.]]

* KickedUpstairs: At first Nishiki is ecstatic to learn he'll be the patriarch of his own family, but it becomes clear that his subordinates have no faith in him as a leader and only see him as a [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter lesser to what Kiryu could've been as a patriarch]].

* LongHairedPrettyBoy: Nishiki's hair falls up to his shoulders, and is certainly pretty compared to the more rugged Kiryu.

* MoralityChain: Kiryu, Yumi, and his sister collectively acted as his. When Kiryu went to jail for Nishiki's crimes, Yumi went missing, and finally his sister died, he dedicated himself to regaining control of his life and gaining power, wealth, and prestige by any means necessary.

* NoRespectGuy: Is treated as such in the flashback segments. He's disrespected by his own men, is constantly being compared to Kiryu and his looked down upon by people like Shimano. Completely averted in the first game where his men have to display complete loyalty under pain of death.

* ShadowArchetype: After slicking back his hair and wearing an entirely white suit, he physically resembles Kiryu more especially in the art style of the original [=PS2=] game and even his reputation as TheDreaded patriarch of the treacherous Nishikiyama Family is comparable to Kiryu's own as the unmatched Dragon of Dojima. However, Nishiki is stubbornly hell-bent on pursuing power for his own sake unlike Kiryu who stubbornly fights only for the sake of others and especially his friends and family. In the end, they find themselves unable to come to an understanding over just how differently their paths have diverged in the time that's passed. The only thing they can agree on is that [[FinalBoss their conflict must come to an end.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: From being unable to command the respect of his own men and forced to literally bow to them, to becoming the head of one of the most powerful families of his time. Unfortunately, he TookALevelInJerkass as well.

* UnwittingPawn: To [[spoiler:Jingu, who only used Nishiki as means to plunge the Tojo Clan into civil war.]] However, Nishiki revealed that he was aware that [[spoiler:Jingu]] was only using him, and never trusted him from the start.

* VillainousLegacy: Even after his death, his clan continues to plague Kiryu as recurring antagonists for quite some time. While Koji Shindo and Tsuyoshi Kanda are the most prominent examples, being his successors as the clan's chairmen, it's touched upon how Yoshitaka Mine had also joined the Tojo under the Nishikiyama Family name before later striking out on his own and forming the Hakuho Clan, [[spoiler:eventually becoming a major antagonist in ''3'' and even ending up as the FinalBoss too. He's even somewhat similar to Nishiki playing the role of an EvilCounterpart to Kiryu, growing up as an orphan, and having [[DarkAndTroubledPast rough experiences in life]] that turned them into unstrusting, overly ambitious, power-seeking monsters.]]

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Kiryu is this to him, especially when it came to Yumi. ''Kiwami'' takes this further, showing that he was given his own family as a means to get Kiryu back into the Tojo clan, but ''everyone'' made it clear they respected his old friend instead, and he was a nobody in their eyes. Eventually this would become a [[BerserkButton trigger]] for him.

** In terms of fighting skill, in the late 80's he was a pretty decent fighter but not on Kiryu's level. Following the latter's imprisonment, Kiryu is told by Utabori that he'll lose to Nishiki unless he grows stronger, and Nishiki's bio in ''Yakuza 2'' even describes him as being Kiryu's equal.

** Murders [[spoiler:Kyohei Jingu for mortally wounding Yumi and [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation arguably]] to save Kiryu's life as well. Also Jingu's a complete HateSink who tries to have his ex-wife and own child murdered for the sake of protecting his political career.]]

* ALighterShadeOfBlack: Arguably still manages to be this compared to [[spoiler:Jingu.]] Some of the most evil and heinous things he does in the story still don't compare to what [[spoiler:Jingu's done trying to kill his ex-wife and daughter for the sake of protecting his political career and laughing about it.]]

* LongHairedPrettyBoy: Nishiki's hair falls up to his shoulders, and he's arguably one of the prettiest male characters in the series.

** BigBadEnsemble: Shares this with Shimano and [[spoiler:Jingu]] in the race to who gets the missing 10 billion yen. [[spoiler:By the end, he comes the closest to recovering the missing money and the only thing standing in his way is Kiryu himself.]]
** BigBadFriend: Kiryu and Nishiki swore up as official [[BloodBrothers Oath Brothers]] and have a strong history of being each other's closest friend since they grew up in the same orphanage. However, Nishikiyama's become desperately power-hungry in the 10 years since they've last talked and Kiryu's refusal to assist him in his selfish plans pushes Nishiki to consider him an enemy for the rest of the game. It doesn't help that Nishiki's grown very resentful and envious of Kiryu which further drives his ambition in becoming the Patriarch of the Tojo Clan just to validate himself.

* ArchEnemy: One could make the case that he's this to Kiryu. Out of all the {{Big Bad}}s that Kiryu has faced, his relationship with Nishiki is easily the most [[ItsPersonal personal]]. His actions at the beginning of the first game set the events of the rest of Kiryu's saga in motion, and even after his death there are others who seek vengeance for him.

* NoRespectGuy: Is treated as such in the flashback segments. He's disrespected by his own men, is constantly being compared to Kiryu and his looked down upon by people like Shimano.